Airsoft Canada - View Single Post - Ergonomics

Oborous · January 12th, 2012, 12:20

Some of the comments made have lead me to believe that we should discuss how to wear the gear.

Partially for the impressionist crowd, partially for people that are looking at getting into the Forces themselves, partially because after dealing with body armour for five years it just annoys me to see people wearing it wrong

First, this is not to be how to wear clothing, this is to wear First Line, Second Line, Third Line gear correctly.

Second, You very, very quickly start making compromises. I rarely see the duct/gun tape, paracord, carabiners, etc on airsoft load outs that I see on the 'real' gear that I've seen. Mission drives the gear, and most of the time it just sucks for all that you need to carry.

Third, there has been a big trend to lighter gear in the past three years. This means less capacity and less redundancy to actually achieve the primary mission. You'll notice this bias in my posts, and if you're going for a specific year impression you'll need to be aware of this.

Ok, Armour, many people, including actual warfighters wear it wrong. If you have lightfigher access, Read Here, it's fantastic distilled knowledge. What it basically is saying that you need to wear your plates over the parts of you that are most vunerable with considerations for kinestics and probablilty of being hit there. People don't wear their plates high enough, you need to have the plate start no more than 2.5cm (1 inch) from your clavical notch. For plates, and note the Plates, not soft armour, when you are sitting they should be ending no more than 5 cm (2 inches) from your legs; this generally corresponds to your bellybutton.

Soft armour is a whole different can of worms. Logistically the Military uses many less sizings than Law Enforcement (generally), and is designed for maximal coverage due to low velocity fragment effects (IEDs of all varieties). The important thing here is, unless you're just wearing plate backers, that you need to look at your Mission/Model. If you are Law Enforcement, they often give you overlap at the sides. This is to allow you to get a bit rounder in the five years, and to slide and still give you coverage if you're bending over. All you need is your armour to touch the front panel and back panel, no overlap is required. You might notice armour behaves a bit strangely in the last 2.5 cm around the edge, so some manufacturers recommend 2.5 cm of overlap for that purpose.

Basically, set up your Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) first. That keeps you alive, that is most important for you personally. I know we're airsofters here, but don't get into sloppy habits incase you do go into a .mil or .le occupation.

Drop Leg Panels/Holsters These are much more appropriate for .le Tactical Assaulters, where you need many contingencies and options on the Use of Force continum for short duration, high intensity shock and awe breaches. They are also useful for direct action missions where you have a very long secondary, or other speciality purpose (such as many 40mm eggs because you have a rotary GL and are dropping mass amounts of smoke, or have specific fire missions already planned).

Basically drop-leg's slow you down more than having the same weight on your hip or your vest. It fatigues you in movement and it shifts around where the items are relative to your arms. If you have something on your hip, you will know exactly where it is at all times (via practice), and muscle memory will allow you to draw the sidearm with good grip easily; you put it on a drop leg, it might be slightly off of where you think it is and may not have that good of a grip on it.

However, if you are going to use a drop-leg, wear it properly. The swivel point is to be as close to your natural swivel point as possible. Do not put your drop leg so low that you're having to bend to get at items, you need to have it as high as feasible and you want the swivel as close to your hip joint as possible, and the swivel needs to be on the outside. Many people run them very much on the front, like a pilots leg board, which is improper for a ground-pounder. Look at this. There is an actual, proper study that said 1lb of drop leg weight increased your fatigue rate by .7%, which adds up really quickly, I cannot find a link for it anymore, if anyone has seen it, could you post it here?

Lastly, Weapon Retention/Slings/Lanyards, how many hunters do you see using their sling when they're about to take a shot? Very, very few (unless you're using something like a Ching Sling to help with steadying the firearm and to deal with recoil). The reason for this is a sling impairs your mobility and ergonomics. Everything to do with this is a compromise, realize this off the bat and that what works for you may not work for someone else because they're doing things differently. I am continually surprised at how many people cheap out on slings in airsoft, I'd argue they're relatively more important to us (airsofters) than the real face-shooters because of how a game goes. You arrive at a field, gear up, stand around listening to the briefing, walk out to your spawn point, play game, have breaks, etc. We are constantly using our sling, the only time that Military uses it more is for long foot patrols.

Airsofters should buy good slings! Often our Airsoft Guns are not as durable as the real thing, so you don't want them failing and droping your expensive Airsoft gun onto rocks.

Don't buy a three point sling, unless you know exactly when it's beneficial (sometimes with SAW/LMG/MMG/GPMG), just don't. One point, Two Point, and One/two point convertable; vest mount one point, yoke style one point, etc. there are lots of options. Basically, look at your options, buy something good, try it out, don't be afraid to buy again. Make sure that when you're transitioning that you don't nut yourself (A problem with many one point slings). Realize that a one point sling is better for high intensity small geographic region operations (i.e. assault a building), two points are better for large areas of operation (playing at Claybank).

Lanyards for sidearms are a very good thing. Airsoft pistols are expensive and not used that much, replica holsters may not have the best of retention, using a lanyard can really save you losing an expensive piece of kit. Many of the gear manufacturers that I know in real life don't make them because they all say 'Buy the Gemtec, I don't see how I could improve on that design, so there is no point'. The madbull one actually is a real GemTec, just sold through airsoft distributors, found this out when I ordered OD from them and it came as FG, I chatted with both companies. I have not seen anything better, but there are a few other ones that are close. The thing is to put the retention far enough away that it doesn't bind when you are moving and then hamper you when you draw. If I'm doing a side, vest mounted pistol holder, there are times that I'll put the lanyard retention high up on my shoulder blade, it allows for easy draw and gives me lots of slack for pointing the pistol, and it prevents the pistol from falling out onto the ground (for the gemtec it'll hang at calf level, which can help preventing a tripping issue).

What else should we talk about? We have the gear forum for what mag pouch to get, etc., I just see improper PPE, Drop Legs, and Weapon Retention causing problems for executing TTP's on an individual and small unit scale. I'm wondering about talking about Radio Placement?

January 12th, 2012, 12:20	#1
Oborous Trader rating Join Date: May 2008 Location: Edmonton, AB	Ergonomics - How to wear gear Some of the comments made have lead me to believe that we should discuss how to wear the gear. Partially for the impressionist crowd, partially for people that are looking at getting into the Forces themselves, partially because after dealing with body armour for five years it just annoys me to see people wearing it wrong First, this is not to be how to wear clothing, this is to wear First Line, Second Line, Third Line gear correctly. Second, You very, very quickly start making compromises. I rarely see the duct/gun tape, paracord, carabiners, etc on airsoft load outs that I see on the 'real' gear that I've seen. Mission drives the gear, and most of the time it just sucks for all that you need to carry. Third, there has been a big trend to lighter gear in the past three years. This means less capacity and less redundancy to actually achieve the primary mission. You'll notice this bias in my posts, and if you're going for a specific year impression you'll need to be aware of this. Ok, Armour, many people, including actual warfighters wear it wrong. If you have lightfigher access, Read Here, it's fantastic distilled knowledge. What it basically is saying that you need to wear your plates over the parts of you that are most vunerable with considerations for kinestics and probablilty of being hit there. People don't wear their plates high enough, you need to have the plate start no more than 2.5cm (1 inch) from your clavical notch. For plates, and note the Plates, not soft armour, when you are sitting they should be ending no more than 5 cm (2 inches) from your legs; this generally corresponds to your bellybutton. Soft armour is a whole different can of worms. Logistically the Military uses many less sizings than Law Enforcement (generally), and is designed for maximal coverage due to low velocity fragment effects (IEDs of all varieties). The important thing here is, unless you're just wearing plate backers, that you need to look at your Mission/Model. If you are Law Enforcement, they often give you overlap at the sides. This is to allow you to get a bit rounder in the five years, and to slide and still give you coverage if you're bending over. All you need is your armour to touch the front panel and back panel, no overlap is required. You might notice armour behaves a bit strangely in the last 2.5 cm around the edge, so some manufacturers recommend 2.5 cm of overlap for that purpose. Basically, set up your Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) first. That keeps you alive, that is most important for you personally. I know we're airsofters here, but don't get into sloppy habits incase you do go into a .mil or .le occupation. Drop Leg Panels/Holsters These are much more appropriate for .le Tactical Assaulters, where you need many contingencies and options on the Use of Force continum for short duration, high intensity shock and awe breaches. They are also useful for direct action missions where you have a very long secondary, or other speciality purpose (such as many 40mm eggs because you have a rotary GL and are dropping mass amounts of smoke, or have specific fire missions already planned). Basically drop-leg's slow you down more than having the same weight on your hip or your vest. It fatigues you in movement and it shifts around where the items are relative to your arms. If you have something on your hip, you will know exactly where it is at all times (via practice), and muscle memory will allow you to draw the sidearm with good grip easily; you put it on a drop leg, it might be slightly off of where you think it is and may not have that good of a grip on it. However, if you are going to use a drop-leg, wear it properly. The swivel point is to be as close to your natural swivel point as possible. Do not put your drop leg so low that you're having to bend to get at items, you need to have it as high as feasible and you want the swivel as close to your hip joint as possible, and the swivel needs to be on the outside. Many people run them very much on the front, like a pilots leg board, which is improper for a ground-pounder. Look at this. There is an actual, proper study that said 1lb of drop leg weight increased your fatigue rate by .7%, which adds up really quickly, I cannot find a link for it anymore, if anyone has seen it, could you post it here? Lastly, Weapon Retention/Slings/Lanyards, how many hunters do you see using their sling when they're about to take a shot? Very, very few (unless you're using something like a Ching Sling to help with steadying the firearm and to deal with recoil). The reason for this is a sling impairs your mobility and ergonomics. Everything to do with this is a compromise, realize this off the bat and that what works for you may not work for someone else because they're doing things differently. I am continually surprised at how many people cheap out on slings in airsoft, I'd argue they're relatively more important to us (airsofters) than the real face-shooters because of how a game goes. You arrive at a field, gear up, stand around listening to the briefing, walk out to your spawn point, play game, have breaks, etc. We are constantly using our sling, the only time that Military uses it more is for long foot patrols. Airsofters should buy good slings! Often our Airsoft Guns are not as durable as the real thing, so you don't want them failing and droping your expensive Airsoft gun onto rocks. Don't buy a three point sling, unless you know exactly when it's beneficial (sometimes with SAW/LMG/MMG/GPMG), just don't. One point, Two Point, and One/two point convertable; vest mount one point, yoke style one point, etc. there are lots of options. Basically, look at your options, buy something good, try it out, don't be afraid to buy again. Make sure that when you're transitioning that you don't nut yourself (A problem with many one point slings). Realize that a one point sling is better for high intensity small geographic region operations (i.e. assault a building), two points are better for large areas of operation (playing at Claybank). Lanyards for sidearms are a very good thing. Airsoft pistols are expensive and not used that much, replica holsters may not have the best of retention, using a lanyard can really save you losing an expensive piece of kit. Many of the gear manufacturers that I know in real life don't make them because they all say 'Buy the Gemtec, I don't see how I could improve on that design, so there is no point'. The madbull one actually is a real GemTec, just sold through airsoft distributors, found this out when I ordered OD from them and it came as FG, I chatted with both companies. I have not seen anything better, but there are a few other ones that are close. The thing is to put the retention far enough away that it doesn't bind when you are moving and then hamper you when you draw. If I'm doing a side, vest mounted pistol holder, there are times that I'll put the lanyard retention high up on my shoulder blade, it allows for easy draw and gives me lots of slack for pointing the pistol, and it prevents the pistol from falling out onto the ground (for the gemtec it'll hang at calf level, which can help preventing a tripping issue). What else should we talk about? We have the gear forum for what mag pouch to get, etc., I just see improper PPE, Drop Legs, and Weapon Retention causing problems for executing TTP's on an individual and small unit scale. I'm wondering about talking about Radio Placement?