so i just thought about fighting in the winter
i went and put on my plate carrier and put on my big parka over it and i realized that it doesnt work at all
one i can barely close my parka over it and even unzipped and unbuttoned it is tight and does not fit good
two even unzipped it is huge bulky with my whole plate carrier under it and that is without having any magazines on it and i cant imagine a backpack over the coat with all that
and the third problem which is really the biggest problem is what do you do when it stops being winter
do i just throw my coat away when it gets warm
am i supposed to carry that on me all year just for winter
am i supposed to rely on magic supply chain existing that gives me a coat for winter and stores it for me the rest of the year
how are you supposed to fight in the winter and prepare for it
its easy to say keep moving and stay warm but what if you are holding a position for a long time and cant move around
what am i supposed to do actually
am i supposed to get a giant giant coat 2 sizes 2 big just to fit my plate carrier under it
and still am i supposed to just carry that on me constantly
Take all pouches off of the plate carrier and grab a super large LBV to wear over the parka.
>grab a super large LBV to wear over the parka.
actually i tried wearing my plate carrier over my parka and it works fine i guess besides not being able to unzip it or take it off quickly or anything
there is still the problem of carrying it around though
>Unless you have a community to live, survive and fight with, you will die.
i dont expect to fight alone or do anything alone
however i also dont expect that anyone i could fight with is going to have great supply chains with tons of food or ammo to go around nevermind handing out winter coats and storing them for me when its not winter
i feel like you must be like a self sufficient piece that can drop into a machine and add to it not burden it
layers or a coat i just dont see where i am supposed to carry any of this stuff
even in this video this guy has a whole small backpack dedicated to all these layers am i supposed to have a whole extra bag for layers strapped onto my main bag ontop of sleeping supplys and stuff
>i feel like you must be like a self sufficient piece that can drop into a machine and add to it not burden it
That's not really a fair assessment. It's unfit to assume that someone can just be nothing but a benefit to the system. Even feudal systems were built on getting land and privileges in exchange for service. All human interactions needs some reciprocity, only slaves are treated like cogs in a machine like that.
Just realistically, if you have something to genuinely offer a group, you can and should expect them to feed and cloth you at the minimum. Even if you're just a rifle keeping watch, some simple manual labor, or whatever.
its not that i dont think we should share food and ammo and stuff because i think it is stupid when i see youtubers say they only are bringing mags for them
you can only feed one you and you can only shoot one gun if someone needs food or ammo and its available you should share
the thing is i just dont think there will be alot of food or ammo or coats or anything else to go around so you should come with enough for yourself plus some if you can as far as food and ammo
thats fair i guess i havent heard about that much
i heard that things like wearing parts of cold weather gear before your commanders decide you can gets people in alot of trouble and gets called out really fast so i assumed people wouldnt be able to use there own things
>i heard that things like wearing parts of cold weather gear before your commanders decide you can gets people in alot of trouble and gets called out really fast so i assumed people wouldnt be able to use there own things
It's generally just outerwear. You can't toss on your winter coat without permission in barracks conditions, but you can wear just about anything you want as underwear. Only limits tend to be to ban plastic stuff that might melt onto your skin, UnderArmor or whatever brands are out there.
>>the thing is i just dont think there will be alot of food or ammo or coats or anything else to go around so you should come with enough for yourself plus some if you can as far as food and ammo
In a situation like that, you're just going to die. If whatever group you are in can't even feed itself, you're doomed. Suggest you find the nearest warlord and join up in exchange for grain supplies.
>i also dont expect that anyone i could fight with is going to have great supply chains with tons of food or ammo to go around nevermind handing out winter coats and storing them for me when its not winter
homie what fighting do you expect to be doing? You and your buddies to invade Canada or something? If you're away from home long enough for seasons to change without supplies you'll die of starvation or thirst long before the cold.
Get a better plate carrier.
Wear multiple layers instead of a single thick piece. You need to be able to strip and add layers whenever to avoid sweating like a stuck pig and then freezing due to being wet.
If you're chilly when you're standing still, you've got clothing good for fighting and movement.
If you think you're going to survive being mobile through the year or something like that, you might as well just have a nice day and save yourself the trouble. Unless you have a community to live, survive and fight with, you will die.
You wear the plate carrier on top of everything, since being combat effective is important. You just have to deal with taking it all off in a quick manner when you get hot. There’s a concept called being “comfortably cool”, where you wear minimal layers and just deal with the cold. You can actually be a lot colder than you think and be fine, especially if you are moving around a lot. The idea is that if you start off cold, when you exert yourself you warm up to be cozy, but not hot since you’re not wearing a ton of layers. And yes, you have to carry it all with you when it’s warm, which is why soldiers should be prepared to carry 100+ lbs on their back.
>You just have to deal with taking it all off in a quick manner when you get hot
No. Literally never in a million years will an NCO allow his guys to wear enough snivel gear that they'll overheat if they have to move. You never wear more gear than you can move around in. If that means being cold, well, deal with it. You're at war, not on a weekend vacation. This is what civilians understand the least about war. They're very happy to do all the cool guy competition shooting and to work out at the gym, but they don't understand what it is to willingly be completely miserable. They don't understand the suck at all because life has never sucked for them even half as bad as it can. If you're serious about fighting a war, you're constantly going to be too cold, too hungry, too tired to do everything but do it anyway.
That’s literally what I said in the rest of my post. There are definitely times when you shed a layer, like when it warms up throughout the day. It can be 15F in the morning and 40F by afternoon
if you feel miserable after just a few days of exercising in winter then you certainly wont last weeks to months to maybe the whole winter in a wet, rat infested trench on the front line. you will not move a lot because if you move the enemy will notice you instantly and mortar/drone/snipe and arty the shit out of you so you need clothing that keeps you warm and dry even if you just sit or lie still for the whole day in your dirty, wet hole in the ground.
That’s a good point, and I think you’re right with regards to Ukraine/WW1, but the way the US trains today is for maneuver warfare, which it probably succeed in doing due to its overwhelming combat power compared to a “near peer” such as Russia. Think Iraq in 91. If that was the case infantry would be moving around a lot.
This is a good point, and one I admittedly neglected. Everything about US infantry doctrine is fire and maneuver. The basic assumption is that the infantry will maneuver. Sure, we'll do static defense sometimes or sit on an ambush line, but the implication is that eventually we will be up and moving again regardless of what happens. To that end, we tend to be very anti-snivel (as the word "snivel" implies). Maybe it really is different in a trench war... but I didn't get the impression OP was thinking about that.
>the way the US trains today is for maneuver warfare, which it probably succeed in doing due to its overwhelming combat power compared to a “near peer” such as Russia
this thread isnt about neer peer war
soldiers wear what they are told to wear and what they are given to wear
this is about how normal Americans should prepare to fight in winter if anything
and i imagine that would involve alot of sitting in trenches forever on the outskirts of your town or county or state etc with really loose supply chains for anything that isnt ammo
i guess you could bank on the local churches handing out coats and giving them back when winter ends but that seems like a bad gamble to take
i guess im thinking about a mix of both
im just thinking realisticallyish to what i can imagine might happen if any number of things ever happened
and i feel like anything escalating to the point where civilians have to get involved is going to be a big mix of sitting forever holding your local area especially for people who dont want to do anything besides protect there local area and big pushes to take territory in other areas
and i think any scenario where it comes down to civilians is going to be extremely under supplyed if there are any supply chains at all besides what you and the people around you showed up with
so i guess the real question would be what is the most lightweight warming layer you could possibly pack away and carry on you
Michigan Maine Vermont New York Minnesota Illinois etc
total euro death
>soldiers wear what they are told to wear and what they are given to wear
Smart soldiers bring their own clothes to supplement what they are given.
>this is about how normal Americans should prepare to fight in winter if anything
>and i imagine that would involve alot of sitting in trenches
This seems really unlikely to me. If the average American is fighting, it's probably against a conventional military, which means you're an insurgent. The very last thing you want to be doing is staying still. You probably don't even want to wear body armor/NODs. The entire point of an effective insurgency is to be able to blend back into the civilian population within minutes and/or beat feet away from contact as quickly as possible.
i guess thats fair also
alot of scenarios i imagine involve fighting like parallel to the national guard in some way or another whether they are fighting against a foreign invader or say a state secedes or anything like that
there arent that many national guard troops texas even only has 19000 and how many of them are logistics versus infantry so i imagine alot of civilians would be filling in lines for the national guard sitting in trenches in less important areas or something fighting more or less a conventional war but without access to any supply chains besides the ones random groups build for themselves
maybe that is unrealistic to prepare for or expect and i should focus more on insurgency type thinking but i feel like something like that would come before insurgency style fighting had to happen
and i feel like alot of "prepper" type people who run the groups that would probably be taking civilians willing to fight are planning to fight a conventionalish style war there are tons of videos of militas practicing running checkpoints digging firing positions etc etc and there is not alot of actual or like social infrastructure to even support guerillas in America so that would be even more difficult and suicide mission to prepare for a solo insurgency
neat
i assumed the biggest thing people would probably get in trouble for are wearing those fleece jackets
well i cant just show up somewhere with nothing but basic clothes a rifle plates and a couple magazines and expect anyone to not tell me to frick off
>Michigan Maine Vermont New York Minnesota Illinois etc
>he doesn't know their latitude
Buddy’s never heard of the Gulf Stream. America is much colder per latitude than Europe. Just look at climate data. Google is free
>Michigan Maine Vermont New York Minnesota Illinois etc
None of these cross the 50th Parallel, which is just halfway through Europe
Euros are myopic as hell. I live in Kentucky and we recently had a week were the low was around -15C. I was working outside and it wasn't even a big deal.
Americans just don't know what cold is. Their entire country is to the south of Italy.
Boomer "just toughen up and pull yourself by bootstraps" cold fighting aproach would work in the Egypt. In Russian you would just freeze to death on the 3rd day.
>Americans just don't know what cold is. Their entire country is to the south of Italy.
And apparently Europeans don't know what the jet stream is.
You’ve never been past the 50 line sport you don’t even know what cold is
-10 degrees for Europeans is literally +14 degrees for Americans
That’s nice you’ve still never been past the 50 line
Britain is not even Europe let alone Russia
>In Russian you would just freeze to death on the 3rd day.
https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/russia/moscow/historic?month=12&year=2023
Lowest recorded daily temperature in Moscow this past December was 5F
that ain't shit
>5°F is cold
Do euros really
>Americans just don't know what cold is. Their entire country is to the south of Italy.
full moron
You are so fricking dumb wtf
Alaska exists.
you're 100% right but you're phrasing it in a brovet gay way
>all these posters recommending a heavy parka to be worn under body armour
first off, if you're close enough to home that you're even considering wearing armour, you don't need a fricking parka lol. a parka is just a heavy warming layer, used only when you are standing still. look at the pcu layering system, it taught me how not to die when larping
in pic related it was -25 celcius/-13 faren - All I'm wearing is a cotton ss smock and a waffle thermal undershirt. on lower body its waffle thermals, and lightly insulated ski pants + overwhites (then goretex boots and very thick wool socks)
when you ruck through rough ass northern bush like this, if you wear anything heavier in temps below -30, you will sweat after 15 minutes. you sweat = you die the moment you stop moving without a fire.
if you aren't shivering cold before the movement begins, you will have to stop every 15 minutes to avoid sweating yourself into a frozen grave. same goes for wearing any kind of cotton that touches your skin
I love getting drunk with you guys, we're suprisingly similar cultures
t.western canadian
whoops, pic didn't upload right
Yep, that checks out. Exactly what I would wear in weather like that. The caveat, though, is in weather that's not as cold, but still cold and very wet, you need a full waterproof gettup. I believe Helly Hansen rain gear is the standard in Alaska.
weather just below/above freezing is a nightmare. can be more dangerous than a much colder/dryer day.
thankfully, it rarely dips back above freezing once winter starts for my area
In mine it's been swinging between -10 and +5 constantly.
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Outdoor Research Colossus Jacket. Extremely warm, made under their mil/LEO line, and you should be able to fit a carrier under it.
The PC has adjustments doesn't it? Adjust it over the parka
alternatively try if you can take most if not all pockets off the PC and get a chest rig made of webbing and stick the pockets on that
>how are you supposed to fight in the winter and prepare for it
>its easy to say keep moving and stay warm but what if you are holding a position for a long time and cant move around
>what am i supposed to do actually
Get a light jacket and wear a lot of layers, a parka is not the only option here.
As a Finn, this thread is amusing
You use a layering system with packable midlayers instead of a single bulky monolithic coat, every military on earth worked this out 70 years ago
I was going to ask this same question regarding ukraine volunteers, do they carry all their shit all year or does the army store their stuff, say you bring your own gear id imagine it could get stolen pretty easy, is there some sort of bases for volunteers where they can leave stuff im lockers or something?
>surviving the artillery and drones for more than one season
anon...
>You wouldn't survive in the Russian cold
I've been thinking about this all day because it's a bit of a meme.
People who live in cold climes speak about winter like some mythical force, but the truth is that the most important cold-weather skills:
>layer your clothing with weatherproof outerlayers, insulating midlayers, and a sweat-wicking base layer
>sleep elevated above the ground
>avoid sweating
take about an hour to learn. Everything else is just logistics. German troops in WW2 didn't freeze because they were stupid, they froze because they didn't get the gear they needed.
When I buy a jacket I just buy a waterproof shell and a liner. Don't get a jacket (wtf is a parka) that already has padding. Add the padding yourself with those liners that boomers are wearing as actual jackets. Those soft puffy ones with nylon on the outside, those are jacket liners. You line a jacket yourself, you don't spend shit tons on a jacket with set lining that you can't adapt to different levels of cold with different liners or multiple liners. This would solve your issue, I always buy them oversized to fit liners and SBRs underneath them. You don't have to worry about a big winter jacket fitting well anyway, you can't see your build in it.
This is also just known as a layering system. If it's super fricking cold I'll probably have a cotton hoodie under a liner under a shell. If I go inside I can strip off the shell or shell and liner and not be too hot. It makes way more sense than having one jacket that's only for very cold weather. They charge so much for those, and ridiculous amounts for 3 in 1 jackets. The best thing to do is get a sweater you like and would wear alone, a liner you like and would wear alone, and a shell you like and would wear alone if it's just raining.
get a russian surplus parka a couple sizes too big and sew a british surplus sweater into it. you store it in your kitbag until next winter
IIT, anon discovers why these things are fricking huge.
Wool cloak FTW
Have you considered only fighting in the summer?
>one i can barely close my parka over it and even unzipped and unbuttoned it is tight and does not fit good
Get a bigger coat.
>two even unzipped it is huge bulky with my whole plate carrier under it and that is without having any magazines on it and i cant imagine a backpack over the coat with all that
Get a bigger coat.
>and the third problem which is really the biggest problem is what do you do when it stops being winter
>do i just throw my coat away when it gets warm
No.
>am i supposed to carry that on me all year just for winter
Yes.
>am i supposed to rely on magic supply chain existing that gives me a coat for winter and stores it for me the rest of the year
No.
>how are you supposed to fight in the winter and prepare for it
Winter sucks, deal with it. The enemy will have the same problems.
>its easy to say keep moving and stay warm but what if you are holding a position for a long time and cant move around
Then you put on your coat.
>am i supposed to get a giant giant coat 2 sizes 2 big just to fit my plate carrier under it
Yes.
>and still am i supposed to just carry that on me constantly
Yes.
When moving/fighting, you really don't want to wear too much. You'll only feel cold for a moment.
Never wear it if you're moving. Roll it up and hang it on the back of your carrier whenever you're moving at all, and only put on when you stop for a long period of time. Your "warm coat" should be so warm that even a short sprint wearing it would be impossible without sweating because you're only ever supposed to wear it when you're completely still. And when you do stop, it should be warm enough that you can lay down in the snow for hours in one spot.
>do i just throw my coat away when it gets warm
Put it inside a elements-proof container, dig a hole, put the container in the hole and collect it next autumn. If for some reason you can't revisit stashes you've made and never tread the same ground you've been to, you'll probably just have to draw a small cart behind you (a sled in the winter) and just camo tarp it when you're scouting things on foot.