How much does your gear weigh? What about the military or SAR?

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Brian6244

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Aug 25, 2004
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Whether it's you BOB or just what you carry when you're backpacking, how much does it weigh? How much can you/do you carry?

How much does the average infantryman carry? Whats the maximum and/or minimums for military personell to carry. What about SAR?

Im talking about gear you carry for several days... not on that 3 mile hike from the car to the camping spot at the state park. :D

Thanks...
 
summer weight is at about 15 to 25 pounds and during the winter when i actually pack a real tent it can get upwards of around 35 to 45 pounds . depends largely on how far and how long and how many people are with me [i could devide weight ] . for the most part i try to pack as light as possible .
 
Military
suppressed CAR-15 with either Aim Point or a Litton depending on time of day

LBV with (9) 30 rounders, 4 Beretta mags and a Beretta with (2) 2 quarts and misc. gear

Ruck with optics, radios, batteries, water, very little food, and less snivel gear

It weighs a whole lot; I only weighed a ruck once when we had a scale nearby and after that decided ignorance was bliss. Also I was lucky, no body armor plates and kevlar helmets to worry about on our type of ops.

The ruck I weighed was a winter ruck with more snivel gear than normal, it weighed in at 117 pounds and it wasn’t the heaviest I carried just the heaviest I was dumb enough to weigh

I don’t live in a populated area so I don’t have a BOB, I plan on staying put, but I could grab some gear real quick and be less than 50 pounds
 
Full load for me in the ruck (Army 21B) is about 115lbs or so, maybe more, maybe less...just depeds on what I am doing at the time. Add another 26lbs or so for the 240, and maybe another 25lbs for all the misc. crap I have strapped/tied/taped to me. Whoever coined the term "Light Fighter" had a sick sense of humor.:D
 
i weigh 155-165 lbs ........hmmmm. carried about 100lbs one time for a mile or so and didnt like that one bit . cant imagine 117 or more. i suppose you get used to it or die tryin.
 
About 50lbs for a 10 mile hike up and down mountains for a few nights. A little more in the summer because of the water I have to carry due to the infrequency of top-up spots.
 
Horned Toad said:
Military
suppressed CAR-15 with either Aim Point or a Litton depending on time of day

LBV with (9) 30 rounders, 4 Beretta mags and a Beretta with (2) 2 quarts and misc. gear

Ruck with optics, radios, batteries, water, very little food, and less snivel gear

It weighs a whole lot; I only weighed a ruck once when we had a scale nearby and after that decided ignorance was bliss. Also I was lucky, no body armor plates and kevlar helmets to worry about on our type of ops.

The ruck I weighed was a winter ruck with more snivel gear than normal, it weighed in at 117 pounds and it wasn’t the heaviest I carried just the heaviest I was dumb enough to weigh

I don’t live in a populated area so I don’t have a BOB, I plan on staying put, but I could grab some gear real quick and be less than 50 pounds
Click to expand...

Question for the Mil guys.

Why do you carry a sidearm?

I read something by an combat officer in Vietnam that said, 'When you are out of ammo, you are out of ammo and carrying a pistol and ammo for it, plus a cleaning kit that is worth (weight wise) probably an additional 100rnds of .223 it seems pointless.'
 
Brian,

The theoritical maximium that a soldier should be able to carry while maintaining a good pace and adequate energy for fire and manuever after a day of marching is 1/3 of their body weight.

Now that's a fairly laughable number. Our unoffical motto was "The rucksack is never full". Most of the time, as light infantry, we were toting 110-120 pounds rucks, while weighing in the mid 180's on average. The Romans also aimed for that 1/3 number, and never got it after Gaius Marius redid their packout.

That said, in the military you are never carrying just your stuff and you are never carrying the lightweight high speed gear either. They can't afford it, and won't waste it on grunts when they can. A cheap canvas shelter half, so fungus infested as to be dangerous and as heavy as hell will last to eternity. A nylon and spectra fiber bivy sack, light, warm and clean, won't last a campaign under the unthinking abuse a careless soldier ( I was one, once) will give it.

There are dozens of other examples, ranging from the weight of MRE's compared to the weight of jerky and a bottle of multi-vitamins, to the weight and caloric expenditure of a pair of cheap combat boots for warm weather compared to the weight of comabt sandals. Soldiers' equipment has to be designed and purchased for the lowest common denominator.

By spending your own money wisely, caring for your equipment, and training properly, you can not be that lowest common denominator and you can thus shed dozens of pounds off your civillain or spec ops pack.

My hiking/climbing/white water/ serious bushwaking gear load ( everything on me) , including two weeks of food and full hydration bladder, hovers around 35 pounds for three seasons in Colorado. Add another 8 pounds for two weeks of winter camping, not including snow shoes. With those loadouts, I can actually stay out a whole lot longer, although my movement rates drop as I am forced to hunt and gather as I move and I quit climbing due to excessive wear on the equipment and me.

Note that is is not by any means a "combat load" although it does include a sidearm, and I have spent a lot of money on my equipment and time learning how to use it.

Take Care,
Jeff
 
Temper,

The carrying of a sidearm with a rifle is similiar to the carrying of a dagger with a sword.

A sidearm is ,in close battle, a nice back up to an assault rifle. This is especially true when dealing with the assault ranges that occur in tropical jungles, but one should note York's effective use of the sidearm in the days of the 1000 yard main battle rifle.

A sidearm is also handy wherever the tide of battle takes you, such as underground, at hand to hand distance at night, or tightly packed into a vehicle. Often, in these places, a rifle is a liability when compared to a easily manuvered sidearm.

A sidearm is also discrete. It can be carried many places where a rifle cannot be carried, and quickly deployed to eliminate the suprise threat that would otherwise eliminate you.

Finally, because of the early history of the pistol, the sidearm is a mark of personal pride, a badge of the warrior's midset to fight to the last resort.

Commanders commonly do not like to see individual soldiers armed with sidearms (or big knives), while the warriors mixed in with the soldiers tend to covet them like nothing else.

Take Care,
Jeff
 
Thanks Jeff, I was under the impression that most guys that carried them did so as part of the standard kit, now I know better. :thumbup:
 
My survival pack weighs about 15 - 20 lbs total. I think if you're survival gear weighs much more than this it is very likely that you won't have it with you.

The weight of a pack expands exponentially once you introduce the need to wage warfare. Civilians get to go armed for far less weight than the military does. We don't get to carry explosives or ammo for crew served weapons.

If self defense is a concern as a civilian then you can carry a Glock 19 and 50 rounds of ammo for a very weight efficient package. If you survive firing 50 rounds of ammo in a civilian self-defense encounter then I will buy a copy of your book. Mac
 
How's this for a cliche - I'm glad I've lived this long. Improvements in kit over the last two decades has been staggering and I now carry roughly 1/2 of what I used to for extended bush trips.

My standard load is under 10kg (22lb), with a full water bladder. My old lowe alpine pack that I bought in Nepal is ony ever 2/3rds full.
 
Temper said:
Question for the Mil guys.

Why do you carry a sidearm?

I read something by an combat officer in Vietnam that said, 'When you are out of ammo, you are out of ammo and carrying a pistol and ammo for it, plus a cleaning kit that is worth (weight wise) probably an additional 100rnds of .223 it seems pointless.'
Click to expand...


I carried one for two reasons, one, if my CAR broke and two, the holster was a drop down version from Eagle that was attached to my BDU belt. If for some reason I had to ditch everything else, I still had that on my leg with one extra magazine. For what we were doing at the time it worked, for a line dog it might not be the best thing, but that was one piece of gear that I didn’t mind the weight from.
 
Horned Toad said:
I carried one for two reasons, one, if my CAR broke and two, the holster was a drop down version from Eagle that was attached to my BDU belt. If for some reason I had to ditch everything else, I still had that on my leg with one extra magazine. For what we were doing at the time it worked, for a line dog it might not be the best thing, but that was one piece of gear that I didn’t mind the weight from.
Click to expand...

Roger that!:thumbup:
 
the army will teach you about priorities. Change of clothes for a 3- 4 days in most weather conditions- no way. change of socks YES. (very cold and snow then change of clothes are essential).

That might mean you arrive back with the knees ripped out of your pants, but thats part of the job; essential gear, ammunition, water and food take priority - sleeping bags etcetera are second priority since a rucksack only has so much space. This sounds hard, but if you put yourself in the position where you know you stand a good chance of making a contact during a patrol ; would you rather have a sleeping bag to sleep comfy at night or enough ammo to survive the firefight- of course you'd rather live right?? :)
An example is when in a survival situation in hostile territory it is often not tactically pheasible to hunt for food, make a fire or build a shelter- even these can be 'luxuries' in most weather conditions. What you need is to not get killed by the enemy.. just use your imagination and you'll understand :)
 
oh and as for a secondary weapon; in urban combat an aussie army saying is "one is none, two is one", so yes a secondary firearm is essential, in the bush I never carried a second shen on foot, unless I needed a short arm to do a close recce on a building, or might have to board a fishing boat or something; GENERALLY no need for a pistol; its just another weapon to maintain, not lose and return to quartermaster at end of patrol :)
 
cheung_victor said:
Hey when you guys go out for about 3-4 days do you bring a change of clothe?
Click to expand...

WM hit the nail on the head

Picture going out with about 100 pounds in a ruck for 5 days or so and the only personal comfort items are a poncho, poncho liner, a spare change of sock, if its cold a polypro top, gloves, and less than two MREs a day. It had to be below freezing to every think about toting a sleeping bag. If it was raining I had some big bungee cords in with my poncho and that was the shelter. I also had a real nice Gore-Tex bivvy sack for the sleeping bag. The longest I went out with no spare clothes was 17 days, but we did get rained on twice:D to bad it was winter:grumpy:

One of the ways to save a lot of space was to pick the MREs you wanted to take, cut them open at the top and dump everything. Take the meal packs out of the card board and then pick what you want. Mine would end up being main meal, crackers and cheese or jelly. Then you dump that back in the plastic bag and roll it down tight and tape it. Meal would be less than half of it original size. I would put all the coco and drink packets in one pouch so I had them handy to brew something up in a hide site.
 
If I'm out for more than a few days, I carry a larger ruck that's about 25#, but in my survival gear, I carry a pair of shorts, thermal shirt and extra pair of wool socks. That works for layering, having something on my rear end when I wash my clothes and clean socks everyday.
 
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