by Paladin101 » Fri Oct 15, 2010 2:27 pm
Yeah, you are correct about the 45 pads, I was wrong there, which is funny because I have them on my 41 suspenders.
ERDLs were coming out to recon teams in late 68 early 69. I know, have talked, and done extensive research on Recon teams in Vietnam and I can tell you for a fact that Tigerstripe, other than VNMC, was not widely or commonly used. And actually in 1968 there was a Marine Corps Order issued by the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Leonard Chapman, against wearing unauthorized tiger stripe fatigues. It probably was used by a very select few of individuals, but it was very rare. One thing about Marines is that they have never gotten a ton of freedom in their equipment. You can't just go around using whatever you want.
There is commonly confusion between the special reconnaissance forces from all services during Vietnam as to who they actually are due to photos being misidentified and undocumented. Many times people have seen images of LRRPs (who commonly wore tiger stipe fatigues) and assumed they were USMC Recon.
As for the belts, the stitching is different and can be vertical instead of horizontal, the 61 had snaps on it for attachments(as you mentioned), and the 56 had a different hook, they were round and the 61 was rectangular.
The thing about your list is that you have a gigantic cross section of gear used by everyone. Yes, the gear was used in theater at the time, but not necessarily as common place by USMC Recon. Like I said, Yes there were probably rare cases of people using the gear, but generally when you do an impression of a historical unit you use what was commonplace, not what was rare. Otherwise you have an impressive collection.