 Hello everyone, Dylan Schumacher, Citadel Defense. Welcome back to another edition of American Minuteman gear. And today we're gonna talk about why the chest rig. If you have been following this channel or this series rather for the past couple of years, you know that this whole series started because I went to a semester at one shepherd. And there I wore traditional belt kit, like kind of Vietnam style era belt kit, right? So I had a Mali padded belt. I put some suspenders on it. And that's where I carried my water and my butt pack and some more sustainment type stuff around the waist. And that's when I really started to make the transition away from plates and a pistol belt, kind of a more SWAT style, direct raid, direct action style, mission set gear thing into a more sustainment style gear thing. And this whole series has been kind of documenting that journey. And now we're at the place where I wouldn't say I've come full circle, that's silly, but I've certainly evolved into a slightly different direction than I originally intended or at least originally thought I would go. And for right now, and again, this could be different in a couple years from now, we'll wait and see, I have landed on the chest rig as kind of my default kit over and against plates and over and against a belt style kit. And there are a couple of reasons for that. And I've probably mentioned them offhand here, there and everywhere else, but I don't know if I ever consolidated that into one video. So here we go. This is my argument for why the chest rig. Now, hey, right at the outset, if you don't like the chest rig or you think it's crap or you've got a system that works or whatever, well, hey, it's America, do what you want. This is just my reasons and my argument for why I would select the chest rig over and above everything else. So let's talk about the pros and then I think there's one semi-con depending on how you count it to the chest rig. The first pro is that the chest rig keeps your hips clean. And what I mean is there's nothing that has to be on your belt. That's important to me for a couple of reasons. One, when you're making a longer movement in the field, it just feels better to me to have your hips free. Could be a total personal thing. Could be some kind of science behind it. I don't know, I don't care. I just know that when I'm doing a lot of walking, it's nice to not have anything binding or pressing on or around my hips. And so that just frees me up to feel less tired at the end of movement in the field. So I like to carry my stuff up top, then, and not on my hips. The second reason about keeping those hips free is that it gives you options. And the first one is you can actually use the waist belt on your pack. If you're running traditional belt kit, for example, you really can't use the waist belt on your pack. Yeah, you can maybe do it and a lot of people will like set up like a shelf kind of system on their butt pack, right? So their pack will rest on their butt pack and that kind of utilizes their belt as a waist belt. And so they help to try to distribute weight that way. And that's all well and good and I've done that. However, I have just come to prefer the waist pack, the waist strap on the pack itself. It was designed with the pack, it was designed with purpose. It also can be pulled really tight and that gives you your abs something to press against. Very similar to like using a weight belt for deadlifts or squats or overhead press. It gives your core something to compress against and therefore helps keep your posture better on longer, heavier rucks. So I like to use that waist belt whenever I can and if I'm able to do that and carry fighting gear well then hey, so much more the better. So that I think is a really nice feature. It also keeps your hips open because then it allows you to add other things as you would so need. So if you would just need an extra belt, right? With some extra gear, maybe some extra rifle mags some more water, maybe some small sustainment stuff or just empty pouches cause you might have to throw something in there. You can do that. If you wanna wear a pistol belt, right? You wanna wear a pistol, maybe some mags to feed that pistol and to feed your rifle. Well then hey, you can do that because like I said, your waist is free. So it gives you those options. The other thing I really like is speaking of the compatibility of the chest rig is that it can go on or over a plate carrier, right? You can either, if you have the style that clips it into a plate carrier, you can do that. Or if you don't have that, you can just throw it straight on over the plate carrier. So again, it has the most versatility. The advantage to putting a chest rig over a plate carrier or clipping it into a plate carrier versus having a separate plate carrier setup is that it's simpler and cheaper. I mean, it's just, again, it's the same rig so there's no change. And then it's cheaper cause you don't have to buy a bunch of other pouches for your plate carrier. And then the other thing that I like is it's consistent. So again, it's the same setup. Whether I'm wearing plates or not, it's all the same setup. Nothing changed, nothing moved, it's all just there. And if you have a small brain like I do, that might be a big advantage to you. Another really big reason I like chest rigs over any other setup is it's vehicle compatible. Because chest rigs keep your back completely clean, I could wear this sitting in a vehicle for a long time and be very comfortable. And again, if I don't have a pistol belt on or anything like that, chilling in a vehicle with this in my rifle, I can be super comfortable. You can mostly do that with plates, which is good. But even there, you know, stuff will start to wear, a lot of guys will carry like a Nerf football right and put that under the back plate so the back plate rests on that to make themselves more comfortable. But with a chest rig, I can just sit in a vehicle like this for a long time. And I'm still gonna be really comfortable. So I like that it's vehicle compatible. In America, America's a big place, okay? And we have vehicles are our primary mode of transportation. Walking is not our primary mode of transportation. For example, if we've ever been to Europe, right? A lot of the cities are much more walkable and they're designed to walk from shop to shop or they have a really good subway system or whatever. However, America is not like that. America is car-centric, not person-centric. And what that means from a tactical perspective for you is that likely if anything ever gets weird, you are gonna be in and around and using vehicles. And as such, I don't think belt kit ends up being the best decision there because it's not comfortable at all to wear in a vehicle, right? If you've ever had belt kit on and tried to sit in a vehicle for a while, it's not comfortable. So I like the idea of being versatile in and out of the vehicle. The other thing I really like about that is that if I'm gonna be in a vehicle for a while and then I need to immediately transition to a foot movement, I can do that, right? We can talk about that. I can get in the vehicle, we can drive two hours and then, hey, we need you to walk this two, three, four mile circuit or whatever, patrol this area, no problem. I'm in the vehicle, I'm riding, I step out the door, I throw my rock on, boom, I'm out. There's no waiting, there's no rearranging kit, there's no just, you know, give me a second. I can be ready conditioned one the whole time. And I really like that. I mentioned this a little bit early when I talked about the rucks, but I do think that the chest rig is the most compatible to ruck out of any system. With plates and wearing a ruck, you know, it's putting a plate between your back and the ruck, right? And so it's creating this gap. And some packs are better designed about that than others, but that's always gonna be more uncomfortable to wear a plate between your ruck and your back than not. So that's another one of the advantages I really like is that they're the most ruck compatible system compared, again, to plates, which can be uncomfortable, or compared to belt kit, which then you can't utilize all the features of the pack sometimes, and or is uncomfortable. Now I know some people will say about the ruck thing, well hey Dylan, the whole point is that as soon as you hit contact, you're dropping rucks anyway. So, you know, you might be uncomfortable in the march, but when the push comes to shove and the fighting is on, you're dropping those rucks. And I would say, maybe, the dropping the rucks thing is a big army thing, right? That's a thing where we have lots of backup, lots of supplies, I can call in artillery, I can call in helicopters. I'm not going anywhere, right? I've decided, for whatever reason, big army, I got all the resources behind me and I'm standing here and we're gonna dupe this out and see what happens. So, in our world, in American Minuteman context, you may or may not do that. Likely, in American Minuteman context, if things get weird and you get into a conflict, you don't have the luxury of dropping your ruck. You don't have the luxury of, I'll just set this here and come back to it. Likely, you might need to shoot and scoot, right? You might get an engagement and you're immediately breaking contact. So, you don't have an opportunity to drop and pick up rucks and that's only gonna cost you time that you probably don't have. So, I don't like to base off the assumption that I'm gonna drop my ruck and I'm gonna do the fighting thing and whatever and then I can just come back to it and get it. I like to work out the assumption that I have to keep all my stuff on me, right? And then I'm gonna work, fight, move in that and then we can work from there. Now, if situation dictates and we are gonna be here a while or we're in a defensive position or there's a million different scenarios, well then yeah, of course we'll drop the ruck, big deal. But in general, if I'm out on a patrolling or a movement, I don't think it's likely that I'm gonna have the luxury of being able to drop that. So, again, I want the fighting system that's the most compatible with the ruck over the long haul and I think chest rig wins in that category. Another really nice advantage of the chest rig is they breathe pretty well. Now, they definitely, especially when you get like split rigs that split down the front and stuff, those can be opened up and breathe a lot better. But if you're in anything like hot, humid, like Florida, for instance, if you're anywhere south of that Mason-Dixon line and it's humid, a chest rig is probably your go-to. Maybe a really light jungle belt kit. It does, again, it can trap some heat in here, right? However, it's gonna breathe the best versus, again, like plates. Plates are gonna trap heat from your sternum to your diaphragm on both sides and that's gonna trap a lot of hot, wet heat on you that will probably increase your likelihood of being a heat casualty. Chest rigs, again, are also pretty versatile to know how many layers I have to throw on. So if I have to throw some coats on or some extra thermal layers or Gore-Tex or whatever, I can always just toss the chest rig on over it. Now, with like a belt kit, you can probably get away with that too, although you do start to feel a little Michelin man bulky with that. Chest rig's not so much and I think that's because it's designed to suck up to your chest versus like, kind of wear around it, you wear it like a barrel kind of deal, like a belt kit and plates, depending on how many layers and what you got going on, you might need to fit the plates between your layers. So that can become a little bit more complicated. Now, there are a couple downsides to a chest rig. Let's be honest here, my identity's not based in what gear I wear. The first one is there's a lack of armor, right? And that's only solved with plates. Plates are the only armored system. Belt kit has a lack of armor too. But with plates, right, that's the only thing that's gonna stop bullets that counts as armor. So you would have to either wear plates under this, right, and then toss the chest rig over or wear plates and then clip this into a system. So that is, it's a minor con. I don't necessarily even know if I call it a con because I think it's pretty surmountable like we talked about with the compatibility earlier. However, it is something that should be listed. So let's talk about what I think is probably the biggest disadvantage of the chest rig and this could be arguable whether it's a disadvantage or not. And that I would say is lack of sustainment, right? Chest rigs, I happen to have water on this one, but in general, chest rigs are not designed to carry sustainment type gear. Belt kit is, right? You can put belt kit on there. You got a lot more room to attach sustainment type gear. Between your butt pack and your canteen pouches, you can sustain yourself for a while, which is one of the big advantages of belt kit. But when it comes to the chest rig, it's designed to carry tools for the fight, right? Usually mags, medical, you know, a knife, whatever, like it's designed to carry stuff for the fight. You know, maybe a thermal or a GPS or something kind of that in a GP pouch somewhere. It's not usually designed to carry sustainment stuff, like water or food or a poncho or anything like that. It's usually designed to just carry the tools for the fight. So what that means is almost always and in my system, always, you have to pair a chest rig with a ruck. They have to be paired. You can't run a chest rig if you're doing anything longer than four hours alone. You have to run it with a ruck. And how big that ruck is, of course, is just determined by what exactly it is that you're doing. But you're gonna have to pair it with a ruck. And usually the biggest contributor to that is water. You're just not able to carry enough water. Typically I will carry a three liter bladder when I go out and do stuff. And that's kind of my starting point for water. Maybe then I'll toss another canteen on here or I'll put another one on my ruck or whatever. But somewhere between three to four liters is usually my starting point. And again, starting, it'll go up from there of water depending on how hot it is, how long I'm gonna be out, et cetera, et cetera. And again, you just don't have room on a chest rig to be able to carry all that sustainment, namely water, and the tools for the fight. You just run out of room. So if you're at all considering why you should run a chest rig or thinking about running a chest rig over those other systems, I think I would make the argument for you to come over to the chest rig camp. Because I think there are a lot of advantages given our context in America with vehicles, big spaces, needing to walk potentially, needing to be in a vehicle potentially, needing to do lots of stuff. And given our mission set, right? American Minutemen who might be on long foot patrols, not getting in contact intentionally. I mean, look, if I'm ever gonna purposely get in a fight, you better believe I'm gonna put my plates on. That would be silly not to, right? I would just clip my chest rig into my plates because I'm gonna get in a fight. I'm gonna more than likely get shot at. I want that armor on if I can help it. However, if I'm just doing whatever it is that I'm doing because things have fallen apart, I'm gonna wear the chest rig because it's the most versatile. I don't have to carry all that extra weight and I can be the most fresh for, if anything ever, bad does happen. So given our context of being an American Minuteman, I think that the chest rig wins out over the other systems. And I think that really allows you, again, those options to vary to your little independent variables that come into your mission set. In general, big mission set, American Minuteman. What that means exactly on a day-to-day basis, I think the chest rig meets all of those needs really well. Does it meet them all the best? No, but I think it's, I'm gonna go with 85% of the way there on everything across the board and higher in some categories. And I think that's a pretty good score. I'll take it. I hope that is helpful. And if you think that's total crap because your belt kit has served you faithfully since whatever and you only wear plates because of such and such a thing, well, hey, let me know and we can have that discussion. Do brave deeds and endure.