Load Carriage Archives

During our series on load carriage, we’ve gone over all of the most common methods available. Now it’s time to talk about where to put all that extra stuff: the assault pack.

With this post, we turn our attention to the chest rig. The main focus of my article is on the standalone versions of the chest rig, but the information applies just as readily to plate carriers and other ways of moving the load higher on the torso.

This post continues our look at load carriage by focusing on more traditional load bearing equipment. Before we get into my personal setups, I want to talk a little bit about how load carrying gear evolved over time.

The battle belt is a sort of modern iteration of the classic ALICE gear that served the US military from the 70s through late 90s. But there are some significant differences, particularly in the type and amount of load that the belt handles.

This post continues what I started in my introduction to load carriage. In that article, I talked about the ongoing battle between weight and capability. It turns out that up until very recently, the average weight carried by soldiers remained shockingly stable. When it comes time to fight, the recommendation is to stay less than 30% of your lean body mass or about 50 lbs for the average person.

It’s time to start talking about how we carry our stuff. This series of articles is not focused on competition or marksmanship. Instead, we’re going to talk about showing up for a fight.