Posted by Matt Fisher from Manassas VA USA on March 17, 2021 at 13:30:37:
In Reply to: Army Combat Kit posted by Jason on March 16, 2021 at 22:12:32:
As far as the current webbing and rucksack goes...
The webbing is lacking in several areas...
The pouch attachment system relies on plastic "teeth" that clip into metal grommets...Unfortunately the grommets have a nasty habit of popping off the web belt.
The Web belt itself could be greatly improved by making it padded...the original idea of a wide waist belt was sound, it's just lacking in some areas.
The nylon that the webbing is made from is also not good quality...it's a cheap ripoff of Dupont's Cordura nylon. The nylon tends to break down when exposed to sunlight...and has a great tendency to fray...although this is more due to the poor stitching quality of the pouches and rucksack.
The pull tab closure system that the mag. pouches, C9/utility pouch, and canteen carrier uses is also lacking in quality...the plastic parts tend to break..and once one piece breaks the entire pouch is useless as the pouch cannot be securely closed.
A better system, which they use on some of the newer buttpacks would be 1" fastex side release buckles...or for the mag pouches 1" webbing with snaps and velcro for rapid opening/closing.
When it comes to the 82 pattern rucksack, I shake my head and wonder what the designers were thinking...The actual rucksack bag is not too bad, although it is seriously too small to hold the required "72 hours", especially during winter ops. the ruck lacks any means of attaching additional pouches, or kit onto it, other than on the 1" webbing side compression straps...one one each side of the ruck.
The worst part of the ruck is the frame...it's basically a spot welded clothes hanger type wire frame which the ruck is laced onto...again detrimental to proper load carrying, as the grommets which are on the ruck tend to pop, and the nylon seriously frays where the ruck is in contact with the frame.
When I was in the CF's Medium Alice packs were popular with the unit in which I served, however the use of non-issue kit was always controversial with the higher ups (most of whom hadn't worn a ruck or webbing in years).
As far as the clothe the soldier program is concerned...don't get your hopes up too high...
While CTS promises great things...with the way that the CF's budget keeps getting slashed, don't expect to see much of the new kit unless you're reg. force or going on deployment (or more likely reg. force going on deployment *laughing*).
With the new ruck and loadbearing vest the pouches are attached using a "daisy chain type system", which is better than the current '82 pattern, and better than ALICE slide clips, but not as good as the NATICK snap system, which the Americans are converting too. With daisy chain's you still will get a significant amount of instability with pouches, especially when you're moving fast, ie running.
The new load bearing vest doesn't have capacity for enough ammo at the ready...it will only hold 4 mags. whereas I think that a system that has 8 mags is much more realistic of the demands of combat shooting.
I've considered starting a private business to produce high quality kit for the CF's using mil spec. materials, but utilizing a better system...one modelled on the new US MOLLE kit. However I'm concerned as to whether units would authorize non-issue kit to be worn, and also if the market is large enough to justify the large start up cost for such a venture.