Weight of Combat Gear Is Taking Toll

[ganulv]

Originally Posted by Fuchs

50 grams of cloth saved will lead to 50 grams of additional batteries carried.

The weight issue is a demonstration of leadership failure, not an issue with excessive heaviness of equipment. The enemy doesn't have technology for lighter equipment, and all is relative in warfare.

Ergo the American idiom, “100 pounds of the lightest weight gear.”

[davidbfpo]

I suspect this short comment, with video clip, is not new. A joint ANA-US Army action April 2013:http://www.offiziere.ch/?p=11922

Time and again this happens: the Afghans outpace the Americans and the Americans must reel them back in. The pace of the raid slows even further when the combined patrol rounds up several Afghan villagers and must enroll them in a biometric database using wireless devices that take 20 minutes to boot up.

(Ends)"I hate minehounds,” Mullins growls, unfairly blaming technology — rather than the U.S. Army’s own unwieldy tactics compared to the Afghans — for his platoon’s failure to capture Mohammad.