In this video I break down some updates I’ve made to my setup, as well as demonstrate use of the USMC Gen 3 plate carrier. Enjoy! And stay tuned for more!
I’ve always been a fan of having a “something pouch”. Sooner or later I’d always find myself carrying something I didn’t bring like comms, ordinance or whatever. Great content 🤙
Consider the “Tactical Tailor Double Mag Pouch Medical insert” for your IFAK. I run it on my carrier as a auxiliary medical kit to my primary, which is belt mounted… “Semper Gumby”
For TGP and anyone else with a PC Gen 3, Shaw Concepts and a channel named Local Skinwalker did videos on how to improve the ergonomics of the base carrier so it's not quite so much of a POS. Of course, keep your specific SOPs in mind and do what your rank can handle.
Good shit man keep it up. The comment “gear quire” comes to mind seeing as I was the same way and got this yelled at me all the time. Would of been really nice having videos like this when I was still in. Hopefully your reaching the younger guys out there and showing them it’s ok to get new shit and think it out.
Another great video. You do a great job thinking about your kit as a whole, how one thing affects another and explaining your thought process through it. I learn something new with each video and looking forward to the next.
I always used to hate water bladders on my plates since the weight was distributed so low, which gets worse the more I drink from it. The solution I came up with was to take a ditty bag and extend the molle so it wouldn't flop so much and I gave it elastic hose ports on the sides. I put the pouch up high on my shoulders where I want the weight. I use a pladypus lumbar pouch in it which is super durable. It holds around two liters, maybe a bit more. It sits inside my MALICE frame just fine, even when full.
Great video, always good to hear from active concentional infantry guys. Very useful knowledge to the average citizen, huge fan of how many mags you have!
A useful pouch I found while bulding my PC is the Helikon tex double horizontal pouch (It’s basically designed to be back dangler pouch for 2 emergency mags) What I did is I put it in the front instead of the back panel, I attached it to the Velcro of the plate, not the Velcro of the front placard. I use it for TQ so It allows me to take 2 TQ that i can take the same way from left or right while the TQ’s are well protected from environment and the pouch is very easy to open with one hand. Just have a look and make your personal opinion but from my pov it’s win-win Pouch is a little bit hard at the beginning but it’s pretty much like leather shoes, it get the proper shape with a little bit of time and it ends up being comfortable.
Great video. I personally prefer the spud pouches as my front mag setup. Can easily extended from 3x1 to 3x2 or even 3x3. Can take most equipment and I find reindexing with them is super easy.
Great video. I do think about what the next war will be, just beyond the training exercises that we have been doing for the past 8 years even before GWOT “concluded”. The war in Ukraine shows something of what it can look like with a near peer war, what we should carry, what technology will be turned against us, how adaptable we should be. I came in when buttpacks were still a huge deal and molle was just starting to get issued to limited units; so when I say I hate the damn thing I mean it, however I’m already looking at putting one on my belt/H harness due to the perceived need.
Im an Older Gen (86-91) Combat Engr . Which we did most of our stuff mounted and not much walking, but when we did walk , it sucked. We didnt run PCs back then in my unit or any of that like yall do now. But , i always tried to carry an infantry mans ammo or at least mag loadout with the thought of I am my own resupply mentality. One thing ive always been hesatent about on PCs is the fact most of your mags are up front in harms way. a few hits to your torso and what ever mags got hit would be toast , and ive never heard anyone talk about that , im courious on your thoughts to this.
Having a mag anywhere on your body puts it in harm's way; placing them lower and to the side with an LBV or whatever isn't really any better, but at least now there's a plate behind it so the offending projectile doesn't smoke your ammo AND you.
I like your videos and wish you would do a little B-roll to show how it looks when its on you. sensor your face for OPSEC of course. but its a good way to judge how it sits based on your body type
This is a really informative video! How many chest seals do you carry? Where do you carry them? I can’t help but wonder about the wisdom of putting the chest seal on the torso and on the outside of armor, given that the chances that it might be damaged in the event that you are hit in the torso are increased when it is located there, thus rendering it potentially useless, just when you need it most?
I have 2 on my plate carrier and 2 in my belt. And yeah that’s always a possibility but there’s really nothing you can do about that short of putting them behind your sapi plates. That’s why I carry multiple.
How would you recommend implementing canteens in your plate carrier/belt setup? Or would you just have them on your pack that you would be carrying? Always want to have something other than a camelbak on my person for water as we all know how that would go if a camelbak was your only source of water. Love the knowledge you put out. Thanks!
I used a similar layout on a deployment I just got back from. I spent a lot of time in a JLTV, so I kept my belt setup thin. The front of my pc has the same exact Shaw Concepts ARC Placard with quad insert and the BFG elastic triple mag pouch. Having a TQ mounted on the bottom of the placard was a great way to have a TQ accessible with either hand while also freeing up space on the rest of the pc for other stuff. My unit still uses the Gen2 pc (which works great for what it is) but I used the Shaw Concepts ARC V2 carrier instead. I agree with all of the other points you brought up here, great video overall. Have you tried any of the BFG med pouches? I've been testing them all year and I'm still trying to decide between one of them or the newer issued IFAK.
I always had an issue with traditional admin pouches like that ferro one where its either getting in the way of my mags or my mags are getting in the way of it. Shaw makes one thats tapered at the bottom so you have a clean draw for your mags that still has a lot of space inside even for an ATAK device and some general admin stuff.
Yeah those are pretty cool. I don’t think they would work well with this plate carrier though because of the zipper closure. And also, that would need to be a unit SOP. If my med kit is not immediately visible to a guy trying to treat me then that would be a problem. Definitely cool though, and cuts down on a lot of space. The only thing about those is once you pull that thing out there’s no getting it back in
The USMC issue IFAK is a great design. It incorporates boo boo gear, which makes it too big to fit behind a plate carrier, but keeps that stuff handy when you’re patching up cuts and blisters.
Hey TGP, you mentioned retooling your plate carrier loadouts due to current events. What's your take on how armored you should be? I.e. the military view (hard armor over soft armor with nearly full torso coverage), just hard armor to include side plates, just front and back plates, or some kind of mix?
If I could have what I wanted, it would be front and back plates, and soft armor on the sides as standard, to save some weight. In urban or built up areas I’d probably opt for side plates as well
Depending on what you’re trying to do, retry common practice it slick armor. We wear chest rigs or belt kits, with our plates in our pack. When enemy threat becomes more probable or likely, armor goes on and chest rig goes over the top
I got a Crye JPC 1.0, thinking about switching over to a Beez Combat Systems plate carrier for the quick release and a billion camo options with laser cut now that I'm out, they even have M81 woodland -11C
@gavinvandevenne8437 Yeah at a pretty high cost for cummerbunds with a brand roc or tube release, you're looking at $80-100 extra for something decent before taxes and shipping. I did buy the BCS plate carrier and got the rigid inserts and the pads. It kicks ass.
Since my job doesnt require me to carry a pistol, i choose to opt out on a battle belt. I instead have a bds fanny pack around my waist for my ifak and carry all the rest of my gear on my flak and assualt pack.
For Marines who have to use the issued chungus ifak, where do you recommend placing that? Or are there any pouches with better size/form factor to stuff the contents into?
You talking about the giant clamshell with the size XL everything innards and wet burn dressing? I got issued one of those in the army, oddly enough. Gutted it for contents and switched to a tear-away pouch. The stock one is too big to stay fixed to your body like that.
In this video it’s a HSGI bleeder blowout kit, I’m now using a spiritus systems spud pouch though, I didn’t like how low the pouch sit and it was digging into my side
Hope you don’t mind some constructive criticism, from a Marine of over 40 years who’s carried a lot of gear in training and in combat. Bottom line, you’re carrying way too much stuff. You should echelon your gear by priority. Fighting load: ammo, couple power bars, maybe a liter of water. Existence load: day pack with food, more water, bit more ammo and all the other sundries Sustainment load: your ruck, with warming layers,etc You never get separated from your fighting load. You should rarely get separated from your sustainment load. Your ruck is usually somewhere in the rear and you might not see it for a few days. Resupply these days is a lot more efficient. You don’t need days and days of consumable unless you’re getting dropped into an OP for days. Remember your buddies are carrying a lot of gear that can resupply you. I didn’t see a ready mag in either video. They must still be teaching you reload from one mag in a place you can get to it instantly, and you replace that when you’ve got a few seconds. Nobody reloads out of a pouch or plate carrier. Last thing. Watched the SYSCOM video on the Gen III plate carrier. It’s not a “one size fits all” system at all. Your meant to use the parts you need for your job. No one should be using the whole thing.
Respectfully, the next major war marines fight in will not be anything like the war you fought in. Again, not trying to offend you. But the war in the Middle East was not a conventional war, we were fighting an enemy that had nowhere near the same capabilities as us. Thus we could afford to carry less stuff because resupplies of food, water, and ammunition were almost guaranteed. In the future we will be fighting an enemy that has very similar to, if not, the same capabilities as we do. Among other things, this requires every infantryman to become more self sufficient. That means more water, ammo, food, weapons maintenance equipment on your person, etc. While it may seem excessive, you could look to the conventional war taking place in Ukraine. Ukrainian and Russian troops are carrying massive amounts of gear on their body, most of them using a fully loaded belt kit, as well as a fully loaded plate carrier. Upwards of 10-12 rifle magazines and grenades galore. I’m not trying to make my kit for the marine corps past experiences, that would be ignorant. I’m trying to do my best to look into the unsure future and anticipate what I’ll need. Thank you for watching, and thank you for your service.
@@TheGruntPerspectivei fought in the last war and i 100% agree with you, this bothered me even when i was in. I deployed as infantry and as an ANGLICO. Ive said this to you before but i am so sick of the hypebeast guys who have never gunned a day in their lives and insist on running minimalist and with shit on their backs. You're on the right track brother.
I was in the British army Artillery one of theo units I was in we always did Infantry exercises in my time alot of Artillery did we also did more built up area combat . This was because of Northan Ireland as you know the British army is small it always has been , so they divided up the manpower the Infantry worked in the countryside maxsermising there Infantry skills the Artillery concentrated on built up areas towns city's even so on big riots Infantry also supported the Artillery in the built up areas , Iam saying this so you understand in my day the Artillery was closer to the Idea of a soldier being a Infantry man first of all . In my unit all personal on there webbing on the right behind the ammo pouch and waterborne had a large pouch made by our Taylor or Q store tech to hold eather two belts of 150 linked ammo or two 200 belts for the GPMG or four magazines for the LMG , it was deliberately placed on the right so when you were useing your rifle the pouch was easy access for a person to open the pouch grab the ammo without you having to move your rifle out of the aiming position . We also carried this further to our burgens the ones we used looked alot like the old Alice stile the two pouches on both sides were use for as you look from the front of tha burgen on the left food and water on the right ammo and Ordinance sothis c.ouldl mean det cord and safty fuse and primers two hundred yards of D10 electrick cable used on field phones two claymores two 38 mm morter rounds and a field battery and electric ignition switch a pear of crimping pliers and connectors and also 8 pounds of PE 4 your thinking whooow that alot of wieght on one side you forgot the water bottles in the left pouch these would in normal circumstance would be used last or as the ammo was depleted on the right also as a section comander you were responserble for the distribution of the store's so the radio operator would not normaly set up claymores so after the scouts had set some and been used the claymores would be reorganised same for the PE4 we also ran colection bags to collect the links when the GPMG fired so at the end of the day while in a larger we could reuse the links with the boxed ammo we carried at the time we used the L1A1
@@TheGruntPerspectivewhy the dump pouch hate im personally a fan id get so much anxiety not having it. Ik some pouches can accommodate reinserting but not all of them
This is all just stuff the modern infantryman needs. You wanna fight a war, you're gonna have to carry a lot of shit. Can only shave off so much. Do cardio, don't skip leg day.
