• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

The brown Temperate Combat Boot (AKA: Mk IV Cbt Boot) - No longer CADPAT

  • Thread starter Thread starter petoth
  • Start date Start date
I agree with George. If you want the allowance for "Gucci " kit you know what to do. If you don't like issue kit....there are opportunities.

Gucci kit is nice....BUT when you are in the middle of nowhere and need new boots.....and the CQ drops them off, they're probably going to be issue boots, not Gucci.

 
Wolf117 said:
There's a reason the CANSOFCOM guys get kit allowances to buy commercial combat gear, IT'S BETTER THAN WHAT WE ISSUE!

They do not get a kit allowance to buy commercial combat gear. They get a clothing allowance to buy specific list of items of civilian clothing and footwear. With exception of a few trial items, the guys wear what is issued, or they pay for it out of their pockets, just like the rest of the CF.

Or so I heard.
 
Matt_Fisher said:
Photo of the latest version of the Temperate Combat Boot is on the Clothe The Soldier Project website:  http://www.forces.gc.ca/aete/temperatecombatboot-bottepourclimattempere-eng.asp

Looks to be that they've decided to go with a brown boot which uses full grain leather, a Cordura upper, and a Goodyear welted Vibram outsole.  Full grain leather is a good decision in my opinion, as it can be better maintained than a suede/rough out sided leather, and will offer much better water resistance.
Maybe it's time to update the thread title?
 
Well I just peeled off the blisters from the last march.  And that was with boots that normally do not cauase my feet any issues.  I will wait and see if and when the new ones come out and watch as the policy settles in untill the enevitable complaints come in again.

Honestly I dont think there is ever going to be a 100% answer for that one.  I think it was Vern who pointed out that you will always have the 20% who do not meet the norm for sizing and it will cause problems.
 
This is a Good point. Jungle boots are not the best boot out there, they  seem to chaf the heal and in my case the arch! My Son is with 3RCR and the new boots he has are great inprovement since the day of the "GREBS" remember? :nod:
 
George Wallace said:
I would say "Prove it!"  In some cases, it may be better, but is it safer?  Does it meet the safety requirements in the ways of fire protection/heat protection/impact protection.  Gucci kit is not always better, even if it looks good/better/kool.  There are safety standards that have to be met, and that is what the majority of the CF have to meet.  This is also why testing is so long and drawn out.  Then comes contracting out for mass production and of course we must not forget "Quality Control".  Just because you can't get the Gucci kit you want, doesn't mean that what you do get is garbage.

Although I agree with you. I don't always trust the product testing. Case in point.... the LSVW
 
bananaman said:
Although I agree with you. I don't always trust the product testing. Case in point.... the LSVW

The LSVW proved that a piece of equipment that fails evaluations should not be purchased.
 
dapaterson said:
The LSVW proved that a piece of equipment that fails evaluations should not be purchased.

Oh, and I thought it meant we had to purchase a piece of (Sh*^)....equipment.  My bad  :nod:

That being said yes there is and should be a certain standard requirement for all the equipment we use.  Does it mean it will always be the best of what not out there............. well most of us know the answer.  But it does allow us something to talk about on here or in the mess
 
The question of boots drives me CRAZY! No two people are going to have the same feet, cadence, foot strike, length of step blah blah blah. There is a reason that running shoe companies (and many companies that make "combat" boots) spending millions annually on research and design.

Why oh why is it that the institution thinks that it is possible to get one boot that will work for 100% of the population?

The current GP boot works for some people, of that I do not doubt. I know people who will march 10-15kms under weight with them, no problems. I wear 'em for ten mins on a march, and blisters. I wear my Magnums and I have no issues over vast kms under weight. Everyone's feet are different.

I can not help but to believe that, it would be far cheaper on many aspects, to issue troops a "boot allowance" to local purchase boots that meet specific criteria from a select list (to meet fire resistance, ankle support, acid/oil resistance blah blah blah). One of the long terms savings would definitely be medical claims... Wearing the wrong footwear for long duration will do very real damage to the knees, hips and back over long term exposures.

Anyways, I digress.
 
daftandbarmy said:
The 'F' in Infantry stands for 'Footborne' (and sometimes other words that are not suitable for a G rated audience).

One thing I'd argue (from the medical end) that goes hand in hand with that is the FOOT in FOOTBORNE - while what you put on your feet is extremely important, not looking after the feet themselves properly will knock you out of action pretty quick.  I'm amazed that Recruit and Trades Schools spend so much time on things like Harrassment and Envrionmental issues but don't teach simple foot care to soldiers anymore...my one good deed I pulled out of my back end in Gagetown was to cut sick parade from CAP one summer by almost half simply by giving a 45 minute class on basic foot care and what constituted a bona fide sick parade foot issue vs what was just plain old driver maintenance.  I also took the baby officers and NCO's aside and taught them how to do foot inspections on their troops and that it was a responsibility of their's.  It caught on through CTC and I had a bit of a travelling road show for awhile.

MM
 
MM,

Thanks, you just gave me a great topic for some professional develpoment classes!!
 
Teeps74 said:
I can not help but to believe that, it would be far cheaper on many aspects, to issue troops a "boot allowance" to local purchase boots that meet specific criteria from a select list (to meet fire resistance, ankle support, acid/oil resistance blah blah blah).

I agree totally.  I'm sure someone in the "boot requirements" development section is reading this, right?  :D
 
I suspect that there is a lack of economies of scale involved. The government gets a lower price as it buys humpteen thousands of pars of boots while a single soldier with a boot allowance buys 2-3 pairs at regular price at "boots r us" and another buys his favorite at "boots world'.

The issue with reducing injury claims is this........injury claims are years down the road. That is money the government (usualy another government) has to deal with later. Stuff that you can "pay later" or fluff off to some far away government is political gold.
 
George Wallace said:
I would say "Prove it!"  In some cases, it may be better, but is it safer?  Does it meet the safety requirements in the ways of fire protection/heat protection/impact protection.  Gucci kit is not always better, even if it looks good/better/kool.  There are safety standards that have to be met, and that is what the majority of the CF have to meet.  This is also why testing is so long and drawn out.  Then comes contracting out for mass production and of course we must not forget "Quality Control".  Just because you can't get the Gucci kit you want, doesn't mean that what you do get is garbage.

Safety is certainly a concern.  I am not advocating giving troops a blank cheque and sending them in the general direction of US Cavalry or Full Spectrum Gear.  However, what needs to be acknowledged here is that a lot of kit producing companies in the US make equipment for the US Defence Department and have to meet their safety and quality standards.  Which in a lot of cases are as good or better than ours from what I've seen.  Hence, having a list of manufacturers which are green lighted for use is not outside the realm of possibility.

To not get off topic with this tac vest or that ballisitic eyewear brand I'll keep this focused on footwear.  I think it's important that we acknowledge that the majority of our soldiers in the field are already using footwear from these companies and have been for years now.  There is a good cost saving measure right there.  Instead of trailing x number of footwear types and rearching hypothitcals in a lab somewhere in Ottawa, just do a survey of combat troops to find what is working and what is not.  Then go to those companies and get the info needed to prove them safe, and if you aren't satisfied by that do your own in house testing on the boots.  As opposed to spending millions and a decade's worth of time designing something in house that needs to be revised repeatedly and eventually doesn't live up to the infantryman's needs anyways.

In the case of the M4 GP issued boots or the wet weather boots.  I've been around the block and I have worn these almost as much as I wore my Mk3s back in the day  I've put them through field conditions and ruck marches and 'run' in them on section attacks.  They have consistently given me blisters and overworked my feet.  Even with the best insoles money can buy they still fall short.  As of now I ONLY use them for in garrison work and save my Rocky SV2s for field and infantry stuff.  But after a day at work in garrison and with a one kilometer walk one way to home twice a day, my feet still scream at me after wearing the issued boot.  In fact my feet feel better after a BFT with my field boots than they do on a garrison day.  So in all honesty from my own experience with them and from noticing that the vast majority of troops here don't wear the issue boot at all, I'd have to say that the issued footwear is still garbage.  It's not Gucci to ask for footwear that doesn't cause you unecessary pain or allows you to perform to your potential in the field, that's just adequate kit; which our current system does not provide at this time.
 
I don't want to sidetrack the conversation here, but this question of better boots and different types has got me thinking.  Is the fact we as an institution cannot seem to produce or procure a adequate combat boot a problem with the supply system or the R&D system?  Is this a case of the right hand not talking to the left or something?

I mean when the vast majority of troops prefer to spend their own money for proper footwear doesn't that tell people who are working on these projects that there's something wrong with where we have been going?

Take the wet weather boot, GP boot or desert tan boot produced by boulet boots in Quebec.  Everyone I've spoken with who use their feet as a primary mode of transportation have come out against these things.  Even more worriesome is the ammount of people suffering ankle and foot injuries as a result of wear. The common thread I've heard is that the boots are overly heavy, they don't provide the right ammount of ankle support or they don't fit well.  Then you take the same people and throw them in some Swats and the problems vanish.

I think two principles need to be acknowledged here by those on the Temperate Boot program.  One, that no one boot type will work for all troops, therefore a variety of similarly coloured ones are needed.  Two, in the time it has taken the CF to develop requirements and industry to respond to them there have been VAST improvements in terms of the ergonomics and production techniques.  These advances have not come from the cumbersome beauraucracy that is DND, but from industry.  They are design features that have been developed from lessons learned in hiking, sport, and military experience over the past decade of war.  The result is products like Swat, Rocky SV2, Bates to name a few.

Now here's the important thing and I REALLY hope someone out there who has an influence on this process reads this.  These boots have already been in use with our field troops for years and have faced some of the toughest conditions on earth.  Me personally, I've used the Rocky SV2 on TWO tours to Kandahar and they lasted through em.  The only thing I had to do was replace the laces every few months.

This info is out there and it won't cost the government any more than it has already spent to send us to Afghanistan in the first place.  Just save the money that we may give Boulet for yet another incarnation of the same proven to be inadequate boot and instead buy SWATS, Rockys and whatever else is safe and shown to be what the troops need.  This way if a trucker or mechanic need safety boots with steel toes, they can get em.  Or a tanker needs something that lets the circulation in his feet flow better by being lower on the ankle, he can find em.  Or, and god forbid, an infantryman decides a certain boot has the features he needs to make the next 20 K easier on his body, he can get em.  And all of this while not spending money that is hard earned and better spent taking care of their families.

PLEASE.
 
Wolf117 said:
  Everyone I've spoken with who use their feet as a primary mode of transportation have come out against these things.

It goes beyond that as the problem with the boots are not limited to those"who use their feet as primary modes of transportation". Since we are all issued the same boots now, we also have pilots who wear boots that are too heavy, that make it difficult to use the rudder pedals and aircrews getting blisters just walking around in the crappy desert boots. Never mind the fact that the AF is in a shooting war in both Afghanistan and Libya, where if things go pearshaped, you may have to depend on your feet to get away from people who wouldn't mind cutting your head off.

Point is, the problem with the current POS boots affects pretty damn near everyone. i wish i had a workable solution other than to keep paying for my own. I've had to go with Bates Delta-8s in black and Bates M9s for desert boots.

 
Teeps74 said:
Why oh why is it that the institution thinks that it is possible to get one boot that will work for 100% of the population?
The institution does not believe this.  The goal (achievable or not) is a boot for 80%.  However, the choice of brown is partially intended to provide option to soldiers.  Both temperate and arid boots will be the same colour - they will be close enough that even the crustiest RSMs won't care to differentiate on a parade square.  There will be some percentage of soldiers who like one boot and not the other, and so the two boot option will bring the Army up past 80% acceptace.  If the Wet Weather Boot is ever produced in the brown, we will climb even higer on the level of acceptance.

CDN Aviator said:
Since we are all issued the same boots now...
Each environment has been doing its own seperate boot programs since the Mk III died.  We're not all issued the same.  AF boots have a whole lot of CSA requirements that the Army is not including to reduce bulk and weight.

The AF boots are at this link and the Navy boots are at this link.  It is possible that the Cold Wet Weather Boot is the same for the AF and Navy, but it is not the same as the Army's Wet Weather Boot.
 
Aviator I agree completely.  If ever there were a man who needed quality boots as much as a infanteer it would be a downed air force pilot or navigator.  Escape and evasion is yet another example of people needing kit that allows them to push past their limits.  After 40 plus K a day your feet will be blistered and tired enough.  We need boots that mitigate this reality, not help it happen sooner.

The current boots are more like something a construction worker or a warehouse storeman would need, not a warfighter/athlete.  These Temperate Combat Boots are just brown versions of the same thing we've had the past couple years, oh with a mesh ankle.  The real problem is they heavy and clunky soles that do not absorb enough shock nor are they curved at the toe to allow for sprinting and running.  Trying to run in them is like trying to run on hockey pucks.

I would say the solution is this.  Look at what the US and UK forces are doing and learn.  Both have a system in place where a soldier can go into a PX or NAFFI and purchase boots that have been okayed for use.  They offer multiple choices so that servicemen can find what works best for them.  So provide us all a basic boot allowance to buy two pairs of swats or a similarly economic boot.  OR stock them in the supply system for us.  Either way, we just need something proven and simple and a few choices for people.  This isn't the early 1900s when we all wore the same putties and brown office shoe into the field.  We have something called ergonomics.  We have decades of sports science and research and the invaluable experience of warfighters.  Take a lesson from them and go with something that has a good track record (Swat, Rocky etc.) and ignore those who have a consistent record of remaking the same boot over and over again in different colours. (Boulet)
 
Wolf117 said:
These Temperate Combat Boots are just brown versions of the same thing we've had the past couple years ...
Not true.  The GP boot (the black thing we've had for the last few years) was a dirt cheap interim solution to provide something until CTS was ready to deliver the Temperate Weather Boot.  The GP was the Wet Weather Boot without the wet weather linings.

http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/50234.0.html
 
MCG said:
The institution does not believe this.  The goal (achievable or not) is a boot for 80%.  However, the choice of brown is partially intended to provide option to soldiers.  Both temperate and arid boots will be the same colour - they will be close enough that even the crustiest RSMs won't care to differentiate on a parade square.  There will be some percentage of soldiers who like one boot and not the other, and so the two boot option will bring the Army up past 80% acceptace.  If the Wet Weather Boot is ever produced in the brown, we will climb even higer on the level of acceptance.
Each environment has been doing its own seperate boot programs since the Mk III died.  We're not all issued the same.  AF boots have a whole lot of CSA requirements that the Army is not including to reduce bulk and weight.

Fair enough... I have very serious doubts that these boots meet the 80% standard tho. I can say with certainty that 80% of the people I have talked to about the GP boots are not happy with them. Perhaps the trials pairs were superior in someway. Remember the Gerber multi tools? The civi off the shelf version was fantastic... The military contracted version was a hunk of "white metal" junk.

Further, I can not see any manufacturer being able to pull off 80% "satisfaction". I just can not see how it is possible. Not with footwear. People are flat footed, people pronate three different ways (see link below), people foot strike anywhere from the toes to the heel... There are far too many variables for any credible source to argue that one boot style will accommodate 80%. Now, a manufacture could theoretically accommodate the different pronations of the foot by creating a style that has different sole "loads" or "styles".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_type
 
Back
Top