The military term for hiking while carrying weight is "rucking." As you might expect, this is a major concern for the military, as soldiers are required to wear body armour and carry weapons, ammo, water, communications equipment, and other equipment in military backpack when on patrols and operations. For military operations and people, rucking performance and injury prevention are critical.
Many mountain activities, from day hiking to backpacking to major mountain alpinism, require movement over the ground when loaded. We uncovered five rules that are just as applicable to mountain sports as they are to combat operations after analyzing the military's previous studies on the issue.
1.A pound of weight on your feet equals five pounds of weight on your back.
2.An extra pound on your feet means a 5% increase in energy expenditure.
3.Every 1% of your body weight in your pack adds six seconds to your mile time.
According to a 1984 research by the US Army Research Institute, this ancient hiking rule still holds. They looked at how much more energy was expended with different types of footwear (boots and shoes) and found that moving at a given pace takes 4.7 to 6.4 times as much energy when weight is carried on the shoe versus the torso.
In practice, this means you could carry half a gallon of extra water (just over 4 pounds) if you buy a pound lighter pair of boots, which isn't difficult to do; and that's a lot of water. Consider the energy savings of backpacking in light trail running shoes instead of hefty leather backpacking boots throughout a seven-day journey.
Heavier footwear has an impact on you in more ways than one. Heavier boots are stiffer and less responsive. When you strike the ground, your body's stretch reaction is less effective.
However, 5% doesn't seem like a lot, so how does it transfer into run times? So, depending on how long you're running, 5% would slow your mile speed down by 30 seconds. However, the quicker you try to run, the more than 5% will affect your results.
Carrying weight in your pack, on the other hand, isn't free. Each 1% of your body weight carried in your pack adds 6 seconds to your mile time. If you weigh 150 pounds, adding 1.5 pounds to your pack slows you down by 6 seconds every mile. On a long journey, decreasing your pack weight from 40 to 30 pounds saves you 40 seconds per mile for a 150-pound hiker.
Litai (Quanzhou) Bags Corp., Ltd. is a professional military backpack manufacturer that provides both OEM and ODM orders. We have an independent overseas warehouse, and the operation mode shifts from a single product manufacturer to provide system integration services, creating a business model innovation. If you have any questions, please contact us via email at daisy@lqtactical.com or phone at 86-15260869531.
As the last article has talked about three rules that need to be paid attention to, we will continue to talk about the rest two rules of military backpack.
Here are the content lists:
1. A ten percent incline reduces your speed by half.
2. Slowing down slows you down twice as much as speeding up.
3. Soldiers' real-life experiences using military backpack in the United States army.
The speed of a person is strongly influenced by their grade. The term "grade" refers to the amount of elevation or decrease in the terrain. At a 10% grade, for example, you'll gain 1 foot for every 10 feet you move ahead. In angle terms, ten percent equals 5.74 degrees. When you're humping up a 5.74-degree angle mile after mile, it doesn't feel like much. You'll know how difficult it is because you'll move twice as slowly with a given load over it as you would on flat terrain. That last part—with a specific load—is crucial. Whether you're hauling 45 lbs. or 80 lbs., a 10% grade will limit your speed in half.
I don't think you'll make it up the other side of the hill in time. You're not going to succeed. You'll only be able to make up half of the time. Why don't you make up for what you lose by running downhill? Forces of braking To stay in control while you fall, you must use your quads to break your pace. The more braking required, the steeper the downhill. If you do a lot of up and down labour, this extra strain on your muscles will damage your uphill performance even more.
A US soldier, Robert Schumacher, with twenty years experience in the army said that “my rucksack was full of all kinds of lightweight gear that gradually got heavier and heavier as the Army came up with ever more lightweight gear for me to carry, The average rucksack is supposed to weigh no more than a certain percentage of your body weight for you to be able to move and fight. Mission requirements too often say otherwise. When you figure in the weight of your LCE, (military for load-carrying equipment or the vest you see soldiers wearing), plus your weapon, uniform, binoculars, night vision device, and everything else, the weight becomes quite remarkable, The heaviest rucksack that I carried weighed 145 lbs, (I remember every painful step, as I remembered that I could have signed up for the Navy). Even the combat load, (what you carrying into combat and fight with), can easily weigh 60 lbs.) The idea is to carry only what you need into combat, but the fear of facing the unexpected keeps you putting things in that you probably will never need - but if you do need it….”
Litai (Quanzhou) Bags Corp., Ltd. is a professional military backpack manufacturer that provides both OEM and ODM orders. We have an independent overseas warehouse, and the operation mode shifts from a single product manufacturer to provide system integration services, creating a business model innovation. If you have any questions, please contact us via email at daisy@lqtactical.com or phone at 86-15260869531.
The Improved Outer Tactical Vest (IOTV) is an improved version of the earlier Outer Tactical Vest (OTV) form of the Interceptor Body armour, as fielded by the US Army. The Deltoid and Auxiliary Protector System (DAPS) components, ESAPI (Enhanced Small Arms Protective Insert), Enhanced Side Ballistic Inserts (ESBI), and the OTV's groin protector are all compatible with the IOTV.
Here are the content lists:
1. Why IOTV is better than traditional OTV?
2. What is the background of the improved outer tactical vest?
3. What is the effectiveness of the IOTV?
The OTV design was deemed insufficient and weak in several areas, prompting the creation and deployment of the IOTV. Point Blank Body armour, BAE Systems, KDH Defense Systems, Protective Products Enterprises, UNICOR, and Creative Apparel Associates are actively producing the IOTV. From mid-2007 forward, the IOTV first saw battle with US Army ground combat units, and it is still the basic body armour type deployed by regular US Army ground combat troops overseas.
While the Interceptor Body armour and the Outer Tactical Vest were thought to be fairly effective, others questioned if they were the greatest feasible armour solution for US military forces. The controversy surrounding Dragon Skin, which was created by the now-defunct Pinnacle armour, heightened the argument. Various assertions appeared that Dragon Skin was more successful at shielding soldiers than the then-standard issue Interceptor body armour system, with independent studies and reports appearing to back these claims, prompting various congressional members to request more investigation. In response, the military released public testing results that revealed widespread flaws in the Dragon Skin armour's testing. Dragon Skin was never widely adopted, and several of the Outer Tactical Vest's identified flaws, such as quality of protection and modularity, were rectified in the Improved Outer Tactical Vest and E-SAPI plates.
The Improved Outer Tactical Vest is an advance over earlier US body armour systems, with the Vietnam War-era fragmentation vest limited to fragmentation protection, the PASGT vest limited to pistol bullets, and the prior Outer Tactical Vest unable to stop armour-piercing shots.
The Army has continued to develop the IOTV with additional features in response to troop input on the effectiveness of the armour system, with Generation III including a more intuitive rapid release system and the new Operational Camouflage Pattern (OCP). Body armour conversion kits have been given at a lesser cost to bring earlier Generation armour sets up to newer requirements, rather than constructing fully new IOTV armour sets.
Litai (Quanzhou) Bags Corporation, which is dedicated to strict quality control and thoughtful customer service, our experienced staff members are always available to discuss your requirements and ensure full customer satisfaction. Whether selecting a current product from our catalogue or seeking engineering assistance for your application, you can talk to our customer service center about your sourcing requirements. If you have any needs or questions about the tactical vest, please contact us.
