“We checked that spare magazines were ready to pull out. Pick them up the wrong way and you waste a precious second or two turning them around. Put them in your belt kit with the curve the right way up, and they’re ready to slap into place. A lot of people put a tab of masking tape on the mag to make it easier to pull out. When my mags were empty, I’d throw them down the front of my smock for refilling later. We could use the rounds from the belts of the Minimi…” Andy McNab, Bravo Two Zero

McNab and his kit, from the book.

Once upon a time, smocks were at the top of the list when it came to trading swag with the Brits. Scoring one was a Big Deal. I remember in Saudi and Kuwait back in ’90 and ’91, scoring a desert para smock was the height of triumph, and and anything rumored to be an “SAS smock” was beyond price. Looking back now, most of the alleged SAS smocks came from Paras, and most of the “Para smocks” came from infantry units (or that’s what it seems like, anyway).

Anyway, this new First Spear smock mentioned over on Soldier Systems is going to be a hit. Unfortunately now I’m going to have to buy one…the chances of trading for one is slim to none. Eventually I want one of the original Denison smocks, but that may just be a pipe dream.

You know what’s sad? There are thousands of young American troops now who have no idea why us older guys really wanted one of these. Next up? I’m gonna need a Cold War era Barbour jacket, but we’ll concentrate on the smock first.

WW II era Denison Smock

Sniper from HM Scots Guards, the Falklands

The Squadron Smock from First Spear (via Soldier Systems)

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 24th, 2011 at 09:00 and is filed under Clothing, Military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.