For most of modern history, military uniforms have been built around the male body, as more women join combat units, it’s time for a redesign.
Picture this: On a windswept training area, a young female infantry soldier hauls herself out of a fire trench and shoulders her weapon. Her plate carrier rides up toward her chin, the shoulder straps are cinched as tight as they will go, yet the weight still hangs awkwardly. Ten years ago, she might have been told to “get on with it. In today’s British Army, that bad fit is treated as a design problem rather than a personal failing.
For most of modern history, military uniforms have been structured around a single, convenient fiction: the “average” male body. Height, chest, limb length, hand size – all the numbers that informed boots, webbing, and body armor came from men because they were the only ones expected to fight on the frontlines. As more women moved into more physically demanding military roles, that fiction began to fray, at least in Britain. In Israel, even as more women join combat units, their uniforms – and their equipment – remain very much designed for men, despite obvious differences in height, weight, and build.
The first step in fixing it is data. Engineers cannot design for soldiers they cannot measure. Over recent years, the British Army and its suppliers have been building up far more detailed “anthropometric” profiles of the force. Not just a simple S/M/L but a spread of heights, limb lengths, and body shapes across both genders and a range of ethnic backgrounds. (Read More)
The first step in fixing it is data. Engineers cannot design for soldiers they cannot measure. Over recent years, the British Army and its suppliers have been building up far more detailed “anthropometric” profiles of the force. Not just a simple S/M/L but a spread of heights, limb lengths, and body shapes across both genders and a range of ethnic backgrounds. (Read More)
