When going into battle does the military actually uses stripper clips and bandoleers anymore? Do they carry one pouch with 3 loaded mags? Anyone know how many rounds is standard and how they carry?

usually 7 -30 round mags

When I was in the Army we carried 7 empty mags and were issued the bandoliers in "combat" situations.  210 rounds was standard carry.

Bradd

I have a GI belt with suspenders on which I
put 4 GI mag pouches, 12 30 rounders.
Another set up has 4 pouches, 16 20 rounders.
12 bandoliers
That is just for the AR!
For the M1A I carry 4 pouches, 8 20 rounders.
I am working on getting more bandoliers and
stripper clips.

Bandoliers and stripper clips are very functional and you should endeavor to get as
many as you can afford.

Hangfire, you know how to do it! Gotta have A LOT of firepower! [uzi]

"Standard" GI load is seven(7) 30 round mags. 6 in your vest and 1 for your rifle. Bandos are issued that have 4 pockets with 30 rounds each on strippers. (120 rnds). The bandos themselves are adaptable to hold 30 rnd mags, so you can get 4 more mags from supply, load them up with ammo and have a way to carry it too. Makes basic Army combat load 210, plus 120 each for bandos.

Actual "combat" anything goes. Recon especially has carte blanche on ammo and mags.

Personally I keep six 30's in the tac vest, a C-mag for the gun, and one 4 pocket bando in the buttsack. (easier to move around without it over your shoulder.) Gives me 280 rnds readily accessible, and another 120 in reserve for a combat load of 400 rounds. Can't do THAT with .308 can you [;)]

read somewhere once that anything past 300 rounds and you loose over all combat efficiency due to weight and mobility restictions.  fixed point defense would be considerably more i imagine.

israelis on light patrol in the old city (before the present situ) would only carry two 30's strapped together.  soldiers traveling had no mags in their rifles.  now ?

steve

Israelis of combat units, while in travel or in "police" patrol, carry only 2 30 rnd mags. Soldiers NOT in combat units don't carry weapons.
The use of the two 30 rnd mags are intended not for combat, but for self defence only. In combat a EPHOD LBE or a SAYAR vest is issued.

Anything past 300 rounds a drag? I bet they didn't do that study with .223 the way I carry it. 120 rnds in a buttpack is there if you need to get to it, but not a drag because it's not in the way. 6 mags in the tac vest balances quite well and is a common load anyway. Cmag isn't that bad, doesn't affect balance much. Only thing the weight does is make it a little less weieldly. GREAT for fixed point defense as you can fire the equivelent of 3 1/2 mags before reloading. When on patrol use a sling and it's no big deal to carry.

Vest, weapon, reserves, next thing you know you have 400 rounds. Remember, when you won't have a re-supply, you only have what you can carry. Combat situation ammo and water takes precedence over nearly everything. Even shelter and food (to some extent). That's not to say you can't eat, you should always have a plan for that, i.e. 1-2 MRE's for patroling, food should not be an issue in defense, and during movements you should have re-supply at your destination of a vehicle with supply as part of the advance party or behind your column.

This sounds like the Clinton policy for Somalia and Bosnia.  Absolutely insane!!!!!!

I was a Supply Officer in the Navy and at one point assigned to support the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado. I tell you what the SEALS carried more than 100rds per man.

HOw many of you guys saw the SEALs special on TLC. A lot of the Vietnam vets they interviewed said they would rather carry rds. than any other gear, except for a radio. On guy said, I believe he was a CPO, he carried close to 900rds with him.

Sorry Dave did not mean to sound like I was undermining your answer. I shoulda said that I thought the show was off.

The soldier carries ammo for his own weapon
and also ammo for the heavy guns and ordinance.

AR 13 x 30. M1A 9 x20. Spare bando in butt pack.

Some of those SEALs on TLC looked like actors to me.  Not all, but the ones with the M-14s in the mountains had non-military gloves (blue?)and boots (brown, suede hikers with red shoe laces) on.  They looked kinda goofy and unprofessional to me.  Maybe they ran out of good footage?  They certainly showed the cool firefight scenes over and over again.

Is there a great advantage to a tac vest over the regular y-harness right with mag pouches on the belt?

SEALS still use the M14 a lot, it is still the Navy's standard rifle, there is 20-30 of them on every surface ship.  If you look at footage from the Gulf War, a good way to detect the presence of SEALS was to look for M14's in pictures.

SEALS also buy civilian clothing and mountaineering gear.  It a tradition going back to the beginning of the teams.  In Vietnam, at least according to Kevin Dockery's book, Levis with Ho Chi Minh sandles or Converse All Stars were frequently worn by SEALs in the Delta and the Rung Sat.  This has decreased through the 80's and 90's as Special Ops units have come to have top priority in the military budgets and can get special order equipment.  In the SEALS though there appears to be a tradition of considering government supplied personal gear to be inferior to what is available on the commercial market- its a purely subjective opinion ingrained in their orginizational culture.

But the red shoelaces are a mystery.  I thought it was "tradition" to replace shoelaces with 550 nylon parachute cord that has alternate survival applications?.

Thought I'd add in another nickel's worth since we got to talking about SEALS. First if I were a SEAL, (it would depend on the mission of course but) I would want to have as much ammo as possible. At least a hell of a lot more that 210 rounds for sure.

Also what is more of a drag on overall "combat effectiveness" than ammo is some first sergeants. At least 2 1SG's I've been under have had a real anal gearing towards uniformity. "If one person has it, everybody has it." Screw that crap. For the most part I will carry socks, 1 change of BDU's, 2 MRE's, water, and ammo out the ass. (plus rain gear, knives, flashlight, other small stuff I can't live without) NBC bag, no thanks, it's in my duffel on the Deuce. PT mat, why? We're only going to be gone 3 days. E-Tool? Screw you, I'm not carying that. Shelter half, you gotta be joking. My camo civilian tent ways half of that, and it's not a "half" of a tent.

Anyway, I agree with lordtrader, more ammo, less crap!

One guy definitely has red laces, I have a copy of the show on video.  They aren't wearing any headgear, either.  The rest of the segments have SEALs with camo face paint and boonie hats or cold weather knit beanies and white camo.  But these guys are in the mountains (some snow on the ground) carrying M14s with the barrels pointed *up* and tromping around like it's their back yard.  They are traveling extremely light--only two pouches and a canteen.  I know SEALs like M14s, but this has got to be staged!  Maybe they're real SEALs who quickly threw on some gear so that the Disco channel could get the right shot?
 

[b]red shoelaces..??[/b] and?
I hope you don't think you were watching an actual combat mission...that was a demo for people in TV land. They were wearing what they felt like wearing and were most likely instructors.

Navy guys don't usually have high&tight haircuts, wear cowboy boots and tight jeans yelling hoo-yaaah while on liberty. Those quys were SEAL's not actors.

I seem to remember the basic load from the Vietnam era as:

10 20 rd mags with 18 rounds each plus another mag in the weapon.

2 bandoliers of stripper clips, 100 rounds per bandolier.

1 box for the M 60 100 rounds.

2 frags

2 smoke grenades

A buddys unit  (company sized)carried a 60 MM mortar set up so that it could be used without the baseplate. Each member carried 1 mortar round! Whew!!

The smoke grenades and M 60 ammo were usually tied on the back of your LBE. The theory being that if you were engaged, or dead, the grenades would be available to the Plt Ldr and the M 60 ammo easily accessible to the M 60 crews.

Now I do not have firsthand experience with this in Viet nam, as I was stationed in FRG. But had friends who were there and this is what they described to me as the basic load. It did vary somewhat from unit to unit but generally followed the above.

The LBE at the time had two pouches that caried only 20 round mags.  Don't know how the other mags were carried.


Add to this water, c rats and extra socks. Plus towel and other necessaries the grunts had quite a load.

One trick for drying out your socks, stuff them with c ration cans and tie them on your gear.

Of course if you were assigned to the radio ....


Geoff Ross