Army Rumour Service

Register a free account today to join our community
Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site, connect with other members through your own private inbox and will receive smaller adverts!

PLCE trials

I remember once hearing about a '72 pattern but never saw it. The video make the link to '75 (which I'd never heard of either).

I had heard that this was the source of the S6 respirator haversack...?

I had one of these for a while.
It was only reading arrse many years later I learned more about it, and why it wasn't more widely used.
IMG_5393.JPG
 
So it only took 30 years for CBA to be introduced after its requirement was noted....

No wonder they had so much trouble specc'ing PLCE: each time they came up with a design a generation had passed and the soldiers had doubled in body mass...
 
Except that the S6 case was on general issue long before 1975. More likely it was deemed necessary to have it easy-clean as it would be the only bit of kit moving between clean and NBC environments.

Never knew that...although I do seem to recall that the S4 case was more akin to the '58 pattern material. Maybe it was the S6 case material that inspired the 75 pattern?
 
So it only took 30 years for CBA to be introduced after its requirement was noted....

No wonder they had so much trouble specc'ing PLCE: each time they came up with a design a generation had passed and the soldiers had doubled in body mass...

One of the squadrons in 26 Engr Regt were in the PCLE trial. IIRC the trial rucksack looked like a Berghaus with all the Gucci bits (plastic buckles etc) cut off...
 
Looking at this photo of D Sqn at Grytviken in 1982, there seem what looks like a variant of PLCE 75 worn by two on the right of the picture
View attachment 358550
Look 30 round magazines, at last. Interestingly we had a couple of the chest kits in stores. I wasn't very impressed to be honest but compared to what was around at the time (absolutely nothing) it was a revelation. OC Recce said it was OK to use, his boss (OC Sp Coy) said if we did we would have to wear cefo underneath it!
 
A bit before PLCE but I've got my dads old bergen up in the loft. It's identical to the original A frame ones except the main material is nylon instead of canvas. It would be from the late 60s/early 70s as I can clearly remember him being chuffed when he got one of the newer ones. I've never seen any others made from nylon or pictures of them. Were they so flimsy that they didn't survive or did he buy a civilian one?
 
A bit before PLCE but I've got my dads old bergen up in the loft. It's identical to the original A frame ones except the main material is nylon instead of canvas. It would be from the late 60s/early 70s as I can clearly remember him being chuffed when he got one of the newer ones. I've never seen any others made from nylon or pictures of them. Were they so flimsy that they didn't survive or did he buy a civilian one?

Does it have similarities to this?
MARINES ARCTIC BERGEN + PARTS
 
Look 30 round magazines, at last. Interestingly we had a couple of the chest kits in stores. I wasn't very impressed to be honest but compared to what was around at the time (absolutely nothing) it was a revelation. OC Recce said it was OK to use, his boss (OC Sp Coy) said if we did we would have to wear cefo underneath it!
Reminds me of when I got back from the Falklands (having missed the war by a couple of months) the proud possessor of a pair of BCH. Was told by the SSM, he was perfectly happy for me to wear them, as long as I wore puttees with them.
So under the bed for about 12 months until the rest of the Sqn, was issued them.
 
Reminds me of when I got back from the Falklands (having missed the war by a couple of months) the proud possessor of a pair of BCH. Was told by the SSM, he was perfectly happy for me to wear them, as long as I wore puttees with them.
So under the bed for about 12 months until the rest of the Sqn, was issued them.

Saw that being done by the gate guards at a certain Teesside TA unit back in the mid-1980s... with the puttees at the top of the boots.
 
Is that the old SAS bergan without the frame?
I'll find it and take a better pic. It's exactly the same as he WW2 commando ones that were used all the way through to the 70s but made with more modern fabric. It had the same shoulder straps too but they were replaced with some from the newer SAS bergen that replaced this one. His SAS bergen is in the loft too and it is a different beast altogether.
 
Saw that being done by the gate guards at a certain Teesside TA unit back in the mid-1980s... with the puttees at the top of the boots.
In the late 70s, before we had gate guards, some blokes did the same but they weren't BCH. They were DMS to which the tops of another pair of DMS were sewn on as extensions.

I never subscribed to the idea although it was my dad who was the bloke who did the modification, including extending the tongue.

"Bloody stupid idea, it'll never catch on" were his words...
 
Top