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Old 07-24-2015, 03:36 AM   #3
weby
 
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Join Date: Oct 2008
Default Re: The Last Gasp and Hiking

On hiking and rest times:
When in army back in late 1980s we did three types of foot movement:
Quick marches with minimal load(Just tracksuit+weapon Approx 6kg total: In GURPS terms likely no loead):It was more running than hiking.. and you were definitely tired after it but you could cover 25km between breakfast and lunch..

And then we had three types of normal marching:
With just battle gear(uniform+helmet+boots+webbing+weapon+extra ammo+eating utensils+water+overcoat for a total of about 13kg, in GURPS terms likely light load): The movement speed was at a brisk walking pace and the official rule was that 50 minutes of marching and 10 minutes break with a 30 minute food break instead every 4 hours. After the initial conditioning period, this thing was not tiresome in any real way, though you might still have things like blisters and such, but other than that you could repeat it at will.

With full pack (above and the backpack with things like second uniform, sleeping bag, several changes of underwear and more.. about 18-25kg more depending of if it was summer or winter, so in GURPS teems likely heavy load). The movement speed was noticeably slower, more like a slow walk. The official rule was the same as previously(50+10 minutes) but in practice you did get tired from this and two four hour periods was about maximum as you were pretty tired at time.

With everything... I mean everything that is platoon equipment divided between the people in the platoon.. Meaning we had things like anti-tank mines, heavy machine guns, tents+related gear, Anti-tank launchers and more.. In practice everyone got 10-20kg more over the full pack load. I do not know what the rest rules were, but the movement speed was normally really really slow.. and you did still get tired, part of it is that a lot of that extra gear had to be carried uncomfortably(much of it was big and bulky).

(Though once when participating in the national infantry skills competition, our company got a boatload of points by doing the last in less than half the time of the second ranking team over rough ground and 5 km distance.. as we had loads of district level, several national and couple international level athletes serving and we basically though about the load distribution, had a lot of people who in civilian life did heavy training(like the guy who ran those 5 kilometers carrying 80+kgs in his hands in addition to his full pack) and had people like the second ranked national orienteering guy pick the route(and do scouting of routes by running ahead in lighter pack) and such.. we were thus basically able to job the 5 kilometers with that load and pick the best route and such.. All the other teams took more like the normal heavy marching approach... basically our team was the handpicked platoon with best individuals from all the platoons in an unofficial "sports company".)
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