SDS Load Bearing Vest

I bought a Load Bearing Vest by Speciality Defence Systems off a US based seller. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, because this was before I realised that I was becoming a collector, it was just something that I really wanted to buy and to own.

I chose this vest because I had bought a 12” 101st Airborne figure that had the LBV and I knew that was what I wanted. I bought it in Woodland M81 pattern. The vest replaces the old Y Yoke from the Alice system and attaches directly onto the pistol belt, there are 4 rifle mag pouches on the vest, two double mags and two single mag pouches and two grenade pouches. The pouches are slanted on either side in towards the body with a grenade pouch on each side of the vest. This adds another 6 M4 magazines onto the 6 that are normally held with two Alice Mag pouches and another 2 Frag’s onto your load.
The version that I bought had two black clips to fasten the front of the vest and draw ties at the rear on each side to tighten the vest. This can be worn on top of the old Interceptor or RBA vests and can be worn without armour for more recon type missions.
I've got an LC pistol belt with two Alice M16 pouches in OD, a repro Woodland Buttpack and using an SDS Woodland Sustainment pouch as a dump pouch.
I need to add a Bianchi M12 OD holster so that I can carry my Secondary on the belt and a First aid pouch. There was one on Ebay this week that I just missed out on. It was fully stocked and went for such a cheap price.

Compared to current Molle and Tactical Vests this is pretty prehistoric, but I still really like the design of the vest.

I ended up selling this on ebay because I was using it for airsoft skirmishing and had bought a nice shiny new vest that I was all impressed with, so I sold my LBV as I thought that i'd never use it again, then summer comes round and I'm playing woodland games in a plate carrier, sweating my ass off and realised that I needed some webbing instead of a chunky, heavy plate carrier for woodland games.

I've ended up buying a new LBV from the same seller, This one is the Enhanced LBV that instead of the body part being made of Woodland pattern nylon, its green mesh, so the vest is a lot lighter, but I preferred the look of my old vest and I had got it to just that right battered and tattered look, this one is all nice and new and shiny.








I'll end up buying another LBV, but this will be the older pattern and I'm looking for one that is really worn and faded.