All sorts of news is dropping as the pieces of the USMC’s new pack fall into place. We’ve just learned unofficially, but fairly certainly (see photo) that the Corps will be using a version of Camelbak’s new Antidote reservoir. This is a service specific version that is shaped to fit the FILBE Marine Corps Pack System hydration carrier. Camelbak will introduce the commercial MilSpec Antidote reservoir that will have features that the Corps felt it didn’t need for the FILBE fielding.
Tag "packs"
News of the Marine Corps’ FILBE pack contract flew in under the radar late last week. SYSCOM awarded a pair of contracts Friday, one for $50.1 million to Eagle Industries and another worth $47.5 million to Propper. Reading into the award brief, it’s clear that FILBE’s carrying a healthy dose of Mystery Ranch DNA*.
I called up to the Ranch this morning and got a few details on the award and the bag that Grunts will be shouldering next year.
Dana Gleason, the head honcho up at Mystery Ranch, spoke with me about their involvement with FILBE. Mystery Ranch ended up getting brought in as a subcontractor on a separate USMC contract to optimize and build a set of FILBE prototypes for testing. He told me: “We had a certain amount of time to play with it and look at the critical elements that were part of the system. We were there to optimize it as much as possible for the Corps. We were not there to try to turn it into something entirely different than its basic roots.” The Corps would ultimately incorporate features of the tested prototype into the final FILBE design.
The FILBE is three parts: the main pack, the assault pack and the hydration pack (which will contain a USMC specific version of Camelbak’s milspec Antidote hydration reservoir). The main pack grew out of Natick’s Airborne Pack System and is based on the ALICE frame-sized, government-owned, Downeast 1606 frame. Mystery Ranch took the Airborne Pack System & FILBE drawings and worked to optimize the main and assault pack designs for a month and is proud to see the Corps has adopted a few of the design enhancements. Shown at right is the Mystery Ranch version of FILBE mounted on their NICE BBS frame as opposed to the Downeast 1606 frame the Marines will field.
Gleason describes Mystery Ranch’s touches to the design by saying “anybody that looks at the hipbelt will go ‘oh, there’s some MOLLE in there,’ until they discover that we put a lumbar pad behind the back of the hip belt that stabilizes things ever so much more and locks [the pack] directly into to the frame.”
Other features:
- Stretchy material on the front face of the belt against the hips that cushions better than previous versions.
- Mystery Cinch in addition to a standard sternum strap.
- Forward pulling adjustment straps on the waist belt.
- Adjustable upper yoke that allows for true sprung lift on the shoulder pads.
- Upper yoke serves as a subframe for the bag itself if anything happens to the main frame.
- Weather resistant, spindrift style closure on top as opposed to the old-school multiple grommet-and-cord closure.
- 500d Cordura construction with 1000d reinforcement.
- Adaptable to fit several frames including ALICE, Mystery Ranch NICE and the Downeast 1606 frames.
“We saved weight, though it’s not really light,” Gleason said when I asked how much the bag weighs. He hints FILBE is not the bag you’d want to take on the Appalachian Trail. “Its basic genes still come from MOLLE. We built it in 500d Cordura with a differential cut bottom and a few reinforcing pieces of 1000d Cordura, especially in the assault ruck.”
Read MoreGranite Gear gave us a look at two of their latest designs last week at Outdoor Retailer. They haven’t been priced yet, and they haven’t really even been given names. The MPS 36, right, is a jungle pack based on the Chief Patrol design. It’s a smaller, 3-day-assault size (36 liters/2200 CI) that has a roll top opening while keeping the front access panel found on its bigger brothers. The frame is slimmed down a bit, and allows only vertical adjustment of the shoulder straps.
The other new pack, the MPS BDM, pushes the limits and blurs the lines between milspec and lightweight. As our nation’s operators become more athletic, they are pushing out further on recce missions than ever before. They are looking for gear that will get them to the objective without holding them up. The MPS Utralight looks like one of the answers.
Here’s a sneak peak of a prototype of Mayflower Research and Consulting’s new 24 Hr. Assault Pack. This is Mayflower’s first push into the pack market. Based on their other products, it’ll be bomber tough, light and free of useless features. It has a 100 oz. hydration reservoir sleeve, removable shoulder straps and can be mounted directly to your armor carrier or via the SwiftClip system. It will be available in the next 60-90 days. Mayflower says the production version won’t have black zippers. No word on price, yet.
We saw lots of packs at the show, but few had the organizational capability of the DA-Med Pack. It’s a smaller, sort of stealth cut M9 med bag. The Velcro lined interior isn’t a new idea, but Granite Gear took the interior pouches in a new direction. Instead of using traditional elastic loops, they decided to use bungee cords and stoppers to make a fully adjustable setup to carry everything from airways to trauma pads and just about any other odd shaped medical device that you need in your med pack. On the outside, you get a beaver tail pocket and a built in dust/rain cover. Available now in $140/$170 Coyote/MultiCam.
UPDATE: Kifaru KU site is live. Click here.
Kifaru’s new UL series of packs have landed. The series will consist of three packs to start; 2200,3700 and 5200 (shown above) cubic inches. To give an idea what ultra light means, their 5200 cubic inch pack weighs 2lbs 13 oz. They are using all kinds of high techness and plain ingenuity to wring the ounces out of the new bags while retaining the load bearing capacity you’d expect from the equivalent sized pack.
Composite frame stays made from Carbon fiber and exotic wood, double layered, micro-weight fabrics, zipperless access are features used to save weight on the new packs. All of Kifau’s packs are made in the US, so don’t be shocked when you see the price tags.
Kifaru is putting the finishing touches on their KU website and as soon as we have the URL we’ll post it. We were able to score some product photos and specs to tide you over till their site goes live! Thanks to Elk Reaper for the photo of the KU5200 in use.
| Size | Weight | Capacity | Price | |
| KU5200 | 5200 cu | 2lbs 13 oz | 100+ lbs | $558 |
| KU3700 | 3700 cu | 2lbs 9 0z | 70 lb load | $518 |
| KU2200 | 2200 | 2lbs 7 oz | 40+ lbs | $448 |
| KUKoala | 800 cu | 1 lb | n/a | $169 |
| KUE&E | 1000 cu | 9.5 oz | n/a | $104 |
Meet Antaeus, Arc’teryx’ would-be update to the Marine Corps doomed ILBE program. Antaeus was a baddass, skull-collecting giant whose strength came from his contact with the ground. He was eventually killed by Hercules, who figured out all he had to do was hold him up in the air and bearhug him to death. We’re guessing the pack’s name doesn’t resonate with the Air Force.
While the pack was stillborn and not in production, it’s still a fine pack that may find favor with a limited group of users in a commercial release. Arcteryx is showing it off in the hope that the odd SF unit, contractor or foreign military might express enough interest to bring the pack to market.
Background:
The ILBE was a militarized version of Arc’teryx’s alpine pack, the Bora. The Marine Corp signed with Propper to sew the packs under license from Arc’teryx. It had an alpine suspension system that never worked well with body armor. The Marines took the elegant alpine pack and bolted on a rocket carrier setup, portage handles and an assault pack. The Frankenpack was born. During the next six years, Marines fought through numb arms and confusing strap layout on a pack that was unsuccessfully adapted for military use.
The Marine Corps set about finding a replacement for ILBE last year. Pack designers, including the incumbent Arc’teryx, spun up and showed their wares to the Corps in January 2010. MARCORSYSCOM didn’t see anything they liked and gave up trying to find a commercially available replacement. In October, in a fit of irony, the Marines issued a sources sought notice for help building a pack of thier own design”based on the Army’s MOLLE pack.”
So, everyone that submitted designs to the Corps was now left holding their prototypes, sketch pads and development costs to date. Many of the other packs submitted for the Marine industry day were either off-the-shelf products or redesigns of existing products. Arc’teryx, though had to go from 0 to 96.6 km/h (they are Canadian) since they had the ILBE as their starting point. They went through a series of designs and ended up developing the Antaeus even as the Marines were deciding to turn away from a commercially available solution.
The Pack:
On the suspension side, the bird put a lot of work into making the pack work with body armor. They invested heavily in a 3D sculpted back panel system that cradles the back armor plate to steady the pack. They also reengineered the shoulder straps to spread the load further over the shoulder and chest.
From the bag side, the Antaeus looks to be based partly on Arc’teryx’s top of the line Altra pack. While the materials are more heavy duty, the 75L main bag size, alpine inspired shape, 12L removable top, are all the same. That U-shaped zipper at the bottom allows access to buried equipment without having to go through the spindrift top. They’ve added a 35L removable assault pack and a bit of PALS webbing on the outside in just the right places.
The pack is a looker, but 8.5lbs for the main pack and 5lbs for the assault pack a bit heavy. And, the taller, Altra-ish, profile means helmet clearance could be an issue– especially when in the prone. For now, the Antaeus is not available for sale except for the few T&E articles that sneak onto eBay. If you manage to snap one up, let us know what you think!
Dana Gleason, Jr., gave us a tour of the Ranch’s updated Comm pack, the Comm 3. The new pack adds modularity to the ruck. It’s set up to carry almost any radio in the main bag, four 5590s in a smaller external bag and a laptop in a third removable pouch. It all hangs on the Mystery Ranch NICE frame. The first version is setup for a CF19 Toughbook, but other configurations for different computers are in the works. The coolness in the new version is the removable laptop case that holds up to 24 feet of cable so commo types can run their radios from a far without losing the protection of the case. Other bits include a clear window top and passthrough for cables. They’re still working out the price but look for it on Mystery Ranch’s website in the late fall/early winter.
The new Camelbak Big Jump is a 4200 cubic inch jump certified ruck that features a fully integrated, wraparound jump harness. Some neat tricks are the snap-together zipper pulls, the internal radio harness, shoulder straps that stow in the backpanel, topside external load straps, and a reenforced handle for lowering line use. It’s made from 1000d Cordura fabric and will come in coyote tan and UCP. Camelbak is putting the final tweaks in place and is working out the pricing. We’ll let you know when they let us know.
The signature tri-zip design of the Mystery Ranch 3 Day Assault Pack BVS is all over the Pech valley on the backs of 2-12 INF soldiers. I’ve seen them in just about every color which makes me think Mystery Ranch cleared the warehouse to get the large pack order to the REF for the lighten-the-load study. The battalion command tried to order more for the rest of the soldiers that didn’t get REF gear, but were turned around by higher. Seems the bags are a bit to expensive for 4 shops to justify.
The soldiers love the bag and speak highlt of the comfort and durability. They point out the bolsters that come with the BVS model work. They lock the pack around the rifle plate and prevent it from sliding or twisting. I have a feeling a lot of these bags are going to be combat-lossed at the end of the deployment.
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