Ah, an article I can comment on. I was an Infantry officer for 6 years and did all the normal schooling and a deployment.
This is a pretty well done article. Here's some general ideas to keep in mind.
- Most dismounted missions are run from trucks or an established forward operating base, so you don't carry a huge rucksack most of the time because you can just go back to your base.
- Like the article states, even a day pack with body armor gets you up to 70lbs quickly.
- Ammo is really heavy, it being made of lead and all. 100rds of 7.62mm ammo weighs about 7lb. You want at least 800rds per M240B.
- Rucksack weights are sometimes inflated because it's a way to brag.
- The Marine infantry officer course requirement for 152lb load is excessive. At that weight, you can only do an admin movement on a road. All the anecdotes I found about combat loads that heavy were for an initial, short infil followed by a stationary mission.
I think the article nails the root cause towards heavier protective equipment. Public perception and the news cycle makes the death of American service member a bigger deal than in past conflicts.
It will be a long time before we get electronic mules in the Infantry. Adopting the mules adds a huge complexity budget to a simple movement. The Army decided some years ago to give every Company (~140 people) a Raven drone for recon. However, it's a huge deal if it gets lost (if the GPS guidance were to suddenly fail), so no one ever uses them to avoid the fallout associated with losing Army equipment.
This is a pretty well done article. Here's some general ideas to keep in mind.
- Most dismounted missions are run from trucks or an established forward operating base, so you don't carry a huge rucksack most of the time because you can just go back to your base.
- Like the article states, even a day pack with body armor gets you up to 70lbs quickly.
- Ammo is really heavy, it being made of lead and all. 100rds of 7.62mm ammo weighs about 7lb. You want at least 800rds per M240B.
- Rucksack weights are sometimes inflated because it's a way to brag.
- The Marine infantry officer course requirement for 152lb load is excessive. At that weight, you can only do an admin movement on a road. All the anecdotes I found about combat loads that heavy were for an initial, short infil followed by a stationary mission.
I think the article nails the root cause towards heavier protective equipment. Public perception and the news cycle makes the death of American service member a bigger deal than in past conflicts.
It will be a long time before we get electronic mules in the Infantry. Adopting the mules adds a huge complexity budget to a simple movement. The Army decided some years ago to give every Company (~140 people) a Raven drone for recon. However, it's a huge deal if it gets lost (if the GPS guidance were to suddenly fail), so no one ever uses them to avoid the fallout associated with losing Army equipment.