Last Updated on 2017-08-04 , 10:11 am

To some of us, it’s easy to know when someone enlisted into the army: just take a look at his fieldpack.

If it’s a small one, he would most likely be one of the “lao peng”—if it’s big and solid green, he would most likely be born somewhere between 1985 to 1990, and if it’s the large and pixelated one, then he’s a new soldier.

That’s because there have been many changes to our fieldpack in just a few years, and we don’t do an exchange of our old fieldpacks to a new one, even when we change our uniform.

And now, there’s going to be yet another change.

According to The Straits Times, DSO National Laboratories has developed a new fieldpack known as A-Lite Pack (finally, some fancy name!), unveiled in the SGDefence exhibition last week.

Interesting, there’s an adjustable “load shelf” that allows you to keep the heavier items on the top so as to minimize forward leaning.

Unlike the current fieldpacks we have, this fieldpack is “modular”, which means the shoulder strips, hip belt and frame could be detached and replaced if they’re damaged.

One interesting aspect is that the bag was designed with the idea that Singaporean men’s average height had increased since 1997: in 1997, the average height is 170.2 cm, and in 2015, it is 171 cm.

But height isn’t the only thing that we Singaporean men have increased: our average shoulder breadth has increased 0.3 cm (okay, that’s great…) and our waistline has increased by a whopping 1.5 inches (OMG).

This research on Singaporean men was done by researchers in NUS.

The weight of the fieldpack, when empty, is 3.5 kg. I couldn’t find the weight of our current fieldpack online now, and I’m still holding on to the solid green large fieldpack, but here’s the thing: weight, once you’re out of training schools, is subjective (get it?).

It is unknown when this will be rolled out.

But in all seriousness, kudos to the SAF for customizing a fieldpack just for Singaporeans!

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Featured Image: straitstimes.com

This article was first published on goodyfeed.com

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