Quite recently, WOFT posted on The Campfire, asking about what kit the military carried. Although post was on the Campfire, I think this is the correct forum for this as it is specifically survival gear.

On Sunday nights on BBC 2 in the UK there is a series called "SAS Survival Secrets" presented by the formidable Eddie stone. On the first episode he listed the equipment he carried in his webbing. I wrote it down as I thought it might be of interest to some of you. Here goes:

350 rounds of spare ammunition
Grenades for the M203 launcher
White Phospherous Grenades
Fragmentation Grenades
5 spare magazines for his rifle
GPS
Silva Type 54 compass
Whistle (his was the metal pea type)
TACBE (ground to air Tactical Beacon)
Weapon (His was M16)
Right angle torch with button compass in the base
Spare button compass
Spare rations
Waterproof bivi bag
Infra red strobe
day/night flare
Water bottles
Metal mug
Fixed blade knife (not sure which type-possibly K-bar)
Various tourniques
Scissors
Forcepts
Blister kit
Sutures (seemed to be lots)
Antibiotics
Folding saw (opinel)
Pieces of rubber (burn well)
A filter bottle - PentaPure sport (seemed too big for webbing)
Mag/flint block
Tampon (tinder)
Various survival bags (orange plastic and space blanket type)
Folding knife (Opinel)
Wire Saw
Heliograph (signal mirror)
Fishing kit
Snare wire
Multitool (Victorinox Swisstool)
Button compass
Head Torch (unsure which, adjustable angle)
Neoprene gloves (warm when wet)

All this was held in 95 webbing and Opperational waistcoat (assualt vest)

Man, the bunnies are in real trouble around this guy. I never understood the phrase "spare ammunition" though. Thats like the investment scams term " excess income."

Just out of curiosity, did he say how much all that gear weighed? And how good could he move? I know redundancy is good, but he seems to have gone overboard in the knives and such category.

He didn't say how much his belt kit weighed, but he did say that all his gear weighed the equivelent of three 5 year old children. I'm not sure how much that is though.

I saw that programme too. Not sure of the weight, but ONE five year old gets heavy on the arms after about 5 minutes, but I guess he's not carrying it with his arms....

Ditchfield: did he say if that was his standard equipment or mission specific? I know he was talking about adapting what he carried depending on the mission, especially regarding MRE's.

we must keep in mind that this is a soldiers rig. That probably explains the emphasis on weaponry and ammo. I would suspect that this individual is in better physical condition than the average office worker in North America - by a wide margin. If I were operating in a military capacity I wouldn't worry much about the weight of apare ammunition - I'd probably simply fill every pocket, pouch, pack, spare nook & cranny with all the weaponry I could in order to prevent becoming engaged in a fire-fight without any fire.

The rules in the SAS (which are different from other Regiments, and which I've been shown first hand) is Ammunition First, then more ammo, Mission Specific Equipment next, then water, then food then clothes. Basically they don't give a toss about eating or being dry necessarily as long as they've got ammo for the gats, some explosives and probably a laser designator - excellent. <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Thanks for posting that Ditchfield!

Interesting. That train of thought can probably be traced back to the famous "mad minute" practice that placed the highest value on the soldiers that could put the most bullets through air at a time.

I noticed that he likes his compasses as well <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Chris

We go out on missions and expect/have to be resupplyed there is no way to carry enough gear to fight effectively and carry everything you want/need for an extended time. Chris