It is the point I sympathise with.
I hope you can at least appreciate my feelings on the matter when a politician literally spells out the problems you have been dealing with. Even with just one year in the military and 16 weeks of basic training, you know how shit the gear is.
I am going to explain just for the fucks of it.
Let's start with the ops vest. It can't be sized properly at all. It means it adds an extra dimension to the 7 kilo's it wil weigh. The shoulder pieces are too think making carrying a backpack extremely uncomfortable. The bags are too plentiful on it. sure you can stash all sorts of shit, but having a small 30L backpack will solve this easily. It is too bulky and makes too much noise - pretty much lethal for scouts and recon units. The magazine pouches are closed, not with elastic bands, as is common, but with actual lids. The action requires at least 3 seconds more even for an experienced soldier. That is 3 seconds someone isn't putting lead downrange and it is the sort of time that can kill. Literally the only thing the vest has going for it, is that it's cheap and you can store a lot of bullshit in there, which especially for an officer who needs to do butt fuck nothing with fighting is great.
Then the boots. The Meindls we get issued are too wide for a lot of people with narrow feet, like me. The soles are too stiff. Now I have a history of hiking and I did prepare before I started basic, so it wasn't my fault when I could barely walk for 6 weeks after my finex. The march home was a punishing 25 to 30 clicks marching at night for 3 days. It isn't even that impressive a distance to cover. It was made specifically punishing by literally the state of our gear.
The rucksack... it's... it's just fucking bollocks it is. The hip bands are too soft, they add very little support. The shoulder bands are too thin, barely padded and cut into your shoulders. The zips, plastic locks and pieces for all the straps are made of poor quality plastic and dont keep enough suspention on the straps, requiring you to adjust all the straps every 5 minutes and I am not even exaggerating. The only thing that is good about it is that it is 60L in contents.... but there's plenty of other backpacks out there for that, too. Also: if you're taller than 1.90 (pretty common) you WILL get back pains to the point it is literally unhealthy. The army recognises this and permits people of 1.90 and taller to opt for the 120L backpack in use with Cavalry and infantry units, which, thank fuck, is of proper quality.
What else is there? Ah yes. The radio's. Now I know that an army stereotype is that radio's barely work.... But the Dutch military tops it all. The radio's are 30 years old. If that doesn't say enough, they're 12 kilo's in weight. That wouldn't be too much of a problem, but the battery's only last for roughly 2 days when used when on for most of the day and reserve ones weigh an additional 2kilo's. The range on the poor fucks were at best 6km and that is in afghanistan. In the forest they go at about 2 to 3 km.
The rifles are great though. The only thing annoying with it, is that the stock isn't tighly fitted to the rest of the rifle so it wobbles, but it's relatively easy to adjust for that. For the rest it's a solid piece.
We get issued sporks... to eat with. Which in and on itself isn't a bad idea, but they're made of stiff plastic. Given the organic way to pack your coat, it is in your right lower pocket. Have 1 contact drill and it breaks in two. This is remedied by buying your own spork, a titanium one, costing you 16 bucks. Most people, however, buy their own so-called 'tactical' spoon. Which is a non-shiny spoon bought at literally anywhere. I got mine at Hema.
The shit we are supposed to cook on is esbit on an aluminium cooker. What is esbit? imagine styrofoam soaked in kerosine and compress that a lot. Light it on fire and if you smell it, you almost acutely get cancer (not literally).
It takes way too long to cook water and food on it and esbit doesnt work in freezing temperatures. For comfort people buy a jetboil, which boils water using propane gas in about 2 minutes. I am not saying the army should provide jey boilers, but small propane tanks would be useful. We buy the propane kits for 30 bucks, a jetboil is 70.
We do not get issued headlamps. As simple as that. We do not get headlights for the offchance we're allowed to use them to clean our rifles. Of course you need to have a good one who endure some level of bumping it into stuff so we buy Petzl headlamps going at 50 bucks.
Gloves. We do get issued gloves. They're called nomex gloves and they're great if you're in the air force. The marines get them issued as well and when used intensely for 2 weeks, you can throw them away because 3 fingers will have holes in them and they'll be useless. We buy our own tactical gloves for roughly 25 bucks.
Barets. A marine referred to our barets as 'shapeless pancakes'. He's not far off. They're too thick, too warm and shape like an old woman's twat in summertime. Almost the ENTIRE army and marine corps buys their own from Noorloos Specialist Equipment (hilariously an ex-marine making a killing in selling stuff the army doesnt deliver properly on, almost all his customers are military, a significantly smaller portion are airsofters). They sell English-styled barets going at 17,50 a piece. THey're awesome everyone gets them, they look great.
EDIT: this is all based on my personal experience I have had with the gear. None of this I have heard from from other. It is all what I have had to do with the shit I get.
2nd EDIT: The story I have written here is strictly my own personal opinion and in no way representative to army or Dutch military policy or organisational opninion
