GWOT Meets Modern Plate Carrier Setup

Hello wonderful people! A tabletop video of a new play carrier setup. I've learned and changed a lot of things on what I usually do, so I thought I'd make a video of this setup. Just for clarification, this thing right here is built for Milsim and more specifically for a LMG therefore why you don't see your average magazine carrying capability. But we'll get into that and we'll get into everything. I wanted to do this video a bit more in depth for people that like the app and just kind of thought about all my custom things I've done here and there and explain my thought process. So to begin, this is a Warrior Soul System DCS and is the DCS that I found on eBay for $60.50. Incredible, incredible discovery. That was truly lucky. And these play carriers, they are still extremely good and still one of my favorite, all-time favorite play carriers, I would say. Mainly the play carrier itself is quite simple, but what it does offer that a lot of play carriers don't, at least they didn't at the time, is a fully structural cummerbund. So the cummerbund is fully structural and what I mean by that, it is a rigid cummerbund. There is a plastic insert inside that makes it rigid. So let's go on the setup itself, starting from the front. The front of the play carrier obviously is probably the most important one. The way I decided to set it up is to prioritize communications and also make it as slick as possible because I expect a lot of time to be done on the prone. The way I've decided to do it is to have these elastic magazine inserts and the reason why I went with these is because they are extremely versatile. Not only can you carry magazine in them, of course, if you want to, because they're designed for magazines, so of course they don't have an issue with that, but they can carry pretty much any other type of object you'd like. Speaking of magazines, I have one magazine fast pouch, because the M249, it does take box magazines, but it also takes standard AR-15 magazines, so in airsoft box magazines are very finicky, like everything airsoft. Therefore, I have a place for an emergency magazine in case I need it. These shoulder pads are made by Coyote Tactical and these are structural shoulder pads and I want to show you what the inside looks like. What these do, which is really good for the price point, is give you structural cummer pants at about 40 something dollars, which is about half of some of the competition, including the Axial Advanced structural shoulder pads, which I heard really good things about, but I also heard they're not worth twice what these do. And as you can see, these are very well constructed shoulder pads, they have cable management solution, they stop elastic, which as you can see, serves me really well for the antenna, and then the inside has this hexagon type of padding, which is, I'll give it a 7 out of 10. And overall, being structural, they have a stiffener on the inside, which makes them, you know, makes them rigid, a little more rigid I would say, and what that does, it distributes the weight of the plate bags better, and these really do make a difference. One thing I learned is that when you put them on, you want to move the pad a bit towards the rear of the bag, which allows it to support better. So when you wear the plate bag here, you can imagine my body is in here, it will create a gap between this area of the front bag and my clavicles, because the support. And it's a small difference, but it's really cool, like this is a fully structural plate carrier now, as you can see, it doesn't really flop anywhere, and it stays kind of in this configuration. So, in a sense, you get AVS at home, obviously not as as put together, but it's just a different story, because you have a structural cummerbund structural shoulder pads, and now you have a system that is extremely comfortable to wear, and this is extremely comfortable to wear, it is the most comfortable plate carrier I ever had, no questions about it. I have a microfiber towel, this is to wipe lenses of all kinds, personal lenses like glasses and whatnot, but scopes, night vision, you name it. Always nice to have one of these, I always try to keep it in a plate carrier. Then the front mount, it's a foam board that is custom made, so the mount itself is not, but I made this front panel out of Tegris, because I didn't have a Ranger Green one, so I made one. So pretty much it's a 12-layer Tegris sheet that I cut with scissors, and then I did the polishing, the rounding work with an angle grinder, let me tell you guys, I am an absolute surgeon with an angle grinder, and then I used spray adhesive to glue the Velcro, and then a hot knife to cut every feature. So, what this is for, is for the KDU, it's a device that allows you to control the radio remotely, so you don't have to take it out of the pouch, and the advantage of that is if you have a role that requires you to frequently hop between different channels, meaning you have to talk to your squad and to a platoon structure, this allows you to do so with much much easier of use, instead of having to pull out the radio, which obviously sometimes is quite difficult with all the cables and whatnot. So then if you don't need it, this just goes up and it gets out of the way. The way the cabling is routed for it, this cable goes here, and then it comes down, and then it just loops in the MOLLE, and it ends up going behind the radio pouch, and then it's stored here with some Velcro zip ties, and then it connects to the radio itself. So speaking of the radio itself, this is the TCA-152. It is housed inside this issued old-school Ranger Eagle pouch, and this just kind of came about to me, and I bought it for something else, but then I ended up sticking with it, and I actually really like this pouch. It's a really good pouch, it's padded, there is a slight bit of padding, and I did have to do some modifications to it, not because I had to, but just because I like to. The very first modification I made is that when it comes to the retention, I modified the original one with this bungee cord that I sewed this retainer, I guess, connected to the male facet voxel, so that it holds there, and then the really cool thing about this pouch is that, as you can see, there is an opening here that allows you to have the KDU connector. So, if you take the connector out, you're left with this opening that, if you don't need, you can just... I know it's kind of stuck there, but you can pretty much close this flap on top of itself, so that you don't have to have this exposed. But one thing I did is create this webbing here, that I'll show a picture how it's done. It's done without any permanent modification to the pouch itself, but what it does, it just creates a little bit more rigidity and eliminates some flopping, because once this is disconnected, you do have this open, that without it, it would just tend to move a little bit more. So, these are minor things that I like to do, but, you know, they help. For cable-wise, the radio is connected via 6-pin to the push-to-talk. The push-to-talk is a TEA push-to-talk. And then, for the antenna, I'm trying something different. I'm going with the Cattail antenna. So, what the Cattail antenna is, is a wearable antenna solution. And, as you can see, this is the antenna. It has a 90-degree direct mount. And then, the way I have it routed, is the cable goes behind here, into the molle, and then it goes into the shoulder pad, right up top here. On top of the shoulder pad, all the way around, it does a U-type of maneuver, comes back out the top, and then it sticks out right here. Okay? So, that is the suggested, ideal way to wear this antenna. And, the benefit of this is purely comfort. So, you gain the comfort of the antenna, you might lose some performance, which is something that I'm okay in doing, because of the, I guess, role that this serves. The main reason why I went this way, because when you have a fixed antenna, that, speaking of which, I do keep in the back, when you do have a fixed antenna, right, and it's sitting right here, this is a rigid pole, pretty much, that really has a lot of interference with your arm. Okay? So, it is very possible that you, in movement, can really put a lot of strain into this piece, and potentially, either break the antenna, or break the connector itself, which we don't want to do. So, therefore, this allows you a lot more freedom of movement in this area, and it's much, much more comfortable to wear. As you can see on the side, this uses the tubes modification. So, pretty much, what it does, it folds the cummerbund, and allows you to mount tubes for quick detachment. As you can see, the cummerbund is folded here, and it's a very cheap DIY solution. Some people like tubes, some people don't. I personally really like tubes, because of just sliding the placard on and off, becomes very simple, and you size it once, and then you don't have to deal with it again. But then, as you will see, on this side, I don't have any tubes. The cummerbund is connected with the velcro, as it normally would. And the reason why is because I actually don't use the side. The side stays closed, and I just enter the placard from this side. The other benefit to that is that having the whole cummerbund underneath the flap being held by the velcro, makes it so that this has zero flop. It keeps the radio extremely still, so you don't have to worry about flopping. And the other thing is that tubes, as you can see, the downside of it, create a gap between the cummerbund and the plate bag. And it has a little bit of flex, right? Which is fine. But when you have a big heavy object there, it becomes annoying. So this completely locks it in, and allows you to not have this flopping around when you run. Now going down at the bottom, we have a dump pouch. And as you guys might know, I'm a big fan of the front pouches. This is the Sword, which I've had for a long time. I have a couple different variants. And the Sword is very nice. It is a dump pouch that you can open. It has elastic, it has some retainers inside, and it has a second compartment. It is a very nice dump pouch, and one of my favorites. But recently I came across this one, which is made by T-Rex Arms. Say what you want about the company, fantastic dump pouch. So the way this works is just flapped, and it has velcro, and it has a... Sorry, I'm holding this whole plate carrier with my shoulder. It has a little elastic insert, which allows the dump pouch to stay open, like this. Okay, and then if you want to close it, you just throw the flap on top, and it keeps it closed. Again, sorry, it's awkward because I have my whole thing being held up on my shoulder. But I honestly don't know which I like more. I like both so far. This one is a very smart design. As you saw the whole video until now, it was rolled up. You can roll it. It has a loop, sorry, yeah, loop on the back. So when you roll it, it folds into a nice thing that stays out of the way. It's a very well-designed dump pouch. I like it a lot. A tourniquet holder. This is a T3 tourniquet holder, which was Coyote, and ended up dying it what I was hoping to be Ranger Green. It didn't quite turn Ranger Green. It's more OD Green, but it's okay. I don't care that much. And then a carabiner. On the other side of the plate carrier, couple pouches. First being a GP pouch. This is a simple GP pouch, which has hook on the inside, sorry, loop on the inside. Because this pouch is technically a night vision pouch, because it came with one of those padded inserts for night vision. I personally like the slick look of the pouch with no molly on it. So I went with it as a dump pouch. A little modification I made is the bungee cord, just to keep things a bit more tucked in. I didn't mention this is made by TAG, Tactical Sog Gear, another old school manufacturer. They make really good stuff. Then moving down, I have this replica Spiritus pad pouch. I don't understand why anybody would buy the real. It's a really interesting pouch. It has this laser cut fabric, which is meant for weird shaped objects. But what I use it for is gloves. And then it also has bungee retention. So it just sits there. It's kind of out of the way. Doesn't bother. And whatnot. The back is kind of interesting. I'm running an assault panel for the first time. And it's kind of a multipurpose thing. And again, one of those things that I bought really cheap. I won an auction on eBay. I think it was $40. It's made by LDX. It's an assault panel. It has a bigger pouch here, which I used to keep a spare tube adapter. People say, oh, tubes break. Yeah, I mean, if it does, whatever. I'll just replace it. And then for now, I have a replacement antenna, because, like I said, communications are finicky and sometimes it's good to have options. If one fails, you use the other and vice versa. You never know. So that's what's here. It has a big compartment for hydration, which I don't have. And then it has flashbang smoke horizontal pouches. They're neat. I don't know if I'll use them. Probably not this time. But, Milsim's pyrotechnics are a thing. So if teammates have it, they can still stick them in there and use them if they want. One little modification I made is, as you can see, the connection of the cummerbund. Usually I do zip tie mod, but I kind of changed it with the, I guess you can call it bungee mod. And just what it does, it connects the cummerbund to the rear plate bag with bungees. And it kind of gives it a bit more support. It just doesn't let it flop out as much. The DCS cummerbund has a bit of elasticity built into it, but it's not super stretchy. So this, this, I'm not, I feel like it kind of helps it not, like when you, if you see, if you pull it, that comes out, right? So it kind of helps it stay in its place. So one thing that the back panel does that is pretty interesting, that the whole thing is connected by Velcro. So the way this works is that, I'm not going to do it all, but it comes with this massive hook panel that it's molly. So you molly into your plate bag and then the back panel just sticks to it. And that's about it. That's how it connects. It's a lot of hook and loop interface. So it's very strong. It's not really going to go anywhere. So in conclusion, this is my, I guess, most up-to-date plate carrier setup. I'm very happy about it. It's extremely comfortable. I'm just happy how it turns out. I think it looks amazing and it feels amazing. So hopefully I gave you some ideas if you're trying to set up something similar. And of course, this is very dependent on what it's being used for. If I were to use it in a classical rifleman type of role, I would have, you know, your typical three magazine pouch with possibly additions on the top of it. But for now, this is what I have it as because I'm trying to, I guess, balance weight and what I'm carrying. So yeah, that's my thought process. Yeah. I hope you guys enjoyed the video. Let me know what you think. And yeah, let's chat about it and I'll see you in the next one.