Friday, February 12, 2016

Army Paratroopers Testing New Airborne Ruck

U.S. Army airborne and Ranger units are testing a new, jumpable pack with a built-in equipment harness. The MOLLE 4000 is the Army’s new airborne rucksack, designed to satisfy requests from paratroopers for a pack that’s smaller than the large MOLLE ruck but with more capacity than the medium MOLLE that the Army introduced in 2009 for up to 72-hour missions.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice to see the ALICE recived an honorable mention in the article. When the MOLLE rucks were first fielded, the black plastic frames would break under their own weight. They were replaced by the "foilage green" frames and seemed to hold up much better. I carried the medium external frame pack in Afghanistan circa 2013 and it was really handy. If you have not seen them, it is the middle point of an assault pack and a large ruck. I have seen a few runing around the surplus market but for collector prices. You can do better for a 72 hour pack for the same money.

The amount of MOLLE webbing and weight of the milspec cordura translates to more weight so the pack in the article will not be the best suited for the ultralight user. Modularity and bombproof durability would get it a big fat yes, however.