original SYSTEM was copied, disre-
garding the rest. Americans had a vest,
a grenadier vest, a dedicated back-
pack, and a whole range of equipment
features (pouches, bags, covers,
etc.) – either newly designed
or, thanks to the system's
"top-down compat-
ibility", adapted
using older
s o l u t i o n s .
We had no
new ele-
m e n t s
d e -
signed (except for a mountain infantry
pack, basically militarized hiking back-
pack), and the only suitable elements of
the old equipment were canteens, gas
mask pouches, and shovels in covers.
A soldier could carry 5 rifle magazines
and two grenades. It seems that the
existence of grenadiers, machine gun
teams, sharpshooters, rescue teams,
or crew-served weaponry teams was
ignored. The only "upgrade" of wz.
998 was desert camouflage version,
which included appropriately colored
straps and trims, but the rest remained
unchanged whatsoever. And this was
what Polish soldiers were equipped
with when they went to war in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
The authorities in charge seemed
to be somewhat aware of what they
sent our soldiers to war zone with. So
they decided to provide each of them
with some cash to be spent for "ad-
ditional equipment". The money was
spent mostly on elements of individual
equipment. Eventually it turned out that
the amount granted must have been
spent on core equipment, and not on
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