Improving the Gen III Marine Corps Carrier (2023)

Introduction

After nearly a year since the Gen II video the sequel is here...

In this guide we go over DIY tips, product recommendations and more to improve your experience with the Gen III Carrier.

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Video

How's it going guys Shaw here from Shaw Concepts today, we'll be going over the Gen 3, Marine, Corps care and how to improve it.

If you look at the upload date, you'll, see that is the Marine Corps birthday.

So please take this as a small present from us to you in this video we'll be offering a number of DIY tips and product recommendations to help you with your experience with this issued carrier.

And in the future we'll be releasing a number of products built solely for the Gen 3, but we will be going over those at a later time before we start to fix the Gen 3.

However, we have to have a better understanding of how the system works.

The Gen 3 is supposed to be a scalable solution that features a low profile setup and an outer load-bearing skin.

While the idea is good the execution isn't so much so Marines end up having to choose to work off of the low profile setup or the outer load-bearing skin in this video we'll be going off of the load-bearing skin and just know that there are pros and cons to both starting points, but understand that each puts different design obstacles that need to be overcome to fix them.

And we find that the outer skin to be a bit more straightforward and practical, especially for those in the Infantry rules.

And those will be the focus of this video with all that out of the way let's get started by taking this apart.

And looking at the front plate bag with our front plate bag laid out we'll, go ahead and disassemble it.

The front plate bag has a low drying panel on the front that we will remove and set aside for later and two flaps will also set aside for later, we'll then, unzip the bottom and remove the low profile plate bag, you'll then set this aside after removing the soft armor removing this will go ahead and remove about 10 ounces from the overall weight from there you'll take the soft armor and insert it behind the plate pocket do note that the soft armor is larger than the plate just like in the Gen 2.

So that might affect the way this all looks at the end.

If you'd like to run a pre-purchased padded backer or just take that isomat and cut it out to the shape of your plate.

You can add that for additional Comfort behind the soft armor you'll, then take your sappy plate and insert it into the plate pocket once that's done you'll, go ahead and zip all that up and to silence.

This zipper over here, we're going to take a little bit of duct tape and gum up that joint.

And then shove it up into the recess out of the way from there we'll, go ahead and grab our load bearing panel, and we will insert this in here.

There are two ways to run this.

You can either a insert it.

The way you found it and use the molly on the front for pouches that you already have, or you can go ahead and insert all of this section behind that kangaroo pocket to run it.

A placard on the front.

We will be running a placard for the rest of this video.

So what we're going to do is fold that out of the way and then insert this all the way to the bottom like that make sure you go all the way in and put your buckles through the tweeve ports to run most placards on the market you'll need to expose these hidden loops and attach buckles to them to clip onto your placard.

The first method is to go ahead and take this guy and expose them right there and attach a female split bar Buckle to the end.

This will work for most placards out there, but let's say that your placard needs a much more height, or your play bag is a little bit different in Dimensions than this medium.

Then you can do the second method, which is to expose this at two points.

And then attach a quasm buckle to both points with both ways demonstrated we'll be sticking to this lower one, but know that you have both options.

Also, please note that if you need to run any additional Clips up here to let's say, run a play cure pack that uses one inch Hardware like our own.

Then you can start right here, grab that extra Slack it's going to be a lot tighter and attach your Buckle to that point from here.

We'll, go ahead and attach our placard to our front plate bag.

Please note that if your placard lacks direct tube connection like ours has you will need to use your tube flaps from earlier under said, placard, the tube direct connection can offer you the ability to reduce weight and layering here.

And it also causes your placard to be tight against the body, the cons to it is that depending on how tight you run your rig, you might have to wrestle these over to get them clipped on.

But we see that as a very minor con either way just know that you have two options when it comes to placards and getting your cummerbund onto this plate carrier due to the Gen 3 featuring a load-bearing panel detached from the actual plate bag.

You can actually fit stuff behind here.

This is useful for a number of things, one of them being retaining flat items, such as Maps behind your load, Bank panel and hiding them away to store them and acting as a sort of map pocket.

And it also doubles for comms cable routing, which you will see later if you don't want this to be open, or you want to tighten up your arm Pockets just like on the Gen 2, you can run 550 core through these Loops tie them around make a knot and then hide it under the Molly and we'll demonstrate that right now.

And just like that, we've gone ahead and tied up this excess and the pockets right here and caused all of this to collapse a little bit more.

So you have a bit more range of motion in the arm pockets now, moving on to the rear plate back we're going to do the same thing and completely disassemble this starting with the velcro tamale adapter, the cummerbunds on the Gen 3 are an improvement from the Gen 2.

However, they still have some downfalls.

It is great that they have a first spear tube on the front that is an improvement.

And these are Tigress lined on the inside.

However, they lack any stretch so that you can fully inflate your lungs.

And the way they end up connecting the play care, isn't, great as it only allows for enough connection on about one side of each of these, especially when you have this on a much tighter fitment, you can see that this basically only connects to here.

And this other one connects onto the bottom, and they kind of cancel each other out when they lay a top of each other.

So what we're going to do is basically just remove this and just like that, we've removed four and a half ounces of the Molle adapter and 12 ounces on the cummer buns.

We highly recommend switching to another cumberbund for this carrier.

And we recommend, of course, our own Arc cumberbund V2 as it has all the same features as that, and it lashes on with shock cord so that it can have a little bit of breathability and stretch.

And it also doesn't lose the moly real estate over the tubes we'll go over attaching a Cumberland later, but for now we're going to pick up on removing all the contents from the plate back foreign, unlike the front this inner playback, weighs 12 ounces as it has foam integrated into the Yoke and we're going to remove the soft armor and set this aside as well.

Unlike the front plate bag, the rear plate bag features, this padded yoke, except it is not padded when you remove the inner plate bag, meaning that this is just loose Cordura.

We've found that a lot of Marines end up having these swaying either outside, or inside of the neckline due to the strap being one and a half inches and this being very loose, especially with the padding inside.

So we heavily recommend that you just tuck these inside and then switch to a pad to tuck them in you're going to pull your strap out of the tunnel.

Shove your hand, all the way in grab as much as you can over here and collapse.

It Inward and pull it inside out.

It is important to grab it in here and make sure that you do a great job flattening this.

So it doesn't cause any bumps or friction spots.

You'll, then do the same thing to the other side once you have that completely flattened on the inside.

We can now go ahead and insert all of our inserts, starting with our foam, then our soft armor.

And then of course, our plate in the same plate pocket like last time, we're going to go ahead and gum up this action on the zipper to silence it and shove it up into its recess moving on to the shoulder straps you'll see that they are one and a half inch webbing, which is not a ton of surface area to distribute all the weight you're going to be putting on this and there's, no padding.

Currently since we've removed that yoke that was an additional 12 ounces.

So we recommend moving to a shoulder pad that you can attach to this and anchor, we of course, recommend our own arc, shoulder, pads as they have 3 8 inch, closed cell foam and space to mesh against the neck and body and to attach them you'll open up the flap open up.

The anchoring straps lay this in with a space to mesh against the neck.

And with this loop, we're actually going to use the first set of anchoring straps to attach it.

So that it anchors into this area and doesn't slide around on us as there is no velcro for these to attach to otherwise we'll, then close up these other guys and close up our flap we'll.

Then do the same to the other strap just like that.

We've added shoulder straps that'll, stay in place and are much more comfortable than the previous ones.

We've removed unnecessary bulk and cleared the area for us to attach a stretchable cummerbund with a shock cord.

Now on to adding a lash on cover button, you'll, see that there's plenty of Molly real estate to lash the cumberbone onto a shock cord.

However, there aren't any actual webbing ports that pass the bands through those ports are important as they keep the cover button against the actual plate bag and not allowing it to separate from the playback at the point that they're lashed on we're going to turn two again, gutted, 550 chord to create our ports.

And all you'll have to do is take a short length run it through all three of these as we'll be passing our bands between the negative space of the molly, then we'll pass it back through this middle one, we'll, then tie a square knot and hide that knot, like we did before under one of these rows we'll, of course, cut and burn to properly secure them.

One important note about using 550 chord like this is that this also allows you to still use these Molle columns to attach pouches as they don't take up any space.

Your one inch bands, can't pass, buy them.

And with our bands going in the negative space, this won't impact how you attach Molle pouches on properly from here.

We'll go ahead and run our bands below these bands.

And then depending on where you need to actually latch these on you'll, take your shock cord and run it between the bands and the Molle you'll then tie a knot.

At the end, you can have the knot facing down or up we'll, go ahead and Route this trying to create an x pattern at both points with that complete.

You can see that.

Now we have our ports added to here.

We have our cover button lashed on and stretching with your breathing or anything else.

You might be putting onto the carrier and we'll.

Now just mirror this onto the other side with our cumbruns.

Attached let's quickly go over side.

Plate bags side, plate bags, are one of those things where you'll have to review your units, sop on them.

And if you need to wear them or not we're going to go off of the idea that most of you do so let's start with the zipper again, the zipper does make noise and you'll want to take a little bit of tape and come up that action.

Once again, just to silence that one thing we've noticed with our set is that they are identical exactly, which is an issue when it comes to having that zipper go to the rear.

Ideally you would want this to sit so that our zipper faces to the rear and not to the front over here, you'll see that this faces to the rear and over here, it says to the front on the inside of our Chrome bun, you'll, go ahead and just attach this as best you can using the Molly in here.

And it operates the exact same way as it would with the other camera bun now that we've set up the base and ironed out a number of the quirks let's move on to kidding this.

But before we do let's answer the question, what do we do with all this easy get a trash bag bag it all up and throw it in your wall Locker for when you have to turn it in don't, throw it away.

You will have to turn that stuff in One Last, Thing, Before, I proceed to kick this out is you might notice that this doesn't look drastically different than its original setup.

We see that as a positive as in the Marine Corps, you have to ride that fine line between sticking out like a sore thumb and also doing everything.

You can to improve yourself in your kit.

Some of the chain command might not appreciate aftermarket equipment being used or altering issued equipment outside of what it was supposed to be.

But you have to ride that fine line.

And we feel that this does that extremely well with all those disclaimers out of the way let's, go ahead and start kitting this out.

We like to start first at the sides of our front plate under the cumberbund as this is often an underutilized space.

And if we can use it, it frees up other Mali real estate.

We otherwise would have had to use one of the items that many of us carries, of course, a fixed blade knife.

This is a Shawshank V2.

This uses adhesive hook to attach to our sheath and anchors it to the pouch.

It can be flipped from side to side, depending on which side you want to run this on.

And all you have to do to attach it.

Now is lift up on your Velcro, lay it down lay down the flap or placard and close up your cover button.

That's.

It no need to get crazy with any shock cord or 550 cord.

And it places it close to your plate.

So you can reach it with either hands.

The next item you might very well carry.

And maybe even one of the most important items is, of course, a radio.

Now you can run a radio a number of ways most of them being external pouches.

But we try to run our radios on the inside of our government as much as possible.

You may not be able to do this.

If it's let's say a 163, and it gets too hot against your side.

But for most other ones you should be able to do it, and we recommend it because it keeps the radio up against your side where you can know where it is all at all times.

You can adjust it as needed in front of you.

And you don't need anybody's assistance trying to access it to attach it with The Arc.

Radio wink you're, basically going to do very much the same thing open up your cover button and place your flap in here.

This of course, can be flipped from side to side.

And you can also change the height.

We'll, go ahead and close this Cumberland up and then show you how to run all these cables through here.

Previously we mentioned one of the benefits of the load bearing panel being separate from the playback is that you have this cavity here and we're going to use that now to actually run our con cables from one side to the other we're going to try to run all of our cables off of one shoulder as that will essentially anchor, one shoulder, allowing the other to still be dishable with the Buckle.

This Buckle will no longer be usable as we're going to have all these wires running past it and anchoring to the rear plate back to get these across easily you're just going to run your hand under this panel.

It may be tight if you have your plates in, but you can remove them and make it a little bit easier hook onto all that stuff and pull it all the way through your antenna is the easy one if you're using an antenna or antenna, relocator cable, super easy, you're just going to run it through this two, uh, this tweeve channel.

And over your shoulder straps, you can then run that as necessary through the Molle on the rear for your push to talk we're going to go ahead and take a shock Ward Loop that we tied off treat this as a rubber band that's, a bit more durable, we're going to put this onto our actual push to talk and then we're going to run our Loop through the Molle and then hook onto the other side from here.

We're just going to work on the fitment, making sure that all of our cables are as tight as they can be and nice and clean now that we have our push to talk and our antenna set up let's go over the headset.

If you have a headset that has a removable Down lead like the op score, uh, connectorized, amps.

You can go ahead and disconnect that and leave it permanently affixed to your push and talk you'll attach the Down lead by running it under here through this tweeve port and into the push and talk you'll, then tidy all of that up and you'll have this hanging out the back when you connect this to the headset make sure that you turn your head fully to the left and right to make sure that this doesn't inhibit that motion, if it's let's say, too short and double check that's, not too long that it's too much of a snag Hazard as having any wires back here is essentially some level of a hazard.

If you have a headset like peltors, or the non-connectorized amps, then you're, just essentially going to have to have a buddy help you out this last bit when you put this on or preset it up so that your headset's hanging from it, you Dawn your carrier.

And then you put on your headset now that we've taken care of our sides, let's go from top to bottom on the front at the top.

We have the Marine Corps favorite two by three ID patch.

So if you have one of those go for it, Mark your gear and below it is Molly for an admin pouch.

Now you can run an EOD case there or an admin pouch, just know that a lot of the admin pouches out there, especially at the PX are these just massive bricks that kind of get in the way of your mags.

And honestly, you shouldn't be carrying that much on your front anyway, that's, why we designed our own, which is the arc, admin pouch, which is designed to have a ramp at the bottom that doesn't interfere with extracting mags.

It has enough room to carry what you need such as a phone case or Mission documents, right in the rain, whatever you need.

And a mall is on the front and has these additional anchors to really anchor, the bottom.

So it doesn't come up and get in the way of your magazines.

And it looks like this now let's move down to the placard.

We've gone over how to attach, but we haven't gone over why you would use a placard or the options out there, depending on your unit's sop, you may need to carry let's say, six, mags on the front or no mags on your front, depending on what it is.

You do whatever it is you have to find a solution that works for you Molly pouches can do this.

But we prefer placards as they can be swapped out if your role changes and gives you a bit more options in one package, there are options, such as the elastic placard V2, which allow you to carry just three mags in a tourniquet and still has the direct connect feature.

And this is great if you don't need to carry a tunnel in your front or let's say, you want to get in the prone and want to carry everything else elsewhere and then there's options, like the arc, placard V3, which is a highly modular, uh, Placer that can attach a number of accessories that we currently offer and will offer in the future.

You can go from something as slick as this to beefed up like this, regardless find what meets your needs and run it on the front as we move down.

We come to another under the utilized area.

And that is the hanger or abdominal pouch.

This area allows you to access items with both hands.

It alleviates the need for a Molly pouch elsewhere.

And you might even be able to look into it.

If you don't have too much stacked in front of you, we offer the ray pouch V2 as a removable option.

And often people use this as an ifac that they can lay down next to their patient and reattach to them quickly, there's plenty of other options out there that might meet your needs.

But if you are an individual who wants to run something on your front let's say, you love fanny packs, this might be a great option to alleviate some of the real estate Elsewhere on your body.

Now, let's move on to the sides.

We personally try to keep our sides as slick as possible as your arms rub up against them.

And if you have any pouches that obscure that that could get pretty annoying real quick, but some rules might even demand that you have stuff on your sides for most most people know to run a speed, reloader mag on their non-dominant side, close to the front and that's always an option.

This is a flex V2 from us, or you could do the same thing with a pistol mag.

This is our depth pouch for those that might need to run linked ammo.

They could run our BFG pouch on the sides.

And this can hold a hundred round 762 box or 100 round, 556 nut sack.

You can also run a large, 200 round, 556 plastic drum.

But it does Max this out.

These could be ran on the sides over here to allow you to run all that linked ammunition.

But these also make a great butt pack at the back of your butt.

Finally, we come to the rear plate bag.

The rear plate bag is heavily dependent on your role and Sops, depending on where you're at you might have to be Ruck marching with a rocking kit, or you might just have to wear flashbangs and a hydration bladder, whatever it is.

We recommend following your Sops.

If you have to follow an sop, we recommend finding products that allow you to meet that sop as best as possible.

But if you don't have to wear anything on your back, we recommend not doing.

So as this allows you to run a backpack or a Ruck without having too much space between you and that pack, if you want a light sustainment pack that you can access yourself, we offer the play carrier pack.

But outside of that follow your Sops as we're near the end of this video we'll, leave with one last tip and let's go out there and actually train in this thing don't make any changes to it and let it sit in your wall locker.

But actually wear it work out in it and find every opportunity to train in it that you can you want to do this, because you want to identify the friction points on your body that this could have you also want to confirm any changes you've made, and you want to condition yourself to wear it.

You don't want to make all these changes and figure out that they were bad decisions.

And you also want to make sure that you're actually proficient at your job while wearing this additional weight.

You could have the most comfortable carrier out.

There let's say, the arcare V2, but end up sucking, underweight, because you haven't actually trained your body to actually wear this breathe, lift run and still be proficient at your job.

At the end of the day, the goal of this video.

And our company is making more proficient at what you do it's in our motto conquer all.

And we hope this video is a reflection of that.

We also hope that this video reflects the care and attention.

We give our fellow Marines.

And we hope that this video has been worth your time has taught you something and has been valuable to you if you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comments below, or you can DM us at Shaw Concepts or email us at customer service at Shaw concepts.com.

Thank you for your time and Conquer All Gents, uh, in the upcoming weeks, we'll be also doing another video on the Gen, 3, Marine, Corps care.