Belt-kit is bullets and water, mapping and Comms, with biscuits, a pouch meal and sweets to keep you on your feet for 24 hours. Depending on your environment you might stick a windshirt or waterproofs in if that’s what’s necessary to keep you alive.
Daysack is brew kit, more food, more ammunition, batteries for Comms/GPS/optics, a softie jacket, and a basha, a bivvy bag and jungle weight sleeping bag.
Bergen is more food, more fuel, spare socks, more batteries, spare baselayer, wash kit (toothbrush, toothpaste, tiny bottle of liquid soap/shampoo), and microfibre towel.
Belt-kit should keep you fighting for one day and alive for two, daysack should keep you fighting for two days and alive for four, bergen should keep you alive and moderately comfortable for 10-14 days.
It just seems to me that as we are a cadet organisation we should not be giving a fig about what type of adornments to dress ourselves up as commandos are acceptable, after all we are not taking the children into combat; are we?
No, but we do have a duty to make sure people aren’t hurting themselves by carrying more than they can reasonably cope with.
We’re also not going to be killing anyone with a rifle but we still teach marksmanship principles and how to use a rifle safely. We’re unlikely to enter the Olympics but have athletics competitions.
Actually, it’s about teaching cadets - and ideally, CFAV - about how to think about the environment they are in and the activities they are undertaking and to make good decisions about what equipment, clothing and food they should have with them, what they can not bother with, and how far they can be from equipment, clothing and food that they aren’t actually carrying.
Its about teaching them to think for themselves about the decisions they make, and how to make different decisions for different circumstances - two hours in a local park shouting ‘bang’ requires different decisions from 10 hours at Sennybridge in April, which requires different decisions from 48 hours at Garelochhead in November.
If you didn’t know that, then perhaps you should learn - then you can be a better cadet leader and teacher…
Also, you give out or permit the use of a piece of kit, it follows that we should teach the correct usage of that kit within the scope of its intended purpose - this is “operations/exercise” equipment with a specific role in those environments…
Survive out of your smock
Fight out of your webbing
Live out of your bergen
A more simplified version of your excellent description above - it’s about prioritising what you carry and where you carry it, to limit overall weight as much as possible.
From your list, I’d make caveats that cadets on exercise aren’t likely to need the doss bag in their daysack, substitute bivvy bag for survival bag/blankey if they will be exercising even slightly remotely, and ditch the basha if not going far. Although on small training exercises, they shouldn’t need more than their spare water, waterproofs, and warm kit in a daysack…
And obviously no one is carrying any bomb without gats
I’d probably go the other way, sharpshooter pouch is bigger making it easier to get 2 mags in when in the prone and doing an unload. The number of mags someone could carry doesn’t equal the amount they will be issued so may as well make life easier to put them away properly.
True I would have said that way round if the OP had 2 sharpshooter pouches. Tho the Sharpshooter is perhaps more useful as a general purpose pouch than the regular Ammo ones for the same reasons.
Realistically, the days of carrying 24 hours of kit in your webbing are long gone. You don’t need that many pouches. I only carry ammo, water, maybe a small optic, weapon cleaning kit, snacks, cam cream and a pocket knife in my webbing. If I need to carry anything else on patrol, I take a daysack.
It is wrong to focus on what pouches you can have if you don’t teach them what to put into the ones they have! I cringe when I see cadets packing a basha, mess tins, cooker and their entire ration pack in their webbing. It just isn’t needed.
It fits the ammo flask much better!
I’d actually read that as two double pouches, as PLCE is designed with left and right ammo pouches. You can use a utility pouch in place of the right hand double pouch, but it is awkward and bulky. To be honest, the “maximum” pouches listed aren’t exactly limiting.
Assault vests typically spread the load better and allow easier access when in and out of vehicles.
Webbing is more easily available and configurable but some don’t like that it can be overloaded.
Also consider what rucksack is in use and if it will clash with either when used at the same time.
I use a commanders set from KitMonster and it does everything for me and I cover every discipline of fieldcraft we offer. Some staff I work with use a £40 set from eBay, equally as effective but not as ally!
