What can I say, I had to make it a triple-strike/3×3 thing of Crye Precision G3 posts 3 days in a row. Won’t happen again but I had to take the opportunity while it was here. Also as some may notice I’ve switched from posting just the one piece of gear at a time to posting sets where I can. That certainly won’t always be the case, but as it stands my most recent purchases won’t see the light of day (outside of mail call posts) for well over a year from now, so I’m really working to get that time gap down.

MC Tropic, Arid and Black were somewhat surprises to me when they released I must admit, I wasn’t following various brands as intently as I do now because I wasn’t going to things like DSEI and SHOT to report on the latest happenings in the kit world. All that aside however I think they were very interesting developments from a corporation that really built itself upon a foundation of a pattern that is specifically not specific to any one environment.

Generally speaking I just aim to have the overall best quality combat cut set in any given pattern I want to own (using industry standard fabrics for temperate/warm climates) and when it comes to Tropic and Arid in particular, I’d say the best sets are coming direct from CP at this moment in time. For MC Black I’m planning to go with the recent release from UF-Pro because, for my recreational purposes, their combat shirt really is the winning choice. I’m also yet to try their Striker Combat pants and I think they’ll make for a good review down the line.

Multicam Tropic put me off somewhat initially as it can have the distinct appearance of being just incredibly, eye-searingly green, as if it would only ever work in the lushest of rain forests. When you actually put it in a ‘typical’ temperate woodland though it doesn’t blend nearly as badly as you might imagine. Certainly once it’s been through a wash or two to take that slight edge off the colours it can work very nicely indeed.

By far my favourite ever pictures in the realms of ‘ex US SOF dudes with beards who now work in the tactical/gun/training industries’ are those from Magpul CORE where they’re testing out Magpul AK products in some tropical environments, wearing G3 field sets in MC Tropic. The combination of a green based pattern with the field cut conjures up a very distinct image of a modernised version of a soldier from the 90s – like bringing BDUs and CS95 in to today. It’s not an image that’s really been around much at all since the commencement of operations in Afghanistan all those years ago.

Threw this shot of the random dangling threads just to slightly highlight a point that no brand, no matter how gucci or expensive, puts out 100% perfect products. I will always recommend spending that bit more to anyone who can so that they get at least some level of QC and post-purchase service with the gear they buy. But on the flip side of that, I have never been under any delusion that any company makes gear that is infinitely durable while also superbly lightweight and utterly perfect in manufacture. I think some people see big price tags and expect gear that will last forever while feeling like pyjamas and somehow keep them super cool in the summer yet insulated in the winter; which is just not reality and won’t ever be until we invent nano machine Iron Man suits.

The Vehicle Mounted chest rig from PLATATAC. Somewhat old school design, but given how much usage rigs like this have seen you really can’t argue that they work. They’ll definitely take whatever you can throw at them and store your gear safe and sound.

Sadly they seem to have discontinued production a while back, which is a shame because I think they offered a lot better value than LBT gear does. But if you want to get an idea of how they put things together check out my video here:

Honestly folks even if you’re not planning to watch this video I’d really appreciate the click/tap. One of the criteria the NSSF go by when dishing out SHOT Show badges is YT videos with 1k+ views, so if everyone who saw this could literally just watch each video for a second then close it again that will help me greatly in getting to Vegas and bringing the best possible coverage on the very latest gear hot off the presses.

The Mk3 Tac Dax from PLATATAC. If you missed my video overview on these and you’d like to find out the details click here:

To summarise, you’ve got a mixture here of features based on Crye Gen 2 and 3 combat trousers with a dash of the Patagonia L9s. Good stuff like the 3 stretch panels from the G3s is in there, along with a padded waist and the waist adjustment tabs. I slightly prefer the G3 zipped pockets vs the G2/AC velcro flaps for the sake of security of small items I tend to keep back there, but that’s a personal preference thing.

I’ve mentioned before about having an FR ensemble for work purposes, not because it’s at all likely I’d need that, but even if the likelihood of need is tiny I really do not want to have melted polyester from standard uniform covering my skin in the event of something going super badly down hill.

To that end I have issued FR MTP trousers and combat shirt, a Massifbalaclava and these Bravo gloves from SKD Tactical, amongst a few other small items. The popular Alpha and Delta gloves of course make heavy use of common synthetics and would not be FR for the most part, whereas these Bravos retain the patterning of the Alpha with a full leather and nomex construction. Interestingly there’s a vaguely exotic combination of sheep and goat leather mixed in to these gloves with no cow hide.

There’s 3 problems with talking about boots on the internet:

1. Actually forming a genuinely informed opinion on even 1 pair can take ages, let alone the line up from a whole brand and double-let alone multiple brands. By the time you’ve figured out what’s good, they might well have stopped making that model given the market demand for constant newness.
2. To review a boot in-depth is intricate as hell, it’s also hard to define a lot of the qualities in a quantifiable manner and very, very personal. I don’t think it’s the kind of gear you can really talk about ‘just a bit’, you either go right down to brass tacks or do a very basic overview. Hard to be anywhere inbetween.
3. Unlike many other aspects of gear a person might use for a ‘tactical’ purpose, footwear of both military design and from the civilian/hiking type sphere is pretty much all applicable. There are lots of companies making amazing outdoor clothing that don’t offer camo for example, but with boots those aesthetics are irrelevant. This then opens up the range of feasible options available to levels that are almost hard to actually comprehend. The only other item that maybe gets close to approaching this issue is gloves, then maybe backpacks after that and just about everything else like uniform, helmets and load-carriage is far more specific to tactical stuff and the viable choices are made by far fewer companies.

Caveat with number 1 of course would be folks on constant deployments who can actually select their own boots, but then they’re usually pretty busy with more important things than doing detailed gear reviews (talking generally here of course).

What I will say is from my *limited personal experience* LOWA are the brand on top of my list. I’ve got an old-school black leather pair that are at least 9 years old now and have spent dozens of hours up to the ankles in bog and never leaked a drop; though they take looking after. When I know I’ll be doing the rare air force thing of actually slogging through mud and being miserable in the elements, they’re absolutely the pair I reach for. Totally the opposite build to the standard issue lightweight crap that I cut about base in when I’m doing some annual refresher that necessitates MTP instead of blues.

I picked up these Zephyr GTX models from UKTactical on a pretty sweet sale about 18 months ago (my usual delay in the gear posting queue). Now do I recommend gore-tex lined boots in general? Hell no. Should you buy nice bright, tan, suede outer layer boots for use in most of Europe? Also no. But when a very high quality product comes up at a very good price that’s also the time you should have been setting money aside for.

GTX lined shoes can and will overheat and sweat-soak your feet in any weather above ‘quite cool’ but as with anything if you make sure your kit suits your environment you can stay comfortable. So don’t wear these things in the summer. I keep them for pure and exclusive winter time usage unless I’m expecting to get very wet in the spring/autumn. The GORE-TEX® Products liner keeps in a decent amount of heat allowing a comparatively thin and light boot to work well under some physical exertion down to typical UK winter temperatures. Despite the arid climate appearances, I found the lack of any venting or mesh panels as you’d see in an actual arid climate boot to create a pretty good balance overall.

They worked borderline perfectly when paired with some good softshell trousers and moving through a lot of common British countryside terrain. Long wet grass, woodland mud and forest foliage that’s all sodden post-rain or dew; or just permanently wet through December. Far from any sort of environment that poses any real danger to anybody’s survival, but still the sort of terrain I’ve witnessed completely soak the cordura boots and cotton blend trousers other people were wearing. They spent the next 6+ hours being damp and uncomfortable, could’ve been longer had the sun not put on a strong appearance. And why did they have to do that? Because they wore all the same gear they do in the summer months and *maybe* brought a Goretex jacket, totally ignoring the kinda-shitty inbetweens that are the actual reality a lot of the time in a lot of temperate countries.

While that sort of thing may be far from cool to talk about, it’s honestly what I think most people should be equipping for most of the time, certainly in the hobby arena. Like how often do civilians need a tourniquet vs how often do you see people pushing blow-out kits with chest seals on social media? It 100% makes sense to prepare for the worst no doubt but when I build a FAK I put in gel for small burns, plasters, tweezers etc THEN I think about maybe a compact TQ and some bigger bandages. How often have most people in their daily lives encountered an injury that’s just annoying vs one that’s really life threatening? I’m going to wager the ratio is in the region of 100000 to 1, so yes prepare for both to some extent, but definitely make sure you’re ready to deal with the niggling little things and not just the Hollywood moments.

Appreciate that seems like a real tangent, but it’s a good analogy to my mind. These boots have served me well for the bad end of the spectrum of weather that doesn’t require more niche or specific survival gear. This particular model is very light, flexible out of the box, comfortably lined inside and most importantly built to the quality I’ve come to expect from LOWA. I’ve seen the soles come away from tons of other boots, I’ve seen inadequately thin synthetic materials wear through and fail under minimal usage, I’ve seen laces snap far too quickly and eyelets pop far too easily. Not with this brand. Good shoes are crucial. A rip in a shirt? You’ll carry on pretty much just like before, not the case if your boots totally fail you.

I’m happy to say the wait is finally over and the 2nd half of my article on uniform basics is now available on ITS Tactical.

Seeking Uniformity: Differences in Battle Dress, Field Cut and Combat Cut Uniform Bottoms

As with part one, the basic idea is to go over archetypal features on 3 styles of tactical type apparel in order to hopefully aid folks in their purchasing decisions. In this instance, having already covered shirts, I’ve gone over the old school military issued trouser, the modern commercial field cut and the ever popular combat cut. Of course there are hundreds of different brands and designs out there to choose from so I did have to generalise quite a bit, but the overall goal is that having read both parts of the piece you should be able to identify what you’d need and then go out there to the gear stores and classifieds sites and pick the right thing for you.

If I can recommend an item of equipment that’ll make your life that little bit more comfortable when you’re trudging through some woodland in October, it’s kinda cold, drizzling and just generally “a bit shit” then I’d recommend softshell trousers. The same thing of course also applies for proper heavy rain, even lower temperatures, snow, pushing through tall grass that’s soaked in morning dew etc.

I’ll let the pictures here do the talking in terms of the features you expect find on an issue set of PCU L5 lowers, I’d much rather extol the virtues of the item than describe the details. Any questions you have an of course go in the comments as per. Sufficed to say they’re built somewhat like an over-trouser in some areas but still absolutely 100% functional without another layer underneath. Though that insulation option is there with some Level 1 or 2s closer to the skin when all the water around starts turning solid.

I had such a good experience when I took my Beyond Clothing L5 trousers (which are an earlier block in the Alpha Green) through a weekend game run by Warzone Battle Simulation, that it became abundantly clear these things were the way forward in non-summer type conditions. Whether you’re deployed, on an exercise for days/weeks or playing BB wars for a couple of days, the key parts of your uniform should keep the wind out, the sun off your skin, resist some rain and most importantly of all dry out quickly when they inevitably get wet. If anyone reading this hasn’t spent time wearing damp trousers because they only brought/wore their gore-tex garment for the upper body I’d be truly amazed. Wet clothing in general sucks a big one, it’s bad for your skin and hygiene over extended periods, clings to you when you want to move, weighs a ton with the water absorbed, hampers using the actual pockets and the list goes on. Softshell does absolutely all the things that matter so much better than your regular PyCo or NyCo trousers it’s not even funny.

Problem is of course the fashionable thing to do is wear the same combat pants in literally any and all weather then maybe put on a softshell jacket if the clouds roll in and the mercury drops a tad. I get the mindset entirely, I’ve been there, we all concern ourselves with our torso because the brain cares far more about the vital organs than our legs. A lot of folks really would be well served by changing their mind set in this regard however and I know this isn’t my first time banging this particular drum, but bang it again I shall and I’ll do it again in future.

The problems I see outside of the fashion issue (which actually applies to those serving just as much as those having fun) is two fold. Primarily there’s a huge lack of reasonable options on the commercial market, unlike cotton-blend uniforms. The lack of demand means lack of supply and there’s a lot of mid range companies who only seem to offer softshell jackets with no lower halves in production. Or if they do produce them, shops can’t or won’t stock them. That said, in the US at least, the SF issued PCU L5 pants go for a small fraction of the jackets on eBay, also Big Army issuing a softshell layer as parts of ECWCS means there’s an actual f*ck ton of product out there. In multicam that is.

Problem again though is that for people who buy their own stuff there’s a lot of social media ‘influencers’ who rarely seem to mention the genuinely all-up most economical option like mil surp uniforms, because they’re too busy bigging up whatever 5.11 or LBX released just now. Those aren’t bad brands per se for airsoft or recreational shooters, but I don’t think enough people are sufficiently suspicious of folks who get stuff to ‘review’ things. Hell be suspicious of me if you want, I always say when I get free stuff to talk about and if you think I’m being way too positive about an item feel free to disregard my opinion, go find other articles/videos and form an aggregate conclusion of your own, I’ll never discourage it. This is yet another reason I think ITS Tactical is one of the few highly popular outlets that’s specific to gear and really worth paying attention to; Bryan over there could have sponsorships and discount codes pouring out his ears if he liked yet I’ve lost count the number of times on Gear Tasting he’s said to get on eBay or groups/forums for surplus kit. Exactly the same thing I always have and will continue to recommend.

Despite really not being particularly numerous in private hands, I got these Patagonia AOR2 lowers brand new in the ever popular medium-reg for an awful lot less than Crye All-Weather Field pants (pre price jump), just because the aforementioned demand isn’t really there. Granted they’ve got a few less pockets than the Cryes or other offerings from Beyond. Their biggest downfall for me is having articulated knees that totally lack a pocket to insert a knee pad and those are probably the kinds of things that cause people to stick to their NYCO Crye-type trousers. But standalone kneepads are still a thing one can buy and did you ever actually fill up all the pockets on a set of G3 trousers? I’ve never even got close. Even in work when I’ve got multiple key sets, multiple phones, notepad and gloves, plus my usual everyday things, issue PCS trousers do me fine capacity wise.