Bobcatt666 0 Posted September 15, 2005 I bought my own SPH-4 in 1992 back when was on UH1D/Hs and OH6s Loaches. Just recently bought my own HGU-56 And I even have my own CVC and PASGT "fritz" helmet for when driving armored vehicles. Nice convinace to not have to deal with inspections on your personal field gear its common to buy your own gear them you can modifiy or immprove them without getting pounded for damaging or defacing Gov proporty which must be in better condition then when you got it for turn in. Some of us like to personalize our gear make it harder for others to take and claim its theirs if you had a nude chick air brushed laying on one side of it.. If your active duty and single you tend to waste your money of aloto f things you'll put heavy use in out in the field. Gortex and Matarhorn boots seldom where ever issued other than to special units that had God-like supply Sargeants. Pretty much the general rule is usually wear or use what you want out in the field. everywhere else its mandated by SOP for uniform of the day due to a special function. Usualy you can get stuff pretty cheap on surplus stores just outside of the military bases. HGU-56 can be had for around 200 to 450 us dollars, I bought mine under 100.00 via EBAY and obtained the couple of parts to complete it through normal supply chains, still like the SPH4 better at least don't look like DARK Helmet wearing it.. So the pack is fairly accuratet main gripe about the pack was the lack of a old standard Army choper pilot in single peice =omex with SPH4 aind bail out vest, its was the standard from Viet Nam to about 02 when the Huey fleets were grounded and later finally replaced with Blackhawks. A ton of UH1Hs were reissued had 20 here deadlined and awaiting destruction or sale to another contry of federal angency and the Army put em back into service due to lack of operational birds. Kinda nice not seeing them go into a metal shreader. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gatordev 219 Posted September 15, 2005 Quote[/b] ]I guess there's a big difference between carrying a couple torpedoes and sonar bouys compared to carrying 8 Hellfires/TOW, some rockets and a gatling gun. That's true. But for the record, we carry Hellfires, GAU-16, and the M-60, as well. @Bobcatt: [Offtopic] I must say I'm surprised. I'm not talking boots or gloves or whatever, but more along the lines of helmets, vests, etc (I buy my own boots because I haven't been at a command that will buy me brown ones). I know the Army's regs on certain aviation programs (FOD, ALSS, etc) are a lot more relaxed than the Navys. That's not meant as an insult or dig, it's just a different type of environment. So when you have flight gear that you build up yourself to bypass what are essentially safety inspections, it makes the maintenance officer in me wince. Then again, I know the Air Force can't comprehend how we in the Navy do business on a lot of things, so to each his own. As for defacing govt property w/ personalized stuff, well, for us, it's not defacing. We'll do that all the time. Even though it's govt issue, at the end of the day, that gear is ours to take home. [/offtopic] If you init those .paa textures that Laser put in there for the helmets, you'll see mine and another example of what people put on helmets. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites