Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
OK thanks, David.

I guess we get to the question as to whether the British Army actually believe that a soldier can engage in any reasonably intense combat carrying the sort of loads you mention?

As a matter of interest how much water is included in that load you mention?
IMO the U.S. errors with their risk management process/ideology. We went from a primary and alternate (contingency) approach to patrolling to the PACE concept (primary, alternate, contingency, and emergency) sometimes with different equipment for each category (especially for comms). Now add the modern body armor and you have fully suppressed soldier. Our loads were frequently well over a 100lbs without live ammo.

The bottom line is commanders have to learn to assume intelligent risk again and not assume you can mitigate risk by putting an additional 50lbs of light weight gear in the soldier's ruck.

If you're moving behind enemy lines the signature you leave with that type of load a blind man could follow, not to mention the noise, the inability to maneuver (skirmish), etc. I think these loads have an impact our tactics also, and soldiers too quickly default to calling in air strikes to resolve a problem in a situation where it risks collateral damage, because they can't skirmish effectively with the loads they're carrying. I have four forms of comms that I can call in air support with

This is a serious problem that gets talked about a lot, but I have seen little movement to seriously address. The only thing I saw in theory was a walking robot accompanying soldiers carrying their rucks for them. That might work in some situations, but the infantry/SF I grew up in you wanted to avoid being detected if at all possible to enjoy the benefits of surprise (instead of being surprised), and I'm not sure you'll have that with a horse sized robot, but maybe it's quiet if you give it sufficient 3 in 1 oil?