I never jam my ruck full, because there is always something else they give you just when you think you‘re carrying it all!
From extra C6 ammo to defensive or OBUA stores to meals, to whatever other crap they didn‘t put on the kit list, I run out of room pretty **** quick if I don‘t carefully whittle down the useless crap I don‘t need out of the ruck.
This last weekend, I almost got burned, though. We were on Ex at Fort Drum, NY (thanks for setting that one up, QOR!), and I put my longjohns in the follow-up kit, which of course, we only had sporadic, brief access to, and not at all before doing OBUA rehearsals Saturday afternoon.
Fort Drum this time of year reminds me of the northern wastelands of Saskatchewan. It was cold, windy, and barren flat landscape. The only thing missing was the 6 feet of perma-snow and there were a few more trees and bushes than the praries, but nothing over 3 metres high.
Luckily another member of the section about my size had a spare set of longjohns he loaned me.
Of course, another lucky thing was that it was an airmobile OBUA exercise, and so the rucks stayed in the platoon biv area. Everything we needed for the Ex we pretty much had to carry in our webbing, or at most, an extra nuke bag.
(depending upon role in the Platoon)
