When an army battalion is attacking the enemy I would imagine that they would drop their backpacks for greater freedom movement. If I am correct the how or whose job was it to retrieve these backpacks ??? lease: PS - If a silly question then I have an excuse lol
Often pondered this myself. Taking the British army and it's Pattern 1937 (P37) webbing equipment as an example I believe that they wore slightly different variations depending on what they were planning. The set has a small and a large pack variation and I think the large pack was only worn when marching between campsites. If action was expected then it was handed over to the supporting HQ personnel and carried in follow-up motor transport / animal transport depending on when and where they were operating. During action they either kept the patrol order webbing (including small pack) on them or dropped what they could with the hope of regaining it after the end of the action. Either picking it up themselves or the supporting units doing so. There is an anecdote in the biography of Major Gullett (AIF) of him in action in Normandy discarding all of his webbing when he got caught in some barbed wire. He doesn't get a chance to retrieve it before the unit is relieved and he gets chipped for looking like a tramp with torn clothing and no equipment.
Thanks David. What you have said makes sense. I suppose if a soldier was killed during the action, the burial detail would remove his webbing and return it to RQM so as personel items could be return to next of kin.
They can have two packs a large and a small or day pack, not sure about WW2 but post WW2 large pack was dropped as soon as gun fight breaks out, leaving the soldier with his ammo ets and a small pack with some rats and other bit's and pieces the soldier feels he needs. You pick it up your self unless you are lucky enough for a mate to do it. Otherwise in WW2 they placed their big pack and other belongings with the Btn QM and just carried the small pack & webbing which is possibly what we see in pictures of Brits from WW2
I was discussing this with a national service RSM other day who served in malaya. He informed me that when an attack or fight broke out, they'd all drop their packs and leg it up front to where the attack was, however they'd do their best to leave a couple of lads guarding the packs as in Malaya the enemy would send squads circling around to nick all the packs, leaving them high and dry in the jungle.
Thank you both Cobber & Kitty for your answers. When I see some of the soldiers now operating in Afganistan and the size of the backpack they now wear, I would hate to be caught in a fire fight with the enemy wearing them. John
60+pound loads in large packs can be standard, depending on the various missions. Thats not counting ammo, rifle, grenades, or parts/warheads of support weapons you may be wanted to carry. SASR and SAS in Borneo often carried huge loads esp with the radio recption in Borneo. A side note of intrest The first Aussie SASR to die in war like service while deployed on Claret Ops was gorged to death by a rogue elephant in the jumgles of Borneo, Well into Indonesian territory multiple SLR rounds shot into elephant, man was trying to avoid animal however his tusks got under the log he was hiding behind and gorged him to Death. Animal survived. So it depends on when in history we are talking about, to see what they did with packs, since WW2 the forward movement of pack technology has allowed for much larger packs as well as some great day packs.
