Never going to happen in reality. As mentioned, my webbing alone often weighed about that. Add in pack, etc and I doubt I ever came in at less that 50 kgs, and that at a time when I was only 65kgs myself!

That said, I could carry that load at a fast walk (about 8kph/5mph) pretty much all day long. Make me run more than a few paces though and I was done.

Hmmm wondering whether should split off a collated bicycle thread actually although there's still some overlap [emoji848]


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That's a good idea. I know we've had horse-cav threads before, but I can't remember if we've ever had a dedicated bicycle thread.

There was one that started in 2013 and got reactivated last June.

This one started out as horse cavalry but quickly moved on to bicycles.

Other Rides
 

I have. Camels, Llamas, and Reindeer (nothern Scandinavia and northern Russia).

i also found an old adventure I had been working on back the in V1 days that took place in Alaska, and had dogsleds. I need to revisit that.

Uncle Ted

Pulled this from some old Cavalry Journal articles...interesting!

Horses require 12 pounds of grain per day (mostly corn).

A wagon, pulled by a 6-mule team can haul roughly 2,000lbs.

Wearing pack saddles, the same 6 mules can carry only 200lbs each, total of 1,200 pounds. Mules require 10lbs of grain per day.

Terry's Column (Little Bighorn Campaign) numbered some 1,131 personnel and 1,694 horses and mules required eight tons of supply per day, carried by 150 wagons...even when rolling four abreast, the wagon column stretched over a half mile.

Has anyone seen Twelve Strong?

Chris Hemsworth movie about the 5th Special Forces group that travelled Afghanistan on horseback just after 9/11.


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Not a bad movie, but they downplayed the part the Afghani's played a bit I thought.
Certainly more entertainment value than educational even if it is basically a true story (I believe they switched a few events around and changed who got hurt, when and how badly).

Found this, was interesting to compare to the movie.

Is there a point here or is this just you bragging about how much you can carry? what's next? are you going to whip it out too?

lol

Don't make me whip it out. The weather's been cold lately and I won't be looking my best. I'll bet Tassie is colder at the moment, but maybe Leg's got length to spare :D

Of course there is. Real world example of why the figures are rubbish.
I'm sure any other infantryman could say basically the same thing.

LOL

In my basic, We had to carry 80lbs (or 75% of body weight if less than 80lbs) for 20 miles under time (6 hours) to graduate basic. The grunts had to do it in like 4 hours. When I was with the Mountain, we had to do 30 miles in 6 hours with "Full Ruck" every month. My combat load as a 60 gunner was 118lbs. Then you see something like this making the news and you just shake your head...

https://youtu.be/2F_3MKYiF_c

:eek:
Medics. Explains it all really. How often do they have to leave the aid post carrying much more than a first aid kit and water bottle?
Seems pretty obvious to me that "Captain" had a bit of a heart condition. Bet she recovered real quick once she dropped her pack and the cameras stopped rolling.

YEP. Look at the guy at time index 0.31 Seconds. He looks really "beat" by the course. Looks like he's on patrol. :D

While the idea that soldiers should carry no more 32% of their total body weight is a great idea, it's like the saying "No plan survives contact with the enemy." It all works in theory but practical necessity says otherwise.

I think in the 1800s when armies marched for several days to reach a battlefield, it would have been realistically achievable (and completely necessary). They would only have needed to carry fighting order and the baggage trains would carry the rest.
But from the 20th century on, I doubt infantry soldiers in most modern armies would be carrying less than 40% of their body weight. Distances to the battlefield are shorter now because transport drops you as close as possible - there is no baggage train to carry all your extra gear, you carry it all in with you.

Take even a brief look at what the British Paras did in the Falklands and you'll see that infantry units are capable of such feats. Those guys were carrying closer to 80% of their own bodyweight
Even in more modern conflicts like Afghanistan, infantry (of whatever flavour) are carrying bulk ammo and water and plenty more medical supplies than usual, plus all the commo gear and body armour - those troops are not carrying 32% or less of their own bodyweight, it'd be more like 40-50%.

Reminds me of a saying that was common in the Australia Army during the 1970s-90s...
The infantry doesn't want racehorses, it wants packhorses.

I am was infantry and these figures are not. I carried huge loads of distances and guess what I was in no condition to fight when I reached the end of my route.

remember there are three loads that you see dismounted soldiers carry

Battle Load: Ammo (about 5-6 mags total 200 rounds) and food+water (one meal and two canteens) additional items could include belted ammo, grenades and maybe M-72, helmet and body armor are worn

Extended Load: Battle load with a small pack (with additional food, water, and ammo) and e-tool will also be carried I also carried a ranger blanket

Administrative Load: This is the soldier's rucksack and is not carried into battle due to its size and weight, additional food and water are carried along with sleeping gear and a spare uniform and sundries. Rucksacks are left in an assembly area with the units non-combat troops.

In game terms, PC that are dismounted will become fatigued if they carry too much as will pack animals that why we load limits

It would seem your experience differs then.
Personally, fighting order was usually around 35 kgs (machinegunner) - I rarely carried less (perhaps 25kgs on rare occasions when acting as a rifleman). At the time I weighed 65kgs.
Marching order was a around 50-60kgs.
We almost always carried our own packs everywhere as there simply weren't the vehicles available.

Same. I was just a rifleman though, so slightly less weight for me than for you.

Among Australian infantrymen, probably the most common career-ending physical problem seems to be wear-and-tear on the knees, almost certainly it seems to be from carrying those heavy loads for years and years.

Indeed. Knees were a major (but not only) factor in me getting out.

Now I have never been Infantry, but during my time in the military I was a Tanker, Combat Engineer, Combat Medic and EOD. When I was a trigger puller my battle load as you called it was 85lbs or more this only included primary weapon, ammo body armor, and a single canteen. At the time I was about 180lbs myself. We did not have what you called the Extended load, our next up load was full rucksack and between the two it was a majority of my body weight.

My point earlier

I guess maybe I am just dense, as I am not getting your point. I do not think anyone is saying that it should not in an ideal world be that. What I think we are saying is that in the real world it is not even close to that. But your point seams to be that everyone knows this is the standard and everyone follows it? Right now it sounds like you are the only one who's experiences have followed the "recommended" limits?

The 32% of body weight is certainly a good recommendation and it can easily be seen for the need of such a restriction in training. If you have a good logistics train then it's certainly viable in wartime as well.
In practical terms though, it's not workable for some military forces simply because they do not have the same sort of logistics capability as any number of better supplied militaries e.g. many of the NATO forces.

In Australia we have a small population and thus a small military that has to cover a landmass that's about the same size as Brazil. Nearly all of Western Europe fits into the landmass of Western Australia alone - if we overlay all of Australia over Europe, Australia stretches from the UK to Turkey.

We don't have the logistics support to allow us to travel freely over our continent and so we also cannot make best use of recommendations such as the 32% of body weight. In the Australian Army, it's long been the practice that if you can't carry it in with you, you're going to have to do without it - hence my comment earlier about the Army wanting pack horses, not race horses.

In Australia we also carry far more water than most NATO/WarPac militaries typically carry. We get issued four water bottles and standard practice is to carry two on the webbing and two on the pack (or webbing if operational requirements dictate it) plus we also carried a collapsible water carrier of about 2 litres capacity as well as a Millbank water filter bag.

This is normal procedure, you are expected to carry all four water bottles for typical tactical operations. If the climate is expected to be hotter or drier, then you carry more water. So on for example, an overnight patrol into the more arid regions of Australia each soldier might be carrying up to 6 litres of water as a minimum amount because we cannot expect to have vehicles/aircraft doing regular resupply.
I mention this because it's been shown in this thread that the load carrying experience between various nations have been quite different and obviously, the difference is dictated by the different requirements in the various nations. While I agree that the 32% recommendation is a good practice, it's not achievable in some countries due to their operating environment.

I think we carried the "recommended limit" just wearing our LBE and K-pots. The funny thing was, after a while, it just felt natural to carry a hundred pounds on a road march. It's amazing what you can "get used to."