BOAR Circa 1988

[Gadge Europa]

Re: BOAR Circa 1988

Double post, soz...

[Mercy]

Re: BOAR Circa 1988

Yes as previously noted the spell checker "helped" me on that one.

The load out is possibly too SF but, the kindney pouches really do suck and the roll pin buckle is for convenience. Some games require the addition of body armour to ride in vehicles and having to fiddle with the P58 belt to re-size it every time I want to jump on a ride was tedious. Thanks for the advice though I shall return to mostly lurking.

[Gadge Europa]

Re: BOAR Circa 1988

BTW the reason you wont find many pictures of INIBA and CBA being worn is its designed to be worn *under* the smock for a few reasons but the most notable are..

With INIBA it looked less hostile than wearing body armour in streets, it had the added advantage of making even the weediest 18 year old look like arnie.

The other reason and this is mainly for CBA is that if you wear your armour *over* your smock you cant get to your chest pockets and more importatly if you wear it over your smock then the contents of your smock pockets (pens, compass, sweets, lighter whatever) get punched through your chest if you take a hit to the plates or are caught in a blast.

It's being worn more than you'd think it's just not as overt as the early US vests or newer osprey types.

[Brandon]

Re: BOAR Circa 1988

The load out is possibly too SF

I wouldnt say its SF at all tbh, other than the E&E pouch what you have definitely resembles the lads in the video clips you linked & i can see the point about using the E&E pouch over kidney pouches. But as mentioned 44 water bottle pouches were used right through the 80s & not just by SF. In the 80s documentary 'The Paras' (also worth a watch) you see the lads with 44 pattern water bottles in NI. Also, roll pins belts weren't exclusively used by SF by this period. Lots of lads used them. It was also common to have the ends of the roll pin belt stitched onto a 58 pattern belt. I have a mate who is an ex KOSB who did just that.

[Mercy]

Re: BOAR Circa 1988

Well that certainly makes more sense! Body armour UNDER the smock...now why didn't I think of that?! So...less hostile to the civilians than a chap walking along with a machine gun? Now that sounds like political decisions taken here, not really thought out.

One more question if I may...the sizing scheme with centimeters is easy to use but I have never been able to find a list of what sizes equate to the 1-9 sizing format of the 60/68 trousers. I did find a great explanation of the smock sizing but not a thing on the trouser sizing. Can you point me in the right direction?

Oh and watching "The Paras" now...excellent, thanks!

[Gadge Europa]

Re: BOAR Circa 1988

Weirdly it is perceived as less hostile.

Combats and a rifle are pretty much prime requisites for the job of soldiering and common enough a sight in the 60 and 70s bt body armour, cam cream and helmets screamed 'vietnam' and made it much more obviously a war.

You'll note that when things calmed down a bit the army went back to berets on patrol for exactly that reason, also one of the reasons saxon, pigs, ferret were used rather than tanks ... armoured cars resonate hostility just a little bit less than tracked armour (there are other reasons for the UK/Germany split of Wheeled/Tracked armour as well...)