Carrying kit is vital. And every event has a different requirement in terms of what you need to take. In previous articles, I’ve talked about how I get away with an easy life at most airsoft weekenders because it’s usually camping from the car park, and you can carry as much as you need to or the car will fit. Well, no longer. An upcoming Black Hawk Down milsim has set a new challenge, which is to have a camp kit that is portable at a site that has no facilities, no shop, and no running water. And because it’s all period kit, I need something that looks the part, so no MOLLE backpacks. I have quite a big collection of bags, including DPM Bergen, NI Patrol Pack, Dutch Army backpack, holdalls, and many cheap MOLLE packs off Amazon, but none of them are really suitable for the loadout. So, I had to do some digging to find something that looked ok for the time period, but was also practical enough to use elsewhere. And came across this;

This is the Belgian Army backpack, and I can find absolutely zero information on when it was issued or to who, so unfortunately no history lesson today, which is a shame because it’s not in Belgian Jigsaw camouflage which was issued from 1956-2022, so if anyone does have any info on this lovely OD green item please drop it in the comments. What I do have though is a very functional backpack for this event and beyond – in recent blogs I’ve discussed rifleman and recon setups so this is with a view to building up a period, Green Team or OpFor kit for similar types of events, because collecting the kit has been a lot of fun. Not so much for the DPD delivery guy. It’s a particularly good pack if you’re running a belt kit, because it sits just above and doesn’t push down on anything.

These are available for between £10-£20, so it’s a really good budget option, although isn’t going to pack as much as a full-sized Bergen. I picked it up from forcesuniformandkit.co.uk for £17, and a shout out to those guys because they always deliver. Will it do the job?

Now, from experience, I have seen players turn up to weekend events with bright blue supermarket-bought dome tents, carpets, chairs, tables, barbecues, gazebos, pets, pillows, crates of beer, fridges, sun loungers and picnic baskets.

I am not such a player.

My kit is stripped down, it will consist of a personal overnight kit only, and of course all the airsoft stuff needed for the game. I can manage one night without extra comfort and luxury. Yes it’s kind of an immersion thing, but also those luxuries are a pain to pack away afterwards and obviously can’t be carried on your person. To break the event down, it’s just one night sleeping in the woods and a couple of days of food and water, and doesn’t need to be any more than that. This is hardcore mode, and won’t suit a lot of Sunday skirmishers.

At the moment, regardless of the event I take a 100l Kombat Assault Holdall which serves as my “kit bag” and contains all my clothing, webbing, eye pro, boots etc for either a game day or a two day event. Because I don’t clean it out often, there are several tubs of bb’s, loose pyro, bungees, basha poles, flapjacks, cordage, various VSR parts and even a tin of spam weighing it down. The guns, batteries, mags and toolkit all go in a gun bag, and each of these two bags is very heavy.

The holdall of course contains kit that I’m basically going to be wearing anyway, so by game start it’s pretty empty. The 100l of kit doesn’t equate to stuff I need to carry for camping. The purpose of this Belgian bag is to hold the kit for the camping part, not fighting kit or the clothes I’m wearing. Because I’m not a festival type camper, I’m hopeful that despite its smaller size, I’ll still be able to get the essentials in there. If it’s an event where you’re expected to not return to the car park during the game, everything will have to be carried and I don’t want to have to pull a trolley or hire a trailer to do it. This is also going to be very useful for a sniper who needs to go out and stay out – hidden on site all weekend and being self sufficient enough to do it.

From years of camping, one thing I’ve noticed with backpack capacity – whatever it is, you will fill it. I know if I take a 120l bergen, I’ll fill it purely because I can. There’ll be lots of “useful” stuff thrown in just in case, and most of it will never see the light of day. I did a wild camp with a 65l rucksack that expanded to 85l. Of course I expanded it, and I loaded it up to 25kg for a two day hike in the mountains in seriously hot weather which was heavy and unnecessary. So, by dropping down to a 30/40l (looking at it I think I agree with the 40l measurement), I’ll still fill this Belgian backpack but with a much reduced and more well planned overnight kit. One of the big advantages is that it comes with handy loops on the top and bottom, so that’ll take the sleeping bag (in a Goretex bag of course) out of the equation which is by far the biggest thing you’d fit into any pack.

Inside, which I prefer with any bag, is one big compartment with a thin sleeve type pocket at the back for admin perhaps. I have added a canteen bottle in the photo to help show the size. With the sleeping bag on the outside, this main compartment is going to take food, water, cook kit, and perhaps some essential game spares such as batteries. Personally, I use an inflatable sleep mat which packs into a water bottle sized pouch along with a pump sack. I can carry a rolled foam one on the other set of external loops. My Crusader Cook Kit fits into a water bottle sized pouch too. I never go anywhere now without my Sawyer Mini water filter, which I keep as a kit with a foldable bottle in a small medic pouch, and allows me to fill up on water from any water source. There’s a first aid kit in a small medic pouch too. Then I have a small EDC kit with a penknife, tape, cordage etc that fits into a larger medic pouch. And a wash bag, that fits into a utility pouch. Yep, this is going to be a bag full of pouches. I prefer loose pouches that I can pick up as a “kit” rather than having loads of them strapped onto the outside MOLLE loops which need detached, or you bring the whole bag with you. It’s easier but also keeps things organised. On top of that will go some spare dry clothes, socks, gloves and maybe a warm layer. I’m wearing this in conjunction with an ALICE buttpack which can carry waterproofs, which are obviously something you’d need in the game in a hurry.

There are also two side pockets, with simple popper fastenings. These look like a perfect size for a mess tin, but a little deeper as well. If you’re running a hexi stove, that’ll fit nicely into a mess tin with fuel tablets and cutlery, and you still have a similarly sized pouch the other side for either food pouches from a ration pack, or a bottle of water. I’m now debating the Crusader kit or a mess tin with a Fire Dragon hexi stove. For either, the solid fuel hexi tabs save carrying a bottle of liquid fuel; I know it’s not exactly a campfire to keep warm by but they do enough to boil a pan of water and deliver you a hot meal at least. There’s really not a lot to this backpack but there doesn’t need to be and I’ll do a packing guide in the coming weeks to show you how it all goes together.

A note about the shoulder straps…it does have some.

But they’re only thin strips of webbing. Now, before you start wishing for thick gel-padded straps, I can tell you that I’ve tried those on top of a plate carrier that had padded shoulder straps and the end result was unnecessarily thick and bulky to the point that I couldn’t shoulder the rifle at all. Bear in mind your fighting kit goes on first – in my case, an ALICE LC2 yoke. That has padding. The backpack goes on top of that, like this –

So that’s absolutely fine and doesn’t add bulk, and it’s not like I’ll be doing a three day hike in the Alps – it’ll be across an Airsoft site at worst. I can manage that. Additionally for this initial event I’ve got an armour vest to wear AND a chest rig on top of that as well, so there’s already enough on the shoulder area without adding more. That might actually be an issue for my shoulder mounted comms setup, but on issue at a time eh?

The bag itself is a bit musty and some of the metal parts are rusted, but that’s an easy fix. No rips or tears anywhere, and the fabric is in good condition. It’s also water resistant (plastic type lining on the inside that hasn’t worn away at all) which is a bonus, but for safety I’ll be packing everything into a drybag anyway. Just as I was going to pack this away, feeling very pleased with my purchase, I noticed an extra compartment on the back. My first thought was that this would be a great place to perhaps add a layer of foam for comfort and to add some rigidity, because the bag has none, but the pocket is about an inch and a half deep at least. Which could take some flat packed clothing or a tarp or something, and suddenly I like this bag even more.

Clearly, this isn’t a review because I haven’t used it yet, but I wanted to show it on arrival before doing some follow up articles not only on this bag, but also camping kit in general. Without overpacking.