Protection v. Mobility

[Homer]

Yep- Sarmajah hated the ragtop or the boonie, but it beat the heck out of the distinctive signature of a tightly stretched Kevalar cover.

[LoneCollector1987]

I was never in combat but considering that I am big (2m tall, 120kg) I dont have much mobility, so I would go for protection.

And to your question regarding how other game systems handle it:
Shadowrun 6:
You can wear different types of armor, but only one counts.
Exception: if an armor type has the addition quality (I use german Shadowrun, so I dont know the english terms)
Example: You wear an armoured vest (Panzerweste, +3) and a leather jacket (Kunstlederjacke, +1) you have to choose between protection +1 or +3. You dont have +4.
But if you add a shield (+2), that has the addition quality, then you have to choose betwen protection +3 (+1+2) or +5 (+3+2).

I find this funny. Just imagine: a bullet comes your way and after penetrating your shield it enters the warp before hitting the leathercoat and re-enters reality before hitting the armoured vest.

But I couldnt find any negative modifiers for wearing too much armour. That is the decision of the GM.

In the Unisystem of All Flesh must be eaten RPG, Buffy RPG, Angel RPG everything has a weight and if you carry too much you are encumbered and take a -1 on your rolls (or more depending on your encumbrance). And some armours encumber you even if the weight you carry is within your limits.

[HaplessOperator]

Being small or big doesn't make much difference, and juking and jiving doesn't really help if someone's sweeping a PK on a narrow, saturating arc past you, or has that AK lined up at the door when you walk in.

A big, fatass ceramic plate can catch any of it, though, and multiple times before failing. That kevlar wraparound will suck up and stop anything short of a rifle cartridge or high-grain artillery frag.

I've been peppered with frag two or three times, hit with secondary frag, and got capped in the chest with a 7N14 armor piercing round from a Kadesih, and if I hadn't been wearing the Interceptor, MTV, or - twice - the full turret gunner getup, instead of being able to take a deep breath and keep fighting, I'd be carrying around a lot more than two pieces in me, and likely, not doing much but laying in a pine box these days. Even the Wiley-X and Oakleys held up, or I'd be too blind to type this. If I had to choose something light, it'd be a CIRAS or a FSBE.

Yeah, it sucks cuz it's heavy. Yeah, it sucks cuz it's hot. Yeah, it sucks cuz it's uncomfortable. But getting shot at and blown up during a complex ambbush halfway through a sixteen-hour foot patrol sucks anyway. It just sucks a hell of a lot more with a sucking chest wound and three penetrating trunk injuries that could be trivially avoided because you didn't want to beef up and get used to doing your morning 3-mile with a ruck, armor, and helmet on in boots and utes.

Also, if you can't do lower level entry, or clamber over a wall or up the side of your gun truck in full armor and battle rattle, you quite simply need to git gud, work out, and run more until you can do your job without falling out.

Same principle as if you're thinking you can go light on ammo or something. Yeah, it'd be great if we could count every round of a 150-round or 210-round loadout to be a kill, but we can't. Two or three of those mags is going to disappear in the first two minutes of that ambush, whether you're on the attack or attempting counter-ambush and a breakout or setting up to assault through, and then you're going to burn the rest on breaking contact or killing your attackers, and now you're walking eight miles back with half a magazine or something. You're not usually the ones that gets to make the choice about the enemy's initiative and actions unless you're clever, lucky, and intrepid, all at the same time, and you can't do that 365 days a year, and even if you could, you're going to run into someone with a little more pluck than you at some point, so it behooves one to be loaded for bear.

Also also, if you're not wearing Peltors and hearing better with a helmet on than with your helmet off while maintaining dual channels for company and battalion nets on the MBITR and simultaneously listening in on your platoon's personal role radios, you're wearing your helmet wrong.

If I'm limited to a PASGT vest and helmet, I'm gonna be rocking them, too, cuz BDUs don't stop frag, and I can't hear better with a crater in my skull. That's what frequent patrol stops are for.

[Homer]

Absolutely agree that sortie type patrolling with a high likelihood of contact, deliberate attacks, and movement to contact are times when you want to be wearing all your armor and carrying lots of bullets. Nobody ever died from a lack of shooting back…

That said, there’s always a compromise between mission requirements, mobility, sustainment, and protection. If your mission requires a 30km dismounted infil to establish an OP for 3-5 days followed by a 30km dismounted exfil, your kit is going to look a lot different than a moving mounted to a detruck point followed by a breach and assault to seize a fortified position then consolidating and reorganizing. Moving dismounted to raid a single lightly defended objective under cover of darkness with fire support available the standard 210 rounds plus a LAW and frags may be sufficient for a rifleman, allowing him to move rapidly. That same rifleman may have a double basic load plus along with smokes, frags, a claymore, and a couple LAWs if the mission requires him to seize and hold an airfield until relieved.

A rule of thumb in one organization was to carry a base load plus (300 rounds) ready, NVGs with mount, at least 2 quarts of water, medical kit, two frags, a screening smoke, front and back plates in a stripped carrier, helmet, eye and ear pro, commo gear, stripper clip guide, 1 set spare batteries, multitool/knife, and day/night marker as the default individual load on the body for close to 50-60 lbs. A second base load plus, another set of spare batts, 24 hours food, another 2 quarts of water plus, and any mission equipment or extra munitions/pyro were normally carried in an assault pack for anything more than a local security patrol. It doesn’t sound like much, but you’re already getting near to 80-100 lbs. Without the assault pack you’re still fairly agile (able to grapple, jump, run, etc). With the assault pack you’re more encumbered, as the weight isn’t as well distributed and you’re bulkier.

The above load lets you fight through most actions, and with the assault pack sustain yourself for a 24-48 hour period. Breaks in action would see ammo/munitions/water taken from the assault pack to replenish the stores on the body, a quick bite get eaten, and maybe some basic weapons maintenance performed (a wipe down or lube). Using the items in the assault pack had the side benefit of helping reduce your overall load. Bear in mind this was done at or near sea level in complex, but fairly flat terrain. Likelihood of enemy contact was very high, with every subunit of the organization usually being engaged at least once every 24 hours.

A similar organization operating at higher altitudes in more rugged terrain allowed plates and helmets to be carried or left behind for approach marches and surveillance, only donning them for assaults or when likelihood of contact was high. This allowed the unit to move faster and be less fatigued when they arrived at the objective but required more emphasis on march security and maintaining awareness of the environment.

For folks running a T2K campaign a lot of this discussion will defer to party size and style. A small group seeking to make it out of Poland may be better served by traveling light and avoiding contact as much as possible. This may mean more emphasis on carrying food/fuel/water along with a basic load of ammo while eschewing heavier protective equipment. A larger or more combat focused group may want to invest in more protective gear, and consider carrying more ammo and munitions at the expense of food/fuel/water.

Another consideration is the signature you want to present. There is no hiding a platoon of 30-50 men as anything other than what it is. A smaller group of characters could be well served to hide their armor and helmets with cover garments or by keeping them close by but not worn. A small group of characters in a civilian vehicle or on foot is going to stick out less in typical civilian headgear and garb than they will in NATO pattern uniform and helmets/kevlar vests. Even a duster worn over a flak vest with a cap is going to help you blend.

Given that Poland has been invaded multiple times by NATO, nuked by both sides, and ravaged by bands of soldiery for the past three years maybe having the ability to blend and move quietly through the landscape without attracting attention is a form of protection with a value higher than any armor.