[Bowers]

heres a post matt made in that thread

OK,

As I said earlier, guys need to stop speculating about rigs and wait for the AAR to come out from somebody that was actually on the ground at the working group.

FWIW, CPGear had 2 rigs (our MoFOCR and KISS Rig) being evaluated as part of this process, both of which were found to have positive and negative points. Regarding the negative points, I've been informed informally as to what some folks thought of our rigs and will be doing an updated version of the MoFOCR and KISS Rig to satisfy those criticisms.

Negative points regarding the MoFOCR:
-Buckle closure on the front was found to be difficult to secure. This will be addressed by doing a version with a more conventional side release buckle opening; The snapdragons serve to reduce the amount of gap between the vest panels, however there must be a consideration made whether reducing vest gap vs. ease of donning the vest is more important, and as such a new buckle system will be developed for an updated version of the rig.
-D Rings on shoulder harness and rear of rig. This will be addressed by doing a new version of the shoulder harness without the articulted D rings; we've been selling the rig for over 2 years now and have yet to have one be returned for repair or customer reports of a broken D ring, however troops and our customers must have absolute confidence in our equipment, and as such an updated version will be produced.

Negative Points Regarding the KISS Rig
-With the 1.5" webbing shoulder straps, the rig can become entangled when attempting to put the rig on. We offer a shoulder harness upgrade which eliminates a large part of this entanglement issue, however the rig shown at the working group did not have this shoulder harness upgrade. To reduce the risk of this entanglement, we're considering making the shoulder harness upgrade a standard feature of the KISS Rig, however the price of the rig would be increased to account for this.
-The Side Release buckles on the front of the rig interefered with shouldering of the rifle. I'm awaiting some clarification on this point, as there is a large range of variation at which the rig can be positioned on the body, either high on the chest, or lower around the abdomen. I can see how when wearing the rig higher on the chest, the buckle may interefere with shouldering of a rifle, however a great many other similar rigs on the market would experience the same issue, i.e. Tactical Tailor MAV (both 1 and 2 piece), SO Tech Hellcat/Tomcat rigs, ESSTAC Boar family of rigs, Original SOE MWR, HSGI rigs, etc.

From my contact within DLR-5 that sponsored this trial, the next stage in the search for an interim load carriage platform (interim meaning replacing the tac-vest for operational usage until ISSP comes on line) is to take the data that was gathered at the working group to build a statement of requirement which will allow for another batch of rigs to be purchased for a larger (i.e. company level) trial to take place. The rigs most likely to be purchased for this trial will be those which most closely match the requirements identified by the working group, i.e. the top 3 rigs chosen by the working group.

After the company level trial takes place, and the feedback will be analyzed, the folks within DLR and DSSPM will develop a load carriage platform and pouch design based on that feedback, i.e. pattern drawings, material and construction specifications, etc. From there a Request for Proposal (government tender) for approximately 1-2 battlegroup's worth of kit will take place through the normal acquisition channels, i.e. PWGSC/MERX and the Army will have hopefully have a workable load carriage system for operational use, which is modular (i.e. MOLLE/PALS based), and multi-functional. It's highly unlikely that for the Battlegroup level purchase that DND/PWGSC will go out and buy a commercial off the shelf rig, i.e. Eagle Rhodesian Reconnaissance Rig, or Tactical Tailor MAV, however what they may spec out could be a near clone of that sort of system, which ends up getting made by the most cost compliant/best value bidder here in Canada.

So again, rather than spit out conjecture as to what the outcome of this working group is and what the tac-vest replacment's going to be, lets wait for the AAR, and then follow what happens with respect to DLR-5 pushing this thing forward onto a larger scale trial and the possibility of an eventual buy of 1-2 BGs worth of kit.

if anything it seems cpgear will at least be using the lessons learned to improve their rigs?