Back in 2015 the Mexican Marine Corps (Cuerpo de Infantería de Marina) adopted the Hyperstealth US4CES transitional pattern as their primary camouflage, with the minor addition of a Mexican Navy service crest interspersed in to the design.
The Mexican marines really went all in on this camo, to include adopting and issuing an extensive array of personal equipment specifically made in their new standard pattern. Not only different types of shirts and trousers were issued, but all of their load-bearing equipment and almost every item down to rifle slings, gloves, snoods, straps on goggles, velcro patches etc. A small portion of their kit has been manufactured by FirstSpear in Missouri, to include a quantity of Strandhögg armo(u)r carriers in the Hyperstealth camouflage.
Since the Mexican armed forces are of course working on a tighter budget than their Northern neighbours, it is somewhat surprising they issued so much gear with the camo pattern integrated. It would have been far cheaper to just take the more common route of simply buying bulk quantities of solid-coloured small items, such as gloves and slings. However, looking around a couple of big chinese retailers online, it is fairly evident where much of their gear made in the fully matching patterned materials has been sourced.
Given that one of the key criteria for the MMC when buying kit is low pricing, it is again a bit of a head scratcher as to why they even considered a top tier US company like FirstSpear for some of their armour carrying vests. My best guess would be that certain, specifically highly trained units within the MMC had a requirement for better gear than the more commonly issued chinese stuff.
While this is still a FirstSpear product with the associated production quality, this particular version of the Strandhögg was required to be produced as cheaply as possible by the MMC, so it is probably the most basic and trimmed-back version of this carrier that exists.
Instead of the usual 6/12 laminate of cordura and velcro loop, the main fabric is 2 layers of cordura, which is of course the standard for most brands who are laser cutting their gear and more than up to the task. Also where a normal FS product would feature pattern matched webbing, loop and stretch fabrics; this variant simply uses solid tan instead. On the inner surfaces of the plate bags the specially cut foam pontoons of the full featured have been omitted, as have many other upgrade features seen on the more recent V2 and V3 versions of the carrier.
Content I am posting now in 2025 was mostly photographed back in 2020 so I can only apologise the imagery for this item isn’t the best, but I am always quite strictly limited in terms of opportunity and equipment/location for capturing images of equipment. There will be more content showing this carrier with other pouches attached both here and on my social media accounts in future.
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