The Gen. II IOTV incorporates more than a dozen improvements over the already pretty well tricked out IOTV.
Improvements include a totally redesigned and removable yoke and collar, reversible and detachable side carriers and universal side pouch, and equipment anchor points on the front and rear which interface with items such as hydration systems and the Tactical Assault Panel or (TAP).
Finally, the Army has fielded a vest that can go from a full one moon suit for roof gunners down IED Alley to a slimmed down “operator cut” for door kickers humping into mountain qalats. And the service has an added bonus to the new vest: They’re fielding it in both OCP and UCP.
The vest is also more adjustable, so anyone from Popeye to Andre the Giant can tweek it to their liking.
In addition, we’ve incorporated increased adjustability in the shoulders and hips, as well as a newly designed location for the sideplate that is now adjustable to the wearer. All these improvements are included in the Gen-II IOTVs, including the UCP IOTVs produced since April of this year.
Capt. Josh Powers was roughed up by an insurgent IED a couple days ago and was recently awarded the Purple Heart for his battlefield wounds. Powers is a graduate of VMI, which is near and dear to my heart since I went to UVA and have a bunch of friends who went to VMI as well. He’s so good at what he does, his next assignment will be in the snake eater community (he asked me not to say what it is, but those BTDTs could easily guess).
The cool thing about Powers is that despite some reports we got before we met him that he was a bit stiff and serious, he could not have been a more fun and open guy to hang out with while we griftedoff him and his men for a few days. He’s got a ton of experience with two combat tours to Iraq and was a great sounding board for lots of issues, including gear, tactics, strategy and ROE.
One evening when we were shooting the breeze in the TOC, I slipped him an official Military.com nametape in MultiCam. He immediately put it on his ACUs and kept up the conversation. After a bit of smoking and joking, he got up to do some paperwork in his office and I reminded him he still had the Military.com tape on.
He looked down to his blouse witha start, tore off the tape and joked “I’d better not let my chain of command see me with this on…it’s MultiCam…”
Unfortunately for him, I snapped a pic with my iPhone as proof…hey, you can’t bust a guy who just earned a Purple Heart, can you?
We wish him and his guys all the best and know they’ll hop right back up on that saddle and keep taking it to the enemy.
Because of our trigger puller focus we seldom show the love to our Brownshoe bretheren here at Kit Up! But with all the Katrina anniversary coverage and Hurricane Earl bearing down on the east coast, we thought you might enjoy an in-depth look inside on of NOAA’s P-3 Hurricane Hunters.
We carrier-based fighter guys have always given our prop-weenie counterparts a lot of grief for flying around straight and level sitting near a dozen other dudes with flight suits stuffed with per diem checks. But you gotta respect folks who knowingly drive into 130 knot winds.
Those who followed our embed coverage back in May know we spent a few days at Forward Operating Base Salerno in eastern Afghanistan. FOB Salerno is a major support base that hosts the TF Rakkasan tactical operation center, the medivac helo detachment, the Red Horse artillery unit, and myriad other regionally important outfits.
FOB Salerno was attacked on Saturday, and we’re pleased to report that ISAF sustained no casualties while 21 insurgents were killed. According to the report the bad guys were dressed up in ACUs — the same tactic they used when they attacked Bagram in mid-May.
So we pass “well done” to our friends at Salerno with the knowledge that they will remain vigilant as they continue the mission.
(Ward’s Blackberry-cam photo: View from media hooch across the wire at FOB Salerno looking towards Pakistan.)
Well, it appears as if the Aussies are following their UK brethren in adopting at least some variant of the MultiCam for themselves — or for their snake eaters in Afghanistan.
Now, this kind of bums me out, because as far as desert camo uniforms go, I’ve always believed the Auscam Desert pattern was the best of all the patterns in the OEF coalition. It’s got the perfect blend of old school GI Joe and new tech color swatches. As the picture above shows, the colors work well on a rocky, desert-like brush background and will blend in to all but the greenest of environments. And their woodland/jungle works just fine too when the foliage gets a bit greener.
So why (if true, and that’s a big IF) would the ADF join the Crye bandwagon? Not sure…but I throw it out there to our readers to fill in the blanks here.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A big thanks to Military.com Editor and blogger extraordinaire Ward Carroll for filling in for me while I’m taking some vacation time. I’ll be posting here and there through the next week, but Ward will still be posting while I soak up some much-needed rays. And I’m glad to see you all dig his stuff…That’s why he’s the bossman…
As the Army wrestles with the frontline demand for OCP uniforms, the service has just announced plans for a female-only version of their ACUs.
This from the official release: “Changes being evaluated in PEO’s re-designed uniform include 13 sizes in both the jacket and trousers, an elastic waistband, a more spacious hip area, a shortened crotch length, a more tailored jacket, and re-positioned rank and name tapes.”
“Women have so many different shapes and sizes, we’re as not as ‘straight’ as men are,” said Maj. Sequana Robinson, assistant product manager for uniforms at PEO Soldier, who is currently testing one of the female-only ACUs.
Robinson admitted that when she first heard of the new test uniform, she doubted the need for a female fit.
“Once I put the uniform on, I immediately loved it,” she said. “The first thing I did when I tried on the uniform was to lift my knees up and squat because I don’t want something hugging or showing the contour of my body … it has even more room than I thought.”
The ever-speedy acquisitions machine plans to have these uniforms on the street by (wait for it) . . . 2014.
You’ll remember that Kit Up! tipped off our readers to a story from the Wall Street Journal recounting the fear spreading among US and Brit troops in Helmand by a pretty well trained Taliban sharpshooter (the Marine snipers sent out to hunt the guy, suspected of being one shooter and a spotter, refused to give them the respect of calling them “snipers”) who killed three coalition troops in seven days.
Well, it turns out this was no Afghan Taliban Zaitsev.
According to the UK Daily Telegraph, the Sangin Sniper wasn’t just one guy — it was four…and they weren’t even locals. They were hired foreigners from Pakistan, Egypt and Chechnya. The Mercinaries were tracked down by British special forces troops (SAS and SBS blokes) who helped light ’em up with laser designators while a Fighting Falcon put some warhead on the bad guys’ foreheads.
The snipers were thought to have been hired by the Taliban to specifically target the Nato forces’ most highly specialised soldiers, such as bomb disposal experts.
The first pair were caught in Sangin ten days ago and the second two were found on Thursday.
When their identities were confirmed and their exact locations ascertained, pilots of U.S. F-16 jets were sent precise coordinates to ensure their high-explosive bombs killed the enemy without hurting innocent civilians.
This brings up a very interesting point, one that the New York Times’ CJ Chivers brought up a while back and we turned KU readers onto. Is the supposed prowess of the Afghan shooter (who, legend has it, was practically born with an Enfield rifle in his hand) over rated? These guys were taking good shots and informed speculation was that they were locally grown, if not locally trained.
But the Taliban had to hire battle-hardened freelancers to do their dirty work, since local talent either couldn’t — or more importantly, wouldn’t — do the job themselves. And also, let’s consider what this says about the Taliban organization that it has the funding and logistics to call in a team of Jackals. That speaks to greater sophistication, not worse.
“We are committed to equipping Airmen with the most advanced capabilities available at the earliest time possible,” Air Force officials said Aug. 24. ”Based on feedback from Airmen, we believe the Operation Enduring Freedom Camouflage Pattern (OCP) provides advanced protection to servicemembers while operating outside the wire in Afghanistan. Army (officials), while beginning an aggressive fielding schedule, (are) working with Air Force (officials) to support developing a long-term joint fielding strategy later this year.”
OCP is better known to Kit Up! readers as “Mulitcam,” and as Christian flagged a number of weeks ago, the fielding strategy has created concerns on both sides of the fence. Unit commanders are concerned about uniformity across their charges, while their charges are usually willing to do whatever it takes to wear the stuff that’ll protect them the best once the bullets start flying — including paying for it themselves, if need be.
Not sure why the Air Force is saying this right now. And this statement — like all good official statements — really doesn’t say much beyond the happy talk of promising the gear at the “earliest time possible.” We’ll also add that the only Air Force guy we saw in the field during our time in Afghanistan — a TAC-P — wore Tiger Stripe cammies, not ACUs like the Joes that surrounded him.
Kit isn’t just what you strap onto your body; it’s what you put into your body.
During our time embedded with the troops in Afghanistan a few months back we noticed there were lots of energy foods laying around everywhere we went. I actually lived on nothing more than Cliff Bars and Gatorade for a couple of days during our time with the 101st Airborne in Paktika Province. (And I felt fine, trust me on this one . . .) Whether sucking down gooey gels or chugging drinks that duplicate a pot of coffee’s worth of caffeine in a single small can, our warriors are definitely leveraging the power of modern “nutrition” to stay trigger-tugging ready.
As anyone who’s ever downed four Red Bulls in rapid succession knows, these products have an effect — but is it a good effect? What’s worked for you? What are your favorites and what eating process (amount, time relative to a mission) have you found worked best?
“At the hands of the Taliban, children have lost fathers and wives have lost husbands. It’s shocking that someone would think it acceptable to recreate the acts of the Taliban against British soldiers,” Secretary Liam Fox said in a statement. “It’s hard to believe any citizen of our country would wish to buy such a thoroughly un-British game. I would urge retailers to show their support for our armed forces and ban this tasteless product.”
Of course, shooting Americans is not new to the Medal of Honor series games. Players can choose to be Germans in the D-Day scenario, for instance. But that’s history (although I’m not sure Vietnam War vets would appreciate gamers playing VC and shooting GIs in the virtual Hue City or Chu Lai). The hot button here is that American troops are still dying at the hands of Taliban at a too-regular rate.
EA execs dismiss it as a “creative risk” according to one source, but we’re thinking the groundswell has just started on this one.
