I spent a good portion of this summer and autumn wandering around northern France. In the city of Reims, I came across the Musée de la Reddition, which was where, on May 7, 1945, German armed forces signed a surrender at the headquarters of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force. The building is now a museum about this and has all kinds of artifacts and memorabilia from the event.
Among their collection is a wide variety of US, British, Free French, and German military uniforms, and I was surprised by how heavy it all seemed to be -- thick wool, canvas, and leather were the materials of choice, and then heavy canvas rucksacks with thick metal clips and snaps. Then if marching in rain, add the water weight, too. That says nothing about the helmets, rifles, ammunition, and other fighting gear carried along. I have no specific data on the weight of a kitted-out infantryman.
My father was a W2 soldier who went through northern France with Patton's 3rd Army, and I still have his dress uniform (minus the boots), which is wool and weighs over 6 lbs.
How does this relate to hiking the AT? Just as a gee-whiz post about the comparative weight of our contemporary synthetics and how much weight is saved. In conclusion, I've no clue what a current Army uniform weighs or what materials are used -- surely not wool and canvas?uniform1.jpguniform2.jpg