Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Overloaded Soldier: Why U.S. Infantry Now Carry More Weight Than Ever

popularmechanics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 148 posts

Re: The Overloaded Soldier: Why U.S. Infantry Now Carry More Weight Than Ever

#131

Post by rbanffy »

pps43 wrote: post #109
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wouldn't it be possible to carry the same amount of kinetic energy with lighter ammunition? Running just on the math, it seems the answer would be "of course": E_k = 1/2 m \* v ^ 2 Increasing the velocity actually increases energy much faster than increasing the mass (by, say, making bullets out of depleted uranium or tungsten). If you convert a lead (density 11 g/cm^3) bullet into aluminum (2.7 g/cm^3), you need t…

> lead is an excellent lubricant/bearing material Modern projectiles are jacketed so lead never touches anything.

And you could always cover your lightweight projectile with enough lead it'll not cut through the barrel on its way out.

Re: The Overloaded Soldier: Why U.S. Infantry Now Carry More Weight Than Ever

#132

Post by elmolino89 »

odn86 wrote: post #121
elmolino89 wrote: post #61

Maybe it is time to reinvent the wheel? Put the heaviest/extra loads on a fat bike or a wheelbarrow or 1-2 wheel trolley to be dragged in turns. You are unlikely to go slower than with +50kg backpack.

How do you get over a fallen tree? How do you get over a 5 foot wall in an urban environment? It needs to be carried by the men on the ground to truly be versatile.

Same thing with a mule, robo-mule or a self propelled vehicle. Wait, I can detach the bags from a bike/trolley and throw them over the 2m wall with a help of a comrade/short rope. Then goes the 15kg bike or or the trolley. And unless we are talking about the jungle/fallen trees/mountain warfare etc., where probably anything non-human can not be used effectively, you will be faster and less tired reaching the destination. Last but not least: simple trolley is quite cheap, way cheaper than the load it can carry. You can throw it away when the going gets tough.

Re: The Overloaded Soldier: Why U.S. Infantry Now Carry More Weight Than Ever

#133

Post by Bahamut »

potta_coffee wrote: post #114
cco wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking back, would you leave anything out of your daily loadout to avoid injury?

I often ditched as much gear as I could. Sometimes it bit me in the ass though...one time in training we had to build entrenchments, but I'd left my e-tool behind. There's an old saying, "Pack light, freeze at night." I often chose to freeze. Infantry is not a comfortable life!

Sometimes you end up freezing anyway - I remember one time on a field op we settled down for the night, and there was freezing rain out. We put a tarp in the dark over where we slept, and got greeted a few hours later with a flood of rain over all of us. It rained so much that our tarp gave way to the rain.

Re: The Overloaded Soldier: Why U.S. Infantry Now Carry More Weight Than Ever

#134

Post by nerpderp82 »

lbotos wrote: post #87
barry-cotter wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but no one in the median journalist’s social circle is dying. The change from a draft to a volunteer army was enormous. No one goes to war against their will anymore. People care much, much less if it’s not their brother, their son, their cousin. And when volunteers come home in a box their family knows they chose to go. Hard to organise a march against war out of people who either have no personal connection to…

>No one goes to war against their will anymore. Please tell that to the kids that are enlisting so they can actually afford to go to college in the US. I know there is a difference between drafting and enlistment, but I know there are a lot of people in the military because it was "the way out" of their situation.

Advantages to having chronic structural income inequality? A not insignificant proportion of the US military is foreign.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanics_in_the_United_States...

Re: The Overloaded Soldier: Why U.S. Infantry Now Carry More Weight Than Ever

#135

Post by nerpderp82 »

potta_coffee wrote: post #120
woodman wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully it gets better with time for you. My complaint wasn't with pain, but numbness. I developed this problem very early on, in SOI, and kept it to myself because I knew that it would get me medically discharged. Thankfully I never had to explain to anyone why I'd go to the lengths I did in order to avoid handling grenades. After 2 years of civilian life my knees and lower back stopped bothering me, but 15 years…

I feel you. My toes went numb on a hump once and they've never fully come back. I've been out since 2012 and still have the shoulder pain and numb toes so I'm not holding out for that pain to go away.

Have your Sciatic nerve looked into. I had a pretty bad bike crash (doored going 30mph, bounced on pavement with left hip). I would have burning sensations about the size of a fifty cent piece in my upper back, numb toes, etc. After 10+ years it finally subsided. Chronic pain is highly correlated with suicide. So best to get that fixed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sciatic_nerve

Re: The Overloaded Soldier: Why U.S. Infantry Now Carry More Weight Than Ever

#136

Post by nasredin »

jdietrich wrote: post #97
rbanffy wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ammo is really heavy Wouldn't it be possible to carry the same amount of kinetic energy with lighter ammunition? One inherent limitation of firearms is that all the energy is released inside the weapon, which has, then, to dissipate the heat and remaining gases and particles. If bullets are self-propelled, a larger part of that output can be released outside the weapon, allowing it to be faster and impart more ener…

>Wouldn't it be possible to carry the same amount of kinetic energy with lighter ammunition? There have been ongoing efforts for years, but there are significant technical obstacles to producing reliable, effective ammunition with reduced weight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_Small_Arms_Technol...

Surprised nobody mentioned

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer-cased_ammunition

Re: The Overloaded Soldier: Why U.S. Infantry Now Carry More Weight Than Ever

#137

Post by anitil »

gadders wrote: post #63
Balero wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a tradeoff in fitness (a person can only train so much). If you want a stronger soldier, then they are gonna be worse in a different way, ie, lose some cardio. A person can only do, and maintain, so much.

True enough, but I wonder whether strength is more relevant now? I.e. they get helicoptered/driven to within 5-10 miles of their mission site with a ton of gear, rather than having to march 30 miles with their gear.

Bit of a long shot, but have you been listening to Rippetoe lately? He talks about this from time to time

Re: The Overloaded Soldier: Why U.S. Infantry Now Carry More Weight Than Ever

#138

Post by colek42 »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #40
sa46 wrote: post #38

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 d…

Yeah, if electronic mules are so great, I would expect to see some actual mules still in service.

I used a mule in the mountains of Afghanistan in 2010. It was the only way other than helo or a strong back to get supplies up the mountain to out observation point.

Re: The Overloaded Soldier: Why U.S. Infantry Now Carry More Weight Than Ever

#139

Post by sa46 »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #91
sa46 wrote: post #38

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 d…

Most infantrymen aren't carrying 7.62 and haven't since 'nam. The 240 is (on paper) crew served so you get to spread that load around several people. I agree with everything else though.

Yep, the lucky grunts in the weapons squad get to lug around the 7.62 ammo.

The Army doesn't use the M249 as a crew served weapon (unlike the Marines) so the automatic rifleman on each team usually has 600 rounds of 5.56mm linked ammo to carry around.

I'd be curious to see standard ammo load-out by conflict and country.

Re: The Overloaded Soldier: Why U.S. Infantry Now Carry More Weight Than Ever

#140

Post by sa46 »

troels wrote: post #46
sa46 wrote: post #38

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 d…

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. That sounds like a serious problem?

Like many things in a large bureaucracy, the rules and norms are written in the blood and tears of previous generations. It has pros and cons. On the pros, you can usually count on everyone to not lose equipment. For the cons, you spend a huge amount of time dealing with inventories and maintenance.

- At most Army schools you will fail if you lose any equipment. Ranger school does a 100% equipment check at the end of every mission and will fail you if any equipment is missing.

- One of the more common ways for an officer to get "fired" (moved out of command early with a neutral or negative rating) is to lose property. This is harder than it sounds since even a Rifle company commander you might have a few million dollars of equipment. For mechanized units (tanks), it's much harder.

Post reply on HN