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5.11 TacTec Plate Carrier – 10 Year Review
I obtained my 5.11 TacTec service in 2013, over 10 years in the past. On the time, I wanted a plate service for maritime safety work. After my first contract, I noticed that separating your “webbing” with ammo and physique armor just isn’t a good suggestion. Due to the recent local weather, we ended up simply carrying our vests with mags, usually leaving cumbersome physique armor on the ship’s bridge, agreeing that “we’d put it on when issues get robust”. However when issues really obtained robust, we all the time forgot about physique armor.
It obtained even worse after we began doing drills in the course of the evening. You leap off your mattress, put in your pants, slide into boots, seize a rifle in a single hand and vest within the different, and run upstairs. If you wish to additionally your physique armor, you want a 3rd hand. The physique armor we had was heavy and uncomfortable. The one advantage of it was – nothing compares to the sensation of taking off your armor after an extended shift.
So I used to be on the lookout for one thing comfy that would carry arduous plates and the complete package that I utilized in maritime: 4 mags, a big medical pouch, an admin pouch, and a drop pouch. Ten years in the past the market wasn’t that large, and I didn’t must do tons of analysis to understand I wished to get a gray 5.11 TacTec. It regarded cool, amongst different issues, and as a younger man who didn’t know a lot concerning the safety trade I all the time remembered recommendation from an older colleague: “If you happen to don’t know what you’re doing no less than attempt to look cool doing it”.
The primary characteristic I had to remember was a quick-release system in case I fell overboard. Tactec has a cable system with a strap on the chest, so you may pull it one-handed and the service will simply slide off. I by no means examined it in water, however on land, it labored properly. Simply be sure to take your time to reassemble your plate service after you check this technique.
One other characteristic that I like on Tactec is the evacuation strap on the again of the service. When you seize and pull it, it extends and you’ll drag somebody with relative consolation, trigger the deal with finally ends up in your waist degree. Evacuation of the wounded troopers utilizing this strap is an SOP in lots of items, and having the extending drag deal with simply makes it a lot simpler.
I keep in mind we had been coaching at some military vary, and an officer got here in to criticize all our fancy gear and tools. Amongst different issues, he mentioned, pointing on the drag deal with on my TacTec: “These things doesn’t work”. I dared him to check it. He dragged me throughout the sphere for the following 20 minutes, like a canine dragging its favourite toy everywhere in the yard. The drag deal with didn’t rip, and that day I left the vary with a smug smirk on my face.
As time glided by, I purchased new pouches and obtained facet panels for my 5.11 TacTec. Relying on the mission, you would possibly skip facet panels, however it’s higher to have and never want than want and never have.
A number of years later, I obtained an sudden provide to play a task within the film. I needed to play a CIA GRS operator in Syria across the yr 2015. Initially, I wished to show it down, however the second unit director satisfied me we’d have the ability to present GRS operators correctly, with out good concept fairies getting in the way in which. Evidently, this turned out to be an enormous fats lie.
First, I needed to contact the wardrobe division to see what that they had ready for me. I known as them, and apparently, the one route about uniform and equipment they obtained for our crew was: “Make CIA guys put on some mild colours”. Costume designers additionally by no means even watched “13 Hours”, the film about GRS in Libya that obtained the costumes and equipment fairly properly. So as a substitute of getting dressed by them, I ended up consulting them.
I had a few plate carriers, however solely TacTec was proper for the yr 2015. I’m very specific about historic accuracy, so I made a decision to put on it and provides the second service to a different actor. As soon as we obtained on a movie set, there was one other shock. Prop guys had just one set of plates, which I gave to a different actor. For me, they provided to make some plates out of polyurethane foam. I believed that film folks knew what they had been doing, and that was my deadly mistake.
As soon as the film got here out, each different buddy requested me: “why you’re not carrying plates within the film”? Apparently, the froth shortly deformed and misplaced its form, so I regarded like an fool. Lesson realized – by no means belief film folks.
In the course of the filming, I appreciated one other characteristic of TacTec, the massive pocket on the chest proper below MOLLE laser cuts loops. When you’ve got a talking position, it’s all the time a wrestle to cover the microphone, and on this case, the mic suits into this pocket completely. I additionally carried a pack of spare batteries for mics of my crew in the identical pocket and nonetheless had some house left.
Total, even in spite of everything these years, for me, the 5.11 TacTec stays to be an ideal “excessive profile” plate service. Completely different missions would possibly require hid armor or most frag safety, however as a “normal objective” plate service, TacTec stays a good selection for everybody who desires sturdy and cozy physique armor.
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