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30 Comments

  1. ALICE gear better than MOLLE? I don’t think so.

    I remember those metal ALICE clips digging into me when in the prone, or fidgeting around in a fighting position, etc. (Army Rangers used to replace those clips with short lengths of 550 cord).

    Or the bulky ammo pouches, and the fact that each one oz. canteen sat right behind each kidney.
    The MOLLE system was WAY overdue for load-bearing equipment. It’s like the computer USB of gear compatibility. While I still have large ALICE rucksacks (OK, I’m old school), I’m more of a MOLLE fanatic, attaching MOLLE to MOLLE, etc. I even have a MOLLE tank vest for my KLR 650 motorcycle.

    1. Couldn’t agree more Jerry! I was in during the time where the transition from ALICE to MOLLE was taking place, and what a relief it was not to have those stupid clips digging into me every which way, or the pain-in-the-rear canteen holders messing up every movement I tried to make. I HATED ALICE setups….

  2. I concur about MOLLE being better than ALICE. Consider that ALICE was a 1950’s design with some modifications along the way. The belts, canteen covers, suspenders, compass pouch all were made of heavy duck canvas they they were updated to nylon. The improvement in Molle also offered a lot more pouches and a lot more versatility in where those pouches can go.

  3. Pat…didn’t leave the Army with much but 2 items stand out. My entrenching tool. Yes it folds, but it’s built like iron. Takes a lickin and keeps on tickin. I love it. The other is my “Bag Mountain Sleeping”. It’s a mummy bag (not my favorite), but it keeps you toasty warm. Got to agree. USGI stuff is made right and it lasts. Always on the lookout but it seems real surplus stores are getting few and far between.

  4. I’ve kept the Cold Steel Spetnatz shovel in my truck tool box for a long long time, its never let me down. Also makes for a pretty decent ‘melee’ weapon in an emergency, just short enough to tuck into my GHB if I have to hike around sheeples.

    That Jeep tool appears to be very useful – I’ll check it out. Thank you for the review.

    1. @ Anon, I too, keep the Cold Steel shovel in my vehicle. The price is great and I find that it often comes in handy. I also like to take a bastard file to it every so often to keep a decent edge on it. Just used the shovel last night to make a mock scrape for whitetail.

      Great article, Pat. Short/military shovels can really come in handy.

  7. TexasScout – Yes, you can pick up $10 D handle shovels at the hardware store. They have all had plastic handles. Over the years I’ve bought several. It will ride around in the back of my truck, soaking up the sun and then when I really need it the plastic D handle breaks apart.

    At $30, a metal shovel looks like a bargin.

    elgin

  8. We have two stores up here in our berg in Alaska; G.I. Joes and 907 Surplus. Both offer a lot of USGI gear, and a little bit of non GI stuff. The quality of the non GI stuff isn’t bad, but in both stores everything is vastly overpriced. Maybe because we have three major military bases up here and the guys come in to buy stuff they’ve lost … and the cost of heating is outrageous as well. Either way if your ever in Fairbanks, Alaska check out these two places; they’er right across the street from one another.

    G.I. Joe’s is owned by a retired American Army guy and his Russian wife; 907 is a chain outfit but the guys there are all vets and know the gear well. Sometimes you can dicker on the price of items with 907 but the other store doesn’t give an inch. 907 has occasional “crazy day sales” and that’s the time to buy … and if you are looking for quantity they will make deals as well.

    There used to be a place called “Prepper Daves” but the store in North Pole closed; he may be on-line yet? He always had nothing but USGI gear, good condition, but again, his prices were too high.

    Arctic gear, USGI system III is good stuff, but pricey. At 50 to 70 degrees below you don’t want your gear to be cheap failures ….

    1. Overpriced in Alaska… strange. 😉 I lived on an Alaskan island for 4 years.

      I have the Cold Steel too, and wonder if this article would be more useful for truck and crossover suv. I’ll check one out.

  9. I got a deal on WW2 E-tools years ago and have carried them in my jeeps since and have used them repeatedly(not just for digging if you know what I mean),they don’t measure up to a real spade but carry so much better. Used Alice gear until was ordered to use the molle and found it to be unnecessarily complicated(some couldn’t get it right with instructions and help) hard to reconfigure for missions prone to failue(snaps broke,seams ripped,packs were junk-every frame broke),couldn’t drop gear when not required.

  10. the little shovel has gotten me out of a tight spot on a dirt road more than once.

    “I also like to take a bastard file to it every so often to keep a decent edge on it.”

    repeated for emphasis, makes digging a lot easier.

  11. When we transitioned from ALICE to MOLLE I thought I’d lost a third of the weight of my gear, a full load out with MOLLE was a walk in the park compared to dragging ALICE around kicking and screaming (and poking).

      1. I carried both for more miles than I care to remember but carrying the same gear with the MOLLE system was much easier. The ALICE pack would dig at you and make your collar bones feel like they were on fire. The MOLLE was much better at distributing the weight. YMMV.

  13. Eat your heart out. My M38A1 (1954, still green, still a crappy fuel system, still 24 V) has the original shovel on the under hood bracket. A real Willys shovel, not jeep.

    BTW, the plastic versions can be life extended by simply painting the plastic parts. My 24 y.o. Ace special is fine after a life in Arizona heat and sun in the back of my pickup. Opaque paint on any exterior plastic is mandatory here.

  14. When I was a kid back in the late 60’s early 70’s I inherited a trenching tool from my father. I remember it had the spade and a pick that would fold out and lock with the screw lock. Anyway that thing was tuff and lasted many years. I have no idea where it got to. As I became a driver I looked in our Military surplus stores to find one of these for my truck, but ended up with a tri-fold shovel. I liked shoving it between the tool box and the bed side wall of the truck. I still have this shovel, but retired it as it is a little bent likely from me hacking at small trees with it. I got another one at a gun show about 8 months ago that is U.S. stamped and it came with a digital green camo MOLLE pouch. It rides under my truck seat next to a (Chinese) survival shovel I got through Amazon. I had a D handle garden shovel I got from the Home Garden store that lasted about three years. The handle broke this year as it rode in the back of the truck under the tool box, but was exposed to the weather. I need another (non-folding) shovel and will likely invest in the Jeep Shovel Pat covered here. I may find a spot for it in my tool box to keep it out of the weather. I already have a little OD Green pick/Maddox in there (another gun show find). So I’m sure a little shovel will fit. It is all about redundancy with me I guess. I like having more than one for a backup in case of failure. I think my truck is a rolling survival store at times. I can lay my hands on three machetes, multiple fixed and folding knives, several flashlights, and several umbrellas. This is not even counting what’s in my get home bag. Maybe I’m a hoarder.

  15. I enjoyed reading this article very much. Thanks. I have a d handle shovel that has been in my tool box for many years. I think it was made by True Temper. I don’t remember the price but it has lasted many years and is still in good condition.

  16. Hardwood D-Handled shovels are still very much available. They’re still made by Ames (since 1774, the oldest shovel / tool company in the U.S. per wiki) and avail at most hardware stores, you just have to look harder for the wood handled ones. A can and several carefully applied coats of OD Green spray paint (or Coyote Brown for you so.west desert dwellers) will give you the earth tone color and weather protection you need.

    While in Afghanistan, going through a large box of donated supplies from various countries, this one in particular, from the U.S. I came across WWII dated Ames mfg’d E-Tools. Needless to say, several went home with me :>)

    ALICE vs. Molle??? After 24 years, all in combat arms, 15 yrs in Airborne. I can go either way. MOLLE is very versatile, ALICE is too but not as much but a lot cheaper at gunshows and surplus stores. Toss the sadistic ALICE clips, use heavy duty zip-ties (with the cut & melted ends facing the piece of equipment and not the body) or 550 cord, just know how to tie tight and secure knots! I like Butt-Packs which don’t seem to be avail in MOLLE but are in ALICE, also, I feel naked w/out my canteen cup (or 2 for winter ops, 1 for melting snow, 1 for drinking) so I will always have canteen pouch’s, but since “WATER IS LIFE” I will also have a CamelBack, either on my back or in my patrol pack / rucksack.

    1. “use heavy duty zip-ties”

      thanks.

      “MOLLE is very versatile”

      the whole point of alice was to limit the amount of gear (and thus weight) that could be pushed onto a combat soldier. molle seems to be prone to overloading. is that the case?

  17. Overloading can be the case of untrained Privates and Specialist who want to look like SEALs or SF. But without a good NCO as a mentor, little things like too much crap on their web gear will just wear them out making them physically ineffective to say the least. In the civilian / prepper world they’re called “Mall-Ninjas”. An example of too much was when you had a commander that wanted every soldier to look exactly the same (hence the term ‘uniform’). So every ‘Joe’ had his E-tool on his left hip his 1st aid pouch on his left shoulder strap, etc,etc. When I finally went to a ‘smarter’ unit, we only carried 1 E-tool for every 2-3 soldiers while the others carried other mission essential equipment.

    Like we used to say in Recon… “A hundred pounds of light weight high-speed equipment is still…a hundred pounds”

    Your point of ‘Alice’ limiting the amount of gear / weight a soldier carried is arguable for sure. One example of improved gear / equipment is the MOLLE IFAK (Indv. First-Aid Kit). It is hands down a 150% improvement over the old ALICE 1st aid pouch which held 1 battle dressing and 1 triangular cravat. The MOLLE IFAK is a complete ‘Blow-Out Kit’ with room for addition items. It is NOT a first-aid kit, it is for severe battlefield trauma and has proven itself to be life saving. First-aid is something you carry in another pouch or pack.
    When I was in one of those ‘smarter units’, we wore ALICE (before MOLLE) and we used to carry a second 1st aid pouch w/ an ACE elastic bandage in it to use as a compression wrap. In addition to that I used to vacuum pack a 5 pk (+-) of large and larger antibiotic treated band-aids for the quick application of the endless boo-boo’s you get when out in the field. In my Butt-pack I had a small but fairly complete 1st aid kit for the more mundane boo-boo’s, being quite the admitted tenderfoot, I also had a dedicated blister kit w/ moleskin, athletic tape, sissors and a tube of Neosporin ointment. Blisters are one of the most debilitating injuries a foot soldier can have (think of foot soldier if you plan to Bug-Out.)…still have both kits 20 years later, along with lots of foot powder…lol

    1. ‘preciate the first aid listings, thanks.

      the better first aid in a molle bag is not a comment on alice, it’s a coment on changed attitudes towards casualties and changed realities regarding medical evac and care.

      “smarter unit”

      no reason a prepper can’t be smart too. but it seems to me the molle set-up encourages overloading – mounts everywhere – while alice simply is deliberately limited in load-bearing capacity.

      1. The point of the multiple load points on MOLLE isn’t to allow more equipment to be loaded, but to encourage greater versatility in loading equipment. Not that some individuals or units don’t try to feel every attachment point. They’re just doing it wrong. On my third deployment, our CSM…a slick-sleeve even after 10 years of war… tried to push that “uniformity” nonsense on the unit. As the BN S3, I and my OPS SGM squashed that silliness fast. It’s called “modular” for a reason.

  18. While dropping off some cleaned out garage junk at the local dump I spied a brand new box with a USGI marking in a 30 yd. roll-off container and sure enough, a brand new collapsible shovel was inside. Fits perfect inthe storage box in the SUV and also great for a BOB. Seriously, why would anyone ever throw an item like this away?

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