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What is MOLLE
Hey everyone! Today’s topic is for the beginners out there who are shopping for gear. A common word you might hear being thrown around is MOLLE. Pronounced Molly… not Mole, MOLLE is an acronym used in Western military and it stands for:
- Modular
- Lightweight
- Load-carrying
- Equipment
The gear you see will usually be made of nylon or something similar to Cordura nylon fabric, though other materials do exist like Blue Force Gear's proprietary thin MOLLE system which is made of something akin to scuba material. This makes the vest or chest rig durable while still keeping it light, unlike the previous generations of gear that were available prior. This serves as the platform with which you will configure your gear and mount the pouches you want to use for the job. On the vest, you have horizontal strips of webbing sewn into it, giving it that unique appearance that makes it instantly recognizable as a MOLLE vest. Then they are stitched vertically forming loops. The loops are evenly spaced and serve as a mounting point for MOLLE pouches. Depending on the design of the pouch, there will be a loose piece of fabric or plastic strips known as MALICE clips which are threaded into these loops of webbing on the vest. What you have is a very secure and strong connection to the vest which allows you to be active and do all sorts of things in your gear without losing anything. The pouches follow a universal standard, so as long as the loops are placed in the correctly and the right spacing is observed, configurations are easy and limitless.
The modularity of gear is the biggest benefit and the reason to get MOLLE gear. You can configure your vest or chest rig according to the mission. If you are a sniper, you might run a more minimal setup. If you use an SMG, you can use SMG specific pouches. If you run a rifleman loadout, you can run all sorts of pouches that can help you perform better. Plus you can outfit yourself with additional pouches that improve your quality of life out on the airsoft battlefield such as hydration carriers, gear bags, and dump pouches. You can play with the placement of your gear so it's easier to reach too.
If you find your needs to be a little bit more vanilla, a regular vest or chest rig with fixed sewn in pouches is more cost effective. And that brings us to the one detractor of the system. With all this modularity, you have the requirement now to spend on individual pouches to complete your setup.
That aside, to configure your vest you have to mount pouches by looping the straps through the webbing. That's a little time consuming and maybe troublesome for people so that's one thing to consider. There's not too many options outside of this if you want truly modular gear. But the nice thing is once these pouches are attached the correct way, they are not going anywhere.
As a side note, most airsoft gear made from nylon may have a material density count listed in Denier. The higher the number, the thicker the material used. This makes the gear more robust but also makes it heavier. An extremely low number might be very light weight but might not be suited for heavy duty or long-term use. Real-use gear will definitely include these numbers in their specs. Lower Denier is not necessarily a mark of low quality, as some people prefer something lighter and that just needs to last for a deployment rather than a lifetime. With the way this webgear breaths, it is understandable that some might want to move away from the overbuilt stuff.
Let's say you're ready to throw down and buy some MOLLE web gear now. What kind of setup should you get? This goes back to the old chest rig versus plate carrier conversation. In airsoft, if you are a function over form type of person, a lightweight chest rig that breathes nicely might be more ideal. It will carry nearly everything a plate carrier can but is more comfortable. Most people are not going to be buying a plate carrier for protection so much as for looks. Functionally, a plate carrier will do anything the chest rig will, but is a little bit bulkier. The reason it is called a plate carrier is it is designed to carry an armored plate. While this has no meaning in airsoft, those who aspire to build their loadouts for milsim might go this route purely for aesthetic reasons.
At the end of the day, it's really about how you feel when you play. Whether your thing is to look cool or go purely for function, go with what you want since this game is all about having fun anyway.