«-- Odds 'n Sods: | Main | Two Letters Re: The Best College Degrees for the Next Depression? --»
Two Letters Re: Seeking Advice on Assembling Web Gear
Sir,
In a recent post you mentioned unbuckling your ALICE belt
when going prone. I learned a little trick in ROTC using
a carabiner and two pieces of 550
[parachute] cord. First, adjust belt the
way you want it. Second, tie the two pieces of 550 cord
onto the end of the ALICE belt and hook them together with the carabiner. Adjust
the length of the 550 cord to get the slack needed when going prone. This allows
you to keep your belt buckled but when you need additional slack, just release
the buckle and the 550 cord keeps the belt from flopping around too much. Don't
tie the 550 cord together, as the carabiner allows you to unhook the
belt quickly if you fall into a creek or river and need to dump your LBE -
Bill N.
Dear Jim:
Thank you for referring readers to us for advice on web gear. At BulletProofME
Body Armor we are authorized dealers for Blackhawk and SpecOps
tactical nylon gear, but really our focus is body armor. Normally we only do
quantity orders for tactical
nylon, outside of specific armor-related items we stock. But we can give some
good advice on the questions to ask to help avoid major mistakes.
There is such a huge selection to choose from these days, and so many different
situations, it is hard to give universal advice. Some basic questions are in
order - and probably mandatory to remind “gear freaks” to keep
it practical! ;-) . There is no one right solution, and all solutions have
tradeoffs:
1. What are the possible situations / circumstances ? Under contract for a
year of security duty in “the Sandbox”, or trying to keep the neighborhood
secure during a power outage… As Stephen Covey says, “Begin with
the end in mind".
2. What do you really need to carry? More weight and bulk = less mobility.
versus “two is one, and one is none”.
3. How discreet do you need to be? A basic kit on a belt might be preferred
to avoid the martial image that a full chest and drop
leg rig gives off. On the other hand, if you were doing a ‘Neighborhood
Watch on Steroids” in a post-Hurricane Katrina type situation, you might
want to be more overtly armed and armored to deter looters.
4. In a similar vein, does the setup identify you as one of the good guys?
In a chaotic active shooter incident you don’t want to be the recipient
of “friendly
fire”.
5. Used with, or without a backpack, or day pack?
6. Can you access your most time-critical items standing, kneeling, sitting,
prone - or in a vehicle? (By the way, the practice of putting lots of equipment
on the belly area is a really bad idea when you really need to get low and
prone…)
7. Can you get in a vehicle and drive reasonably comfortably with the rig on?
8. Can you keep your pistol and spare mag in the same place whether it is concealed
carry, open carry, or on a tactical rig? This is so that your pistol draw (and
spare magazine draw) are always the same in your muscle memory. You probably
don’t have the time to do the amount of draw practice you really should
right now - why add another draw to practice? Keep it simple for your muscle
memory with less chance of a slow or fumbled reaction under life-threatening
stress.
A similar line of reasoning applies to rifle magazine pouch placement - keep
it simple and consistent.
For example, assuming you are not a full-time SWAT officer, holsters on
drop legs are probably not such good idea, unless you can really make the time
to practice a different draw stroke until it becomes instinctive under high
stress. (We do recommend drop legs for additional ballistic protection and
secondary pouches.)
A belt
attached to armor is a great idea to keep it consistent, and all one
piece.
9. How fast can you put the gear on? Waking up to the sound of breaking glass
at 3 a.m., or a patrol officer pulling up to a bad scene - then it had better
be fast to throw on. Keeping it to just a belt is faster, or all web gear on one
piece of armor with MOLLE [attachment points].
Some options for speed:
Spare ammo already on the rifle
A “Grab
and Go-bag”
Bandoleers (Note
that these can flop around, but they are very fast to throw on.
Yours truly, - Nick at BulletProofME.com
