Due to the nature of their line of work, Soldiers care about boots and the US Army has come a long way over the past two decades to offer a wider variety of mission-oriented footwear. We thought it would be interesting to share a few slides from a deck shared recently with industry by PEO Soldier’s PM for Soldier Clothing and Individual Equipment. They offer an overview as well as information on the Jungle and Mountaineering Boot efforts as well as the Cold Weather Overboot which has unfortunately been in development hell, in one form or another, since at least the 90s. Please note that photos of footwear in the developmental slides do not necessarily depict the items which have been selected by the Army, but are rather, representational candidates.
oh please tell me they are gonna come back with the od and black jungles !
Intermediate Cold/Wet boot?
How about the Danner Matterhorn?
But I guess reinventing the wheel is more important.
Got to work on getting those post service jobs…….
What models of Jungle Boots and Alpine Boots were tested?
Asolos too stiff for regular patrolling? Unless I’m wearing some strange aberration, my Power Matics are wonderful for everything from packing out a quarter of an elk to everyday walking/hiking. Wore them for a whole month straight on a UW exercise.
Im going to throw something out there, take it or leave it. It takes more than 3 months to break in mountain boots. They are stiff so they last in the mountains…I am going to assume it wasn’t every day of 3 months “patrolling” in the mountains during the evaluation either.
Having been stationed in AK until recently I am betting I am right.
The overboots reminds me of the toe-caps we used in Norway.
Alpine boots have to be stiff, or they are useless as alpine boots. If they are looking for a flat land boot for 14F to -20F there are several good 600g thinsulate boots available.
@Bruce
I was about to say the same thing. I think they let people at least one person, without any mountaineering experience write an evalution of this, or their testing was flawed if they tested it by only walking around. Either way it calls their result into question.
With the exception of SOF, the Army really hasn’t done anything with Mountain boots since the old Chippewas and even then, they were a leather boot with a very stiff sole. Nothing like what’s commercially available now.
Having 25th test the boots in Hawaii? How about giving them to 1st and 7th SFG who go to real jungles?
You mean the guys who helped originate the requirement?
“Council of Colonels” – for some reason that phrase scares the crap out of me!
USARAK no longer issues Intermediate Cold Weather Boots. Every Soldier is issued Danner cold weather boots for winter wear. I found them perfectly adequate for all but sub zero cold. It must have been the other BN that tested the boots this past winter so I didn’t have any exposure to the actual conditions of the test. Plus, it was a very mild winter. I’m concurring with SloppyJoe. I own the same Asolos tested and they are great boots. But as with any heavy weight boot they have a long break in period.
Oh great another goat-screw!