Hearing to focus on troops’ heavy combat packs - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Hearing to focus on troops’ heavy combat packs

A key House lawmaker wants the Army and Marine Corps to consider low-cost ways to help ground combat troops more easily carry their heavy loads of ammunition, water and equipment.

“We have to do something,” said Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s tactical air and land forces panel. “We cannot expect them to carry that much.”

Bartlett said he is pleased to hear some combat units are using donkeys and mules to carry such loads. He thinks they should also consider goats — which he has raised on his Frederick, Md., farm — as well as wheeled vehicles like garden carts, or even sleds when moving over areas where wheels are impractical, in order to reduce the stress on troops’ backs.

His panel will hear from Army and Marine Corps officials on Thursday about efforts to reduce the weight of equipment and body armor, along with other planned improvements in combat-related clothing and gear.

With backpacks and protective gear often weighing 130 pounds — and sometimes more for those packing extra ammunition — military commanders concede that the load is great, limiting mobility and agility and likely causing increases in back, shoulder and leg disabilities in Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

“No farmer would carry that kind of weight,” Bartlett said. “They would find some way to roll it or slide it or drag it.”

Bartlett said he isn’t talking about having the military design an expensive, high-tech armored garden cart, but rather low-tech solutions that are inexpensive and durable. “In this high-tech environment, you often overlook the low-tech solution,” he said. “I’d like to know what might work.”

The Army will have a soldier at the hearing, wearing body armor and carrying a backpack weighing about 125 pounds, so lawmakers can get a firsthand look at the load that combat troops are often expected to carry.

Military officials have tried to cut the load, but as they find lighter weight armor and gear, they also keep adding to the items being carried.

In testimony prepared for the hearing, Marine Corps officials say the average assault load carried by Marines is now 58 pounds, down from 112 pounds two years ago. The Army says the average load is now 68 pounds, down from as much as 130.

However, Bartlett said his staff has found that the standard pack can be 105 pounds for a team leader, 144 pounds for a Mark 48 gunner and 133 pounds for a 60mm mortarman. Much of that weight is in ammunition, water and food.

Bartlett said he has reviewed the lists of items carried, and thinks it is all essential equipment, which is why something needs to be done to help carry the load.

One of his ideas is to sponsor a competition involving university teams to come up with ways to make it easier for ground patrols to move.

“I know that pulling something is better than pushing. That is why two-wheeled garden carts replace the wheelbarrow,” he said. “If you cannot pull something with wheels because of the terrain, you can slide something. There are a lot of very slippery composites to make this possible.”