Single Shingles - Rambling on Pouch Profiles and Depth Doctrine

Right, I'm getting back into this blogging lark because it's something I've historically been reasonably good at. I need a scribbling pad to elucidate the weird thoughts that come from producing tactical gear for Nerf, a very niche area of a niche hobby. Above are two single shingle pouches - that poses two questions: why are they shingles? And why are they singles? Each pouch contains one magazine in a deviation from my usual three deep doctrine.

The simple answer to the first question is that they look like roofing shingles when laid down flat. The back panel of the pouch is a flat piece with a profiled piece sewn to it. When you account for the 10mm lip that's created by adding the edging tape all the way around, they look like shingles when laid down. That lip serves two purposes. The first being to provide a very stiff border to the pouch and the second being to let it overlap with neighbouring pouches by sitting above or below the neighbouring border. Whe placed on a vest like that, you get something that is akin to a roofing shingle system.

Why singles when you have the 'Three Deep Doctrine'?

The more pressing question is: why singles? I make plenty of triple shingle pouches that are available via the website. I have even been known to make double depth shingles that carry two magazines per pocket. So where did the three deep doctrine come from? Well, when I developed the MkII Miranda back during my time with BSUK, three deep was the narrowest pouch you could sew in a single pass without needing to split the edging tape run. You could do the entire 2.5m edging run without stopping whereas with a double you'd have to do first 150mm on each side, take it off the machine to do the long run over the pouch flap so you'd have three steps instead of one. It's a faff so making three deep pouches became the norm. When I struck out on my own with BoffTac, I took that design philosophy with me and only produced triple depth pouches.

Now, three deep pouches are fine for forward magazine pouches. They give you lots of carriage in an easy access position. Indeed, I normally run my four primary magazine pouches front and centre for fast and reliable access that I can see. That gives me 12 magazine pouches up front when running full lengths or 24 when running Talons. The problems begin when you lie prone. You can lose access to pouches or if you can get to them they are prone to spill. Now, I don't normally fight prone even with Talons at Foam Flinging Skirmish but it is a possibility for a new, theoretical, LARP character I have.

A quick detour via Battle Belts

That is a battle belt. It's development was prompted by my partner who needed something slightly more stable for her engineer character that doesn't wear a vest. She wears a belt and stuffs everything on there. The only problem is that things can slide around when on a belt so cloning the Condor battle belt in DPM seemed like a good idea. At the same time as cloning it, I realised that my own future plans for a character could benefit from this form factor, too.

What does the battle belt have to do with singles? Well, while my new character will be a (space elf) frontline fighter, I don't want to have to live in a vest all of the time. Essentially, having a lightweight battle belt with a skirmish order of kit on it to sit below the vest itself is ideal. I can't have magazine pouches at the front because they will intefere with the pouches on the vest when its worn. That means any pouches need to sit at the 3 or 9 o'clock positions. The problem there is that I can't have too much depth because adding width to my hips not only slows me down but also makes me bulkier which is the opposite idea of a skirmish order.

Theoretical belt plan for a skirmish load. Mirror for a right handed person.

Enter the single magazine pouch. My character will be running a fully automatic blaster in an environment when the typical monster has 6-10 global hits. With 2 x 17 round magazines (1 in the pouch, one in the blaster) I've got 2 or 3 monster's worth of pew before I'm dry. Add a dump pouch to allow for top off and you've got a low intensity, high mobility fighting rig. If you're trying to deal with more than 2 or 3 monsters without the cool off time to replenish then you've misjudged the engagement intensity and deserve to be sad. Adding a second one at the 9 o'clock position offers the choice of adding extra extension between reloads because you can swap the 9 o'clock into the 3 o'clock pouch for a little extra endurance.

With the blaster and 2 or 3 mags backed up by a melee option, I should be able to skirmish my way through most engagements without too much difficulty. Only when I have to go on extended patrol will I need the full engagement rig with all the guts and glory that go with it. The added bonus of this extra magazine pouch is that I will be able to source some ammunition even when prone in the full rig.

I guess all this proves that there's a niche for pretty much everything and that by making my own gear, I can meet those needs. I want to get back to blogging and making videos properly since I think there's a gap in the community for someone to look at gear in depth like this. I think the blog will become the place for the in-depth ramblings of my inner tactical and gear goblin while I hope the YT channel can be something more like video essays and explanations of tactical information. There are concepts that will work better in text format (like this article) while stuff like field leadership and tactical work will fare better as a video.