So the currently issued black combat boots are no good and people are allowed to purchase "good" boots by thermselves and be reimbursed for them?
Obvious question: why doesn't the supply system supply decent boots that are made in Canada?
A lot of us wore the Greb made combat boots that came out in various styles. I thought the first ones in the 1960s were OK.
The CAF supply system is a government mafia money laundering scam where companies in Quebec pop up into existence a week before a contract gets put out looking for companies to bid on producing item X. The pop up company provides an example of item X to the people in government holding the pen and the money who approve transfer of 10s or 100s of millions of tax dollars. Government clowns who have the power to award the contract have less than zero concept of what a functional piece of equipment would even look like. It's also irrelevant in the end because all that matters is that huge amounts of money are exchanging hands at very high places behind closed doors allowing for inside trading, back door deals and unlimited opportunity for corruption.
Company gets the approval and receives dump trucks of money from government. Company then supplies a clunky ridiculous joke of an item to the CAF which gets thrown into the system and issued out to troops. Charade lasts just long enough to realize product X is dysfunctional, not compatible with other kit, falls apart very quickly, ergonomically retarded etc etc
Kit gets deemed ineffective thus another contract must be drawn up to replace it. Wash rinse repeat.
Case in point the Royer tan boot fiasco, new sleeping bag system, the "Tac Vest".....
I was issued MKIIIs when I got in. In 2006. Wearing a high heeled 50 year old boot with soles as hard as hockey pucks humping 60 lbs of gear in the bush on uneven terrain....in 2006....####ing ridiculous. Then they issued us the GPs or "MK4's".....a clunky loose fitting sock of a boot that was thermal lined so your feet rotted from sweat in the summer and froze rock solid in the winter, literally impossible to dry once they were wet in the field even on 38c days in the sun....
Mukluks.....80 year old boot design for winter warfare which keep your feet warm ish at minus 20 but just DONT get them wet! You know because its a winter warfare boot but it's not waterproof.....don't get THE WINTER WARFARE BOOTS wet....so you can wear them in the field at exactly between minus 10 and minus 20 only lol
All garbage. Zero other option but be forced to wear this junk and all the foot rot and muscular skeletal injuries that came from being forced to wear them.
My trade forced steel toes. Let me tell you if you think you wore the worst boots the CAF ever handed out but never had to wear the GP MK4 steel toes. ####ing things were 6lbs a boot. 3" thick soles that barely flexed after 6 months of wear and gigantic sloppy fit no matter what size you tried. Unbelievable.
If you ever looked up the cost of a pair of any of these items on the supply system you would see $270 a pair....twice the price back then of even a mid range set of Rocky S2Vs
I've been out for a while now but allowing soldiers to purchase their own boots was one of the only supply system decisions that ever even remotely made sense.
The CAF is a below the poverty line under funded ####ing joke army spear headed by corrupt politicians more interested in granting sketchy million dollar contracts so they can embezzle it and the soldiers get left holding the bag.....or the boot I guess you could say.
