What can you tell me about this load bearing vest?

[rrobertscv]

A friend brought this to me today. I know nothing about these, can you guys tell me what era it is from? Thanks for the help

[rrobertscv]

[rrobertscv]

[bheskett]

It is the ALICE gear used from the 70's into the early 2000's. Each piece should have a QM stamp indicating the year of contract.

Bob

[rrobertscv]

Thanks for the help.

[Blacksmith]

It's on the early end of that range, as it has the metal buckle yet. Later belts had plastic buckles. I wore this particular gear in a different configuration. The musette bag, or whatever it is, is alien to me. The clips from the Y-strap should go to the eyelets on the back of the magazine pouches, as it stabilizes them when they are full. The gauze pouch (small one-snap pouch) goes on the left shoulder canvas loop (open end down), with an ear plug case on the metal ring under it. Where the alien bag is, goes a rolled up poncho, secured by two blousing rubbers. The poncho was always the worst part, as there is an art to rolling it and securing it to the belt. However, few things more funny than watching one of those pop off somebody's belt during a double-time run. This was typically caused by his jerkwad buddy behind him flipping one of the rubbers off. Then the poncho would deploy like an emergency slide. Ahhhh, good times...

 

Edit: Sorry, forgot to say, we never referred to this as ALICE. While technically part of that two-component system, we always called this "LBE" (load-bearing equipment). "ALICE" referred only to the backpack.

[Camaro69427]

Not to step on the above commenters toes but, what you have is not entirely ALICE gear. It is a mix of Vietnam era, M1967, and ALICE. The belt, canteen cover, and combat suspenders are standard issue ALICE gear. The small pack on the back is the M1961 Field Pack, often referred to as the butt pack in the field due to obvious reasons. The ammo pouches are M1967 ammo pouches, specifically designed for 20rd M16 magazines. The small pouch next to the left hand ammo pouch is a compass/field dressing pouch and is either ALICE or M1967.

It's a nice circa 1975-1980 setup.

[taucco]

latter item on that is the 1976 canteen cover. Possibly is a early '80s USAF rig (probably at the time they were still using the 20rd magazines). If the compass pouch has a plastic snap it's worth 70-80$ alone.