"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares more about than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature with no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
I can see that it looks that way but they don't. The mags sit quite snugly but maybe it is also something to do with the way that kit discipline ie returning empties to the pouch as part of the reloading drill and keeping pouches fastened is so deeply ingrained in British training. I know it is simply good practice but the British training regime makes it a genuine "muscle memory" and almost paranoic at times. In basic training an insecure pouch resulted sometimes in a very unpleasant learning experience usually for the whole platoon!
It is one of those things that just never leaves you and I am still affected by it but now it's my pockets and work bag / rucksack etc it's the old "riding a bike" syndrome and I am sure some people who notice think I am a bit mad
Regards
Mark
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares more about than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature with no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
I must look in the attic. I used to have two of the British pouches. I always found them easy to extract and replace the mags in, one handed, but they did seem to have small covering flaps and would let mud in quite regularly!
When I entered the Army in 1974 we still had the old magazine pouches designed for the M14 magazines. Each pouch could hold 2 m14 magazines or 3 M16 magazines. I was surprised to see 4 M16 magazines in one pouch in the photo that Decima posted.. I have a pair of pouches and just now I stuffed 4 M16 magazines into one. They are a very tight fit, and I agree with MAP that they are hard to dig out. As far as I know, no more than 3 magazines were carried in one pouch. In a battery I was in during 1975, those on guard duty carried 90 rounds; two magazines in each pouch and one in the rifle, 18 rounds per magazine. If extra ammo were needed it was carried in bandoliers, not the ammo pouches.
8465-99-130-0248 Pouch, Ammunition, 1958 Pattern, Armalite (holds 4 20 rd mags used by NZ, Aust, & UK) 1965
8465-935-4871 Case, Small Arms Ammunition M16A1 Rifle (M1956 purpose designed holds 3 20 rd Mags) 1966
8465-890-2014 M16 Ammunition Pocket (holds 2 20 rd Mags USAF) 1967
8465-935-6780 Case, Ammunition M16A1 20 rd Magazine (M1956 purpose designed holds 3 20 rd Mags) 1968
8465-926-6610 Case, Small Arms Ammunition M16A1 Rifle (M1967 holds 3 30 rd Mags) 1969
8465-464-2084 Case, Small Arms Ammunition M16A1 Rifle (LINCLOE holds 3 30 rd Mags USMC) 1971
8465-00-001-6482 Case, Small Arms Ammunition, LC-1 (M1972 holds 3 30 rd Mags) 1972 renamed ALICE in 1974
8465-00-001-6482 Case, Small Arms Ammunition, LC-2 1975
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