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[Erkki]

You don't always need protection. You always need comfort.

What if you need protection even when you think you need comfort? 

Composite helmet and and a fiber "flak jacket" or other kind of protective vest are definitely worth the weight. They wont protect from bullets much(if not shot far away, pistol caliber, ricochet etc.), but they do help against all the flying stones, wood splinters, shrapnel and debris. An infantryman typically is more likely to be hit by those than a bullet any way.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ours looks like that without plate: the "shrapnel vest" and modular vest are separate from the plate carrier unit. So one can use one just one or two of the three depending on what is wanted, and reduce weight ie. no need to bring the plate carrier without the plate, the lighter stuff lets heat and air through better.

For example scout and sniper patrols go with just the modular vest with some pockets, and boonie hat instead of helmet; protection is traded for mobility and endurance for men in a role where they want to always avoid a firefight.

[Strife26]

It depends largely on how frequently they're shot/shot at. I know individuals who had their plate stop things, then bought a bunch of supplementary gear today protect their shoulders and legs better.

[Tack]

So basically the young man's creed: "invincible until proven otherwise?"

[Rolepgeek]

I was just pointing out the psychology of the situation. You're on duty in some base nowhere near the fighting. Why should you need to wear another 40 pounds of gear, especially considering the problems infantrymen already get from carrying so much gear for so long?

[Parsely]

That's actually what reportedly happens. Infantry (and people in general) will tend to: ignore/discard things they think they don't need in order to be more comfortable, until the moment when something negative happens, and from then on they overcompensate in the future because of that bad experience.

[Rolepgeek]

People with more safety features in their cars will tend to have riskier driving behaviors.

Again, that's how people think. We trade off risk and convenience all the time.

[Tack]

Re: Bevors.

[Parsely]

Spoiler: To Kill, and the Guilt Thereof (click to show/hide)

William Manchester, author and U.S. Marine veteran of World War II, felt remorse and shame after his close-range personal killing of a Japanese soldier. "I can remember," he wrote, "whispering foolishly, 'I'm sorry' and then just throwing up ... I threw up all over myself. It was a betrayal of what I'd been taught since a child." Other combat veterans tell of the emotional responses associated with a close-range kill that echo Manchester's horror. The media's depiction of violence tries to tell us that men can easily throw off the moral inhibitions of a lifetime — and whatever other instinctive restraint exists — and kill casually and guiltlessly in combat. The men who have killed, and who will talk about it, tell a different tale. A few of these quotes, which are drawn from Keegan and Holmes, can be found elsewhere in this study, but here they represent the distilled essence of the soldier's emotional response to killing:

Killing is the worst thing that one man can do to another man . . . it's the last thing that should happen anywhere.
— Israeli lieutenant

I reproached myself as a destroyer. An indescribable uneasiness came over me, I felt almost like a criminal.
— Napoleonic-era British soldier

This was the first time I had killed anybody and when things quieted down I went and looked at a German I knew I had shot. I remember thinking that he looked old enough to have a family and I felt very sorry.
— British World War I veteran after his first kill

It didn't hit me all that much then, but when I think of it now — I slaughtered those people. I murdered them.
— German World War II veteran

And I froze, 'cos it was a boy, I would say between the ages of twelve and fourteen. When he turned at me and looked, all of a sudden he turned his whole body and pointed his automatic weapon at me, I just opened up, fired the whole twenty rounds right at the kid, and he just laid there. I dropped my weapon and cried.
— U.S. Special Forces officer and Vietnam veteran

Exerpt from "On Killing" (beginning of Chapter 7) by Dave Grossman, a book I am becoming a little obsessed with.

[Tack]

And yet peasants were able to poke big sticks at other peasants no problem? I wonder if culture has changed.

[NRDL]

Personally I always wondered how cromagnon and really really early humans felt about killing each other, if PTSD was even possible.  I like to think that the everyday environment of classical antiquity people was so saturated with hardship and violence ( or the threat of violence ) that empathy for your fellow man just didn't exist unless you were physically, socially and financially secure. 

Either that or PTSD was just as common as today, and those who suffered psychological trauma from killing were labelled cowards, and sociopaths who were able to kill for tribe, religion and country were latched onto by historians as warriors.. 

[Parsely]

I don't think tribal humans actually killed each other that much. They probably fought much as how the medieval peoples fought. You would posture and intimidate your enemy by shouting and throwing missiles, and when your enemy fled that would be it. If they surrendered and you wanted to dispose of the adult males you would find ritualistic ways of killing them that remove the responsibility of the crime from any one person or distance you from the result (see: lynch mobs that hang people together, firing squads, burning witches at the stake, having someone whose job is to be an executioner). If people have been brainwashed through religious or cultural beliefs they can convince themselves that they were not responsible for a crime as a mental defense mechanism (see: the Jewish Holocaust where people were dispassionately throwing corpses around, various examples of deranged people who believe God was controlling them when they killed).

And yet peasants were able to poke big sticks at other peasants no problem? I wonder if culture has changed.

Your mistake, I think, is in assuming no one in medieval times had any problems with killing each other in combat just because there are no recorded instances of people becoming depressed after killing someone in combat. What we do know is that there is no culture in existence that hasn't punished people for murder, and also had a form of murder that was considered justified. That in itself is evidence for the instinctive urge to not kill one another to be ingrained in us as a species.

But, to take another page from David Grossman, I do think that people back then who slaughtered their own food had more knowledge and respect for the act of killing itself, since it was a time when families slaughtered their own food.

[MarcAFK]

You don't always need protection. You always need comfort.

Said no tanker ever.

[Rolepgeek]

You don't always need protection. You always need comfort.

Said no tanker ever.

How much body armor do Tankers wear? Do they wear ceramic plates and the whole get-up while in the tank? Far as I know, they're not carrying 150+ lbs of gear for hours, most of the time. They're a lot more comfy(sorta) to start with, and also a lot more vulnerable because they're a more valuable target than a single infantryman.

Also, peasants hated being in the military. Desertion was usually rampant if you weren't winning. And only a few were literally on the frontlines. Why do you think morale was so important?

Also. http://www.killology.com/article_agress&viol.htm
When you don't know for certain you've killed someone, and the whole ritual of separation and 'washing away the blood' is in place, it's a lot easier to not get PTSD. Especially if the conflict is easier to justify, one way or another, rather than believing you're killing without a good cause.

[Arx]

* Arx raises the Strife signal.

And yet peasants were able to poke big sticks at other peasants no problem? I wonder if culture has changed.

Honestly, they probably felt much the same as modern soldiers.

[MarcAFK]

Uh, I mean the tanks armour, not the crews body armour. No tanker would suggest removing armour modules for more legroom.
:p