Re:The Overloaded Soldier: Why U.S. Infantry Now Carry More ...
by doodliego on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @12:56AM
(#18853565)
Not too quibble too much, but US Civil War soldiers were marching all over the eastern United States, not just for parades and pageants. They went through rough terrain, with no guarantee of supplies, and many soldiers ended up barefoot when their shoes fell apart. And many times they had to keep it up for days on end in order to escape or catch up to an enemy.
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Re:The Overloaded Soldier: Why U.S. Infantry Now Carry More ...
by ryanmercer on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @06:27AM
(#18854814)
Fair, but they also carried considerably less weight at 40-50lbs versus the 80lbs that a Roman legionnaire carried and the 100-120lbs troops deployed in Afghanistan could be carrying.
The Civil War actually looks like it was a low point in historical military kit weights. (see The History of the Soldiers Load by Lieutenant Rob Orr Volume 7, Number 2, Winter 2010 https://www.army.gov.au/our-future/australian-army-research-... )