[Modern Firepower] Technothriller gear for secret DHS team in 2017

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Right. Hang on... my 'military boot knowledge' days are 20 years out of date and relates only to grunts. The boot of choice back in those days was Altama, which 'cannot' be resoled (it's a single sole and to resole one is almost the cost of buying a new boot - it ain't worth it).


The Rockys Jumps look to have the same sole as my Altamas, and yeah, the Rockys Tacticals look 'impossible' to resole too.


All the guys I've known from the Army, they never resoled their boots... because they didn't wear good boots. They all wore Altama... so... yeah, I bet there probably was a cobbler who'd hit base or was set-up near or right off base for anyone buying better (Corcoran was the premium boot back then*) boots.

* Still is as far as I'm concerned. Corcoran makes a good boot.

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

I like Under Armour

My mom only buys Rocky's* and since they do not sell them where she lives I end up buying them for her every few months because the soles come unstuck from the rest of the boot

Is that the sort of thing that can be fixed?

In Huntsville TX (prison capital of the free world, and home to very many CO's with limited means and a desire to wear black polishable footwear that is very often boots) there is a store that advertises 'Need a little sole? Shoe and boot repair'

*not the military version. Black polishable side zip tactical boot model

Originally Posted by acrosome

Yes- still sold. And yes those are among the more modern "sneaker-like" boots I referenced, like the Rockys. Hell, both Nike and Reebok make combat boots nowadays, and they look exactly like you would expect.

Oddly, the boots that I always see the cobbler working on are various makes that look like the old issue jungle boots, like the McRaes. (And the Corcorans, too.) Maybe they're just damned cheap and easy to re-sole? Lord knows that the soles are soft and wear flat fast.

There is a reason that I still have my black Corcoran field boots even though they haven't been wearable on-duty for almost a generation.

... damn, I'm getting old.

The actual cowboy boots that Taylor received were probably either signed out of storage (if clothing is ever seized as vehicles and other expensive stuff is in smuggling cases) or bought by an agent used to supporting undercover operations, to approximate the outfits of the real C.J. Everett on any number of pictures they have of the guy.

The real Everett wore cowboy boots whenever he was off duty, including when he rode his bike. He also wore them for social occasions, dancing, dining and running errands. I'm guessing that the real Everett had a number of pairs of cowboy boots and at least one of them was fairly comfortable to wear.

The real Everett was in debt, credit cards mostly and the financing on his bike, and lived considerably above his means, which most likely was a factor in his agreeing to the straw purchase of the rifles. So he might have had some nice brands of boots, being fairly vain and putting a considerable importance on flash-looking things.

Is anyone aware of a make of leather boots that has the classic Western / cowboy look, ideally with a fancy patterning that at least looks like ostrich, alligator or something exotic, but are comfortable, sturdy enough to ride a bike in, but not hopeless as general purpose footwear either?

Basically, what do you wear when you want to look fancy, but do not want to suffer any penalties to action-adventure stuff for your footwear?

Originally Posted by johndallman

Something you could have done would be to simply buy a pair of moccasins. Having them with you doesn't help if you go straight from the bike into combat with stealth, but if there is any preparation time, putting them on doesn't take long, and they're +1 to Stealth.

Are moccasins something that seem likely as a choice of footwear for Taylor, raised in Luverne, Alabama, and then a career in the US Army, living variously at Ft. Bragg, NC, off-base on Georgia for a while and in Afghanistan or a variety of Latin American locations?

I'm genuinely ignorant of the prevalence of moccasins among US soldiers, Southerners in general or in Central or South America. Taylor's former unit, the 7th SFG(A), speaks Spanish, are immersed in the cultures of the Latin American countries where they spend much of their time training allied military units and there is allegedly a pronounced tendency among the soldiers serving with it to marry girls they meet on their assignments to various countries in Latin America, so anything that is popular in Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Belize, etc., might be expected to be adopted by the soldiers.

I know that the cowboy boots cannot be the only footwear Taylor has with him. At minimum, he runs every morning, so he'll need running shoes. Probably a pair sold at the PX, for less than $80 (the allowance the US Army issues for the purchase of running shoes), because that's what he'll be used to. And not a new brand, either, something popular before 2011, when his service came to an end. That seems to have been mostly Asics and New Balance running shoes.