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Old 04-21-2009, 05:08 PM
jester jester is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Equaly at home in the water, the mountains and the desert.
Posts: 919
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Your grenadier concept of troops dumping useless gear;

I am thinking that would happen soon enough through two ways;

1.) A lack of equipment. Gear is expended or worn out and there are no replacements for it. Thus, your packs get lighter and emptier. I mean MOPP suites are usualy big and bulky and also one time use items.

Uniforms and boots wear out and when they are beyond repairing they are discarded.

2.) Useless of overly heavy gear is dumped! WWII the standing joke was the gas mask, which was often "lost" in action. However, you patrol the former stagging areas and you would most likely find all of them. In my day it was the shelter halves and bayonets that would be left behind <in the seabag or wall locker and often along with spare uniforms and sleeping pads>

I mean would the indavidual troops or even company level still issue and carry NVGs when they had no batteries and had no idea when or if they would get batteries in the future? Optics for a Dragon or components for a mortar are useless weight for troops who have no ammo and are often destroyed and abandoned.

Troops tend to be pretty good about "lightening" their packs. And coupled with a lack of replacement gear packs would become light before long, either due to not having the gear, or a lack of equipment to make systems functional.

And also troops are pretty good at just ditching the junk!

And then we also have equipment that is genuinely lost. I mean, you get exposed to NBC and have to suite up in a MOPP suite well the rest of your gear will most likely get exposed and end up abandoned.

You stage your packs prior to an assault and can't return to where they were staged, you just lost your gear.

Bail out of a vehicle thats hit, you don't take your pack.

You have your packs and duffels in the rear when the base gets nuked well its gone. Or its in the supply truck and it hits a mine, well your load just got lighter.

I can honestly see troops by 2000 or even 2001 behind equiped like the Confederates of the American Civil War, a bed roll slung over a shoulder and a satchell for essentials, like rations, spare socks, ammo, shaving gear and maybe a spare shirt in addition to the ammo the carry in their ammo pouches. And that is light infantry!

I recall we did an experiment in the jungle once, no flacks, no helmet, no packs just living on our duecegear for a week, we brought ponchos and poncho liners as a ranger roll, we also had a 3rd Canteen, we moved much faster with fewer head injuries and almost no blisters or similiar injuries that one normal gets from marches.

And lets remember the American Civil War, the North was much better equiped than the South. However, the Southern Troops were less encumbered so they were able to move faster as a result and Jacksons troops had the nickname of "Jacksons Foot Cavalry" since they could move much faster than most other infantry units.

And that is what I see in the T2K world circa 2000-2001
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