What is the basic load out of the common soldier going on a patrol?

What weapons, grenades, equipment etc? Also, do you have to return all your ammo and account for spent shells like required at Hohenfels or Graffenwohr?

Just interested...

Not sure about grenades, but it's 210 rounds for M16/M4 (7 magazines) and 75 rounds (5 magazines) for 9mm.

Having someone policing up spent shells after a firefight would be beyond stupid.

Minimum for us was

210 5.56 For every Rifle
3 HEDP and 1 Red Star 40mm for our 203's
600 5.56 linked for SAW's
1k 7.62 linked for the 240's
2 PRC's for the squad
NVG's for every dude
At least one change of batteries for every device except radio's, needed two spares for that
Water
Food for one day
1 Corpsman

IIRC that was the most basic needs for every squad heading out. Of course we carried more stuff but that was the crap we HAD to have.

And no. We kept all equipment except for radios sometimes on us 24/7 and was only replaced if used or broken

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Having someone policing up spent shells after a firefight would be beyond stupid.

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I guess I should have rephrased the question... If you leave with 100 rounds and return with 33, do you have to be able to explain where the other 67 went and sign to it so they know you aren't keeping it? But if you don't have to return the live ammo it is moot anyway.

[This message has been edited by Say Chowdah (edited 2/1/2012 4:48p).]

There were always threats of needing consumption reports for operational ammo, but nobody ever figured out how to enforce that.

I always carried:
10 magazines x 25rds 3:1 mixed M4
4 magazines x 25rds straight tracer
ACOG/MARS sight
PEQ 4/15 laser
MBITR/Harris dismount with 2x extra batteries
Iridium PTT radio
NVGs with 2x extra batteries
compass, maps
civilian DAGR
phrasalator or SQID (garbage) with extra batteries
camelbak
chem light buzzsaw
5-6 extra chemlights
folding knife, leatherman
flex-cuffs
mini flashlight
2-3x smoke grenades
2-3x non-lethal grenades (rubber ball)
notebook

other guys added various things as required, like M203/M320 with appropriate ammo

Vehicles we carried 2,000 rds per M240 or 1500 rds per .50cal, plus WALK kits, folding litters, satellite radios, etc

Amazing what one can look up based on military acronyms.

Couple questions if you don't mind:

Why 4 mags of tracers?
Is the buzzsaw what I read? A chem light and 550 cord to use as a marker beacon for air evacs?

And thanks for the input everyone!

What 1st Rangers has is pretty close for the joes. I never carried 14 mags, usually 9 at 28 rds each with 3 for the M9. We had ammo bags in all the trucks as well. Nobody carried the minimum 210 rounds.

As an officer I carried star clusters and smoke, no frags. The guys all carried a pair of frags.

Nobody counted rounds or kept track. When I got to my bunk there was a box of loaded mags, both M4 and M9. That was after we had been given our issue of ammo at Bagram.

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Why 4 mags of tracers?
Is the buzzsaw what I read? A chem light and 550 cord to use as a marker beacon for air evacs?

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Tracer to mark targets for heavy weapons on the gun trucks or aviation.

Yes, a buzzsaw is a chemlight with 550 cord to mark an LZ. We had both regular an IR ones for night.

What about the mandatory wearing of the reflective belt during combat operations?

I recall hearing that the average grunt carries more in weight than a medieval knight.

According to http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/call/call_01-15_ch11.htm the avg wt is 91 lbs.

A complete suit of plate armour made from well-tempered steel would weigh around 45 pounds (James, Lawrence (2003). Warrior Race: A History of the British at War. St. Martin's Press. pp. 119).

I always carried am minimum of two cartons of smokes along with the rest of my ammo load. That was for our short missions. The way we smoked over there, it's a wonder we didn't all get lung cancer in 7 months. Quitting when I got home was a biatch.

For perspective, the loads vary by mission and the tactical and climantic environmnet. A survey (in the field) of a Marine infantry platoon in Afghanistan in 2001 found that weights carried by the Marines varied by billet from 81 to 148 pounds with 112 pounds being the average. In 2010 the same survey of an infantry platoon in Afghanistan found that weights carried had dropped dramatically and ranged from 44 to 75 pounds with 58 pounds being the average. Some of that difference is based on newer lighter equipment but a lot has to do with the "maturity" of the theater of operations. In 2001 there was very little ability or infrastructure to resupply Marines in the field. There was also a a bias toward taking equipment "just in case." A decade of dismounted patrolling has taught the institutional lesson (for the zillionth time) that weight is torturous and sometimes deadly.

Seventy years ago the two Marine Raider battalions realized an innovation in infantry mobility on Guadacanal when they employed native porters to carry their heavier supplies and assist with moving the wounded. Carrying only a minimal amount of food, water, weapons, and ammo they were able to cover great distances on foot very quickly and attack the Japanese in areas the Japanese had deemed safe and out of reach of US infantry. The Raider battalions did not attempt to seize and hold ground from the Japanese but just inflicted as much damage as possible and then withdrew quickly.

S.L.A. Marshall's book A Soldier's Load and the Mobility of a Nation is a great study on equipping infantry and the imperative to keep them as agile as possible.

^^^^

This.

I despised how armored everything was. Including us. With the new Flaks issued we were semi-mobile Heskos. Our trucks were always breaking down due to weight overload. We never ran anywhere. Fastest speed possible was a decent trot. My second tour we fortunately had a 1st Sgt. who was ex-Recon and fully understood the importance of getting rid of he "just in case" BS supplies we had to take. He fought tooth and nail and won mostly on making sure we carried stuff we actually needed. Our first 1st Sgt. was a career winger who messed up our order of battle and the way we did things so badly we ended up almost mutinying. Mixed with our absolutely worthless CO at the time, we were an extremely uneffective force who kowtowed to everyone we came across because we had to. Jesus I could go on and on about those two.

Oh yeah police calling in a war zone? Yup we did that under them. Police calling Iraqi trash outside the wire so the RC rolling by wouldn't be offended by the trash and the living conditions of the Iraqis. After the second Marine went down to a sniper while police calling I think they finally got the hint and stopped it....good thing too. We were doing everything in our power to ensure the next bullet hit them instead.

But yeah to get back on track nobody carried the minimum. We always carried more. Especially ammo. I personally carried 10 mags and a nutsack of linked 5.56 for our SAW's of my own choice. Extra batteries to since I ended up becoming an RO towards the end of the deployment.

When we got the plate carriers, authorized for units in Afghanistan operating above 5000 ft., it helped a lot. My basic load went down to 38 lbs. That's just the plate carrier, ammo, radio, pouches for batteries and NVG's.

By contrast the IOTV, body armor, with all of it's parts attached starts at 38 lbs, with nothing attached to it.

The real answer here is it's mission dependant. Some of my Marines would only carry 5 magazines of 5.56. If you carried a SAW, you usually carried 600 rounds, and we weighted the patrol with about 1,000 7.62 per .240.

We had to carry ladders (to get on top of compounds) and demo so that took up a lot of weight.

At one point, we were carrying atleast 2 full APOB sets (to clear lanes), and atleast 6 wall charges which consisted of 6 blocks of C4. Each APOB set comes with two packs that weigh about 50 lbs each, so you can imagine how it changes things.

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The real answer here is it's mission dependant.

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Here is a chance to explain what you did and what you took to complete the mission.

I assume that you understand that this is a forum to question others, not flame. I think it is interesting to see what all of you did.

I am actually honored by talking to all of you!

[This message has been edited by Say Chowdah (edited 2/2/2012 7:11p).]

I carried the magazines of straight tracers because, when the **** really started popping, I found that firing nothing but tracers to mark targets and ensure situational understanding gave my guys confidence. I carried the 14 mags because I could drop empty mags and not have to worry about needing resupply on mags for a while. When working supported by vehicles I carried 8-10 magazines and kept others stacked in the vehicle.

The chem light buzzsaw is exactly what you said. It's extremely effective for marking pick-up/medevac landing sites.

Yes, all the extra stuff is "mission dependent", but as a platoon leader, MiTT leader, BN Assistant S3, and company commander I never was tasked to carry the Hooligan tools, etc. Although as a PL I did carry the WARLOCK blue and as the MiTT guy I carried one of the three dismounted DUKE systems. When I carried the DUKE I obviously had to lighten my ammo, etc load so that I could still run.

[This message has been edited by 1stRangersAg (edited 2/2/2012 8:32p).]

Boo on the WARLOCK!!! Damn thing was a death sentence. The Syrian sniper cell working our area thought they meant something really important and dropped every Marine that had one. After 4 KIA's and 3 WIA's we finally packed them away. And we never once had evidence that they were using RC in our area.

The blue was junk anyway. It seriously had like a 5 meter bubble. I think it was only designed to give people a warm and fuzzy between the ears.

Understand Chowdah.

Well as a platoon commander, I carried 6 magazines of 5.56 (if I needed more than that, than I probably wasn't using my primary weapon enough...the radio, or I was a really bad shot), two M67 frag grenades, two colored smoke for medevacs and a red pop up flare that was used to signal the QRF when we had a casualty and comm was lost. They would link up with us at the last location that a successful position report was sent up.

I carried a hand held radio and had a radio operator follow me with a larger radio.

Most of the riflemen on the patrol carried some sort of demo, due to the IED threat. We would blow holes in walls, use lines charges to clear lanes, etc. I required at least one corpsman on each patrol and at least one medium machine gun.

Here is a video that gives a pretty good idea as to what we were doing and carrying. The green box like backpacks are APOBS. Which is a rocket propelled line charge that clears lanes or obstacles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wEW5UVXemc


[This message has been edited by klbevan (edited 2/3/2012 12:37a).]

Screw those APOBS!! hahaha. I was an 0351 and 140 lbs. sopping wet. Those things sucked to hump. And Sangin was a nightmare. we did one battalion op there. Never again. I think it actually got worse than our platoon AO, Bakwa towards the end. And that is saying something since Bakwa was a gold plated SOB as well.

I watched that video and it gave me chills. I have had pretty much that very same conversation verbatim at 12:30.