Boots!

This is coolbert:

So very apropos. From StrategyPage this item:

"Getting The Boot In Afghanistan"

"June 24, 2013: Twelve years of combat in Afghanistan have forced the United States to develop several generations of combat boots for troops fighting in the rocky hills, freezing cold, and scorching heat found there. Every two or three years a new boot design was created and issued."

Recall from that previous blog entry:

* "Doctrine, tactics and equipment are more suited to the conditions of combat and the environment."

That Rhodesian Fire Force troop going into combat as lightly encumbered as possible, wearing what is best described as a "running shoe". Equipment attention given to the combat "dress" that infantryman gaining an advantage.

Reducing the weight of the troop in the COIN environment vital, rapid and quick movement necessary when chasing an ephemeral insurgent.

American troops in Afghan going through several iterations of boot design, that which worked in Iraq NOT working in Afghan, and that general purpose combat boot too heavy - - adequate, but more than adequate desired on the part of all participants.

Combat boots as that term understood not worn by the infantry until at least that time of the Second World War [WW2]. Combatants of the era of the Great War for instance wearing for the most part what is best described as a low-quarter work shoe!

From my perspective speed-over-the-ground most vital during COIN operations that pair of modern combat boots weighing about three pounds [five kilograms] too much, an impediment that "stripped" soldier of the Rhodesian Bush War more suited for "the conditions of combat and the environment.".

That environment of Afghan rugged in way that is without equal. That understood! Merely replace boots [shoes] and socks when they wear out that cost small when compared to weapons and weapon systems.

coolbert.