PMCI - February 2017

The same happened before WW2 after the experiences of The
Great European War, as WW1 was known and again after each
successive campaign to date.
What was the average weight the soldier was expected to carry
that overloaded him and seriously reduced his combat efficiency?
British, European and American studies from the outset all arrive
at a weight of 55 to 60 lbs. At first glance this may not appear
too great a load, especially when distributed about the soldier’s
body. But it’s the pre-assault loading of extra ammunition (for
personal and support weapons), combat breaching (grenades
and explosives), and defence stores (sandbags, wire and pickets),
the introduction of steel helmets and gas masks, plus all the
other “little items”, today as then, that are deemed useful in
assault but not regularly carried, that push the load up in excess
of 80lbs. Even surpassing 120lbs during periods in WW1 and
2 and in my experience regularly since. No wonder, with that
load, soldiers failed to decisively capture an objective and even
failed to arrive on objective at all, due to physical exhaustion.
Fortunately after the 1890s, the soldier no longer had to carry a
spare pair of trousers and boots into the assault, but greatcoats
were still carried and 15,000 of them were “dumped” by troops
in one WW1 withdrawal: soaking rain adding 20lbs to an already
very heavy coat.
So what is the ideal combat load? I remember reading Captain
Basil Liddell Hart’s memoires about his experiences of the trenches
and his remarking about how the combat load his soldiers had
to endure kept on increasing. He raised the point that a cavalry
horse to perform at optimum should not be loaded beyond a
quarter of its body weight and that pack mules were restricted to
loads of 1/3 body weight; whereas the poor old infantry regularly
staggered through the sucking mud of no-mans-land loaded with
2/3 body weight. Since then, successive studies into what should
be the optimal combat load for an infantryman have arrived at
a figure of 1/3 body weight, on average 35 to 40lbs, in order
to reduce fatigue and maintain a soldier’s battlefield agility,
endurance, and effectiveness.
From my chance encounter with a company of Paratroopers
on a country road in Colchester it would seem that in 2017 we
have still not managed to attain that elusive “magic” combat
load figure. As such, our soldiers are loaded up just as much as
their forebears were 2000 years ago: Taliban heard in radio traffic
referring to patrolling British troops as “tortoises” or “camels” as
they regularly patrolled with loads in excess of 50lbs. Perhaps
though, soldiers of today can take comfort from the fact that a
soldier on the eve of the battle of the Somme in 1916 was loaded
with 80 – 100lbs of equipment, whereas our modern Universal
Soldier equivalent in 2017 carries an 80 – 100lbs burden of
“lightweight” equipment.
References: B H Liddell Hart Memoire, Volume 1 and The
Soldiers Load: Historical Data, Appendix 1 to Annex A, HB (A)/
CM/6/3, Dated 5 January 2004
Our thanks go to Peter Bing MIExpE, Specialist Security and
Operational Support Adviser for kindly letting us reproduce this
article.
SPECIAL REPORT: A SOLDIER’S LOAD
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