<story><title>The Overloaded Soldier: Why U.S. Infantry Now Carry More Weight Than Ever</title><url>https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a25644619/soldier-weight/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>sa46</author><text>Ah, an article I can comment on.  I was an Infantry officer for 6 years and did all the normal schooling and a deployment.&lt;p&gt;This is a pretty well done article.  Here&amp;#x27;s some general ideas to keep in mind.&lt;p&gt;- Most dismounted missions are run from trucks or an established forward operating base, so you don&amp;#x27;t carry a huge rucksack most of the time because you can just go back to your base.&lt;p&gt;- Like the article states, even a day pack with body armor gets you up to 70lbs quickly.&lt;p&gt;- 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.&lt;p&gt;- Rucksack weights are sometimes inflated because it&amp;#x27;s a way to brag.&lt;p&gt;- 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.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;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.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Overloaded Soldier: Why U.S. Infantry Now Carry More Weight Than Ever</title><url>https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a25644619/soldier-weight/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>szopa</author><text>This sounds insane. My hobby is medium distance hiking in (say, 250 km&amp;#x2F;155 mi na week) in the Scandinavian Arctic, so I have to carry all my food. I&amp;#x27;m a fan of ultralight hiking, so my whole summer baggage weights around 10 kg&amp;#x2F;20 lbs excluding water. I invested some money in lighter equipment, yes, but most of my weight savings is stuff I simply do not take with me, or things that serve in multiple roles (eg. my hiking poles double as tent poles). A common piece of advice in the ultralight community is &amp;quot;don&amp;#x27;t pack your fears&amp;quot; – take only what you know you&amp;#x27;re gonna need, avoid redundancy (and be careful not to lose your crap), and consider what you can do without (an example: you don&amp;#x27;t really need a big ass knife).&lt;p&gt;Anyway, with 10 kg pack a trip is extremely physically challenging, but overall pleasant. I can actually enjoy the view, as opposed to just wanting to throw my backpack on the ground (I didn&amp;#x27;t get to my low weight immediately, I used to carry much more before).&lt;p&gt;Hiking like I do, but with 100 lbs of gear sounds like a nightmare. A soldier may not care about the views, but he should watch out for people who are trying to kill him. If my experience translates at all, the weight is interfering with that goal.</text></comment>