Michigan Airsoft
Gear => Clothing & Load Bearing Gear => Topic started by: luke213 on April 17, 2016, 10:58:03 AM
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So guys I'm curious I haven't owned a combat shirt with the wicking type material in the middle. Never saw them until I came back to airsoft last year but curious how well they work.
I got heat exhaustion back around 8 years ago while I was down in Texas and since I've never been able to take the heat very well at all. Before that it never bothered me. But now if the sun is out and its above 70 I can get dizzy and have issues. Obviously this has been an issue with airsoft during the warm months thankfully not during the winter months playing.
None the less it's warming up and playing yesterday in the mid 70's I could tell it was starting to effect me some. So I'm looking at more options.
Last year I ran ice packs on my inside pouches in my vest when it was really hot and that helped some. But yesterday I started thinking about combat shirts. It seems I'm more sensitive to sun than heat. So I tend to wear thin long sleeves but with bdu tops they are fairly heavy material at least compared to button up shirts I normally wear. And typically that means I'll wear an od tshirt or something like that under my plate carrier to keep my temp down.
But I'd love to hear how you guys like them and how they work out. Since I'll either be making some or buying them depending on price and availability in the camo patterns I normally run.
Take care
Luke
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Personally I can't recommend them enough! Heat is the biggest reason they were designed. When you deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan there like gold. (At least for everyone in my unit) They breathe far far better than ANY BDU top I've ever seen. And I'd say if you can get the moisture control ones compared to the zipper ones you'd probably be better off. Hope that helps.
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Very much appreciated;) That's what I had assumed based on the look but after reading about them a little I wasn't sure if the center was comfort IE it was padded or something else, or if it was just some sort of wicking material.
Today since it's warm and I've been out on the tractor grading the road all morning I actually am using my silk weight ECWCS layer in place of a shirt to see how wicking material works on it's own. I suspect the material is something very much like the stuff in combat shirts. So I figured it might be a good test, and so far so good.
So I guess I need to start looking at them a bit closer and figure out getting some. Since I'm hoping to go to some larger events this year and I'd rather not have so much issue with heat;)
Thanks again!
Luke
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It's like wearing a T-Shirt but you get the added benefits of have strong BDU sleeves for crawling and protecting from thorns and debris.
DriFire fabric is the standard body fabric in Crye and USMC FROG shirts; it's just like t-shirt material but fire resistant and dries faster.
Massif, New Balance, and some other name brands use a soft mesh fabric as part of the body. My experiences are mixed on those.
The off brands and clones you want to be very careful with body fabric. Some are made of mostly cotton, but there are some made of 100% polyester and other synthetic stretch/compression fabrics; these synthetics may not breath or dry very good and increase heat problems. I've had good experiences with the 100% and 50%+ cotton blends but they don't holdup as well as the name brands and fade significantly faster. I've had very bad experiences with the synthetics.
The BDU sleeves are not like they used to be in the old days, you actually have some choices now. You can still get the strong and proven 50/50 Nyco Nylon/cotton blend but theres a newer 70/30 blend that has been very popular. Highline brands like New Balance use very complicated fabric blends that are generally softer twill types. Offbrand/clones use a variety of things from 100% cotton ripstop, 100% nylon ripstop, normal cotton twill, etc etc; usually these fade much faster and get torn relatively easy compared to name brands. My 2 cents.
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I would highly recomend the Massif combat shirts. Loved mine. They're a spandex sort of material for the sleeves and the body is a sort of mesh/jersey sort of thing. They're really soft and comfy and keep you nice and cool.
I have an aor2 Allwin combat shirt and that one is also pretty comfy, not as comfy as the Massif one was though.
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Well guys bringing this back to the top;) I found a smoking deal on a Massif in ACU the other day got it in and I've been testing it not in airsoft just around the shop etc. And it could just be me but I feel like it might be hotter than a normal ACU top but I also find compression to do a weird thing of feeling hotter but maybe actually being cooler.
Either way it certainly is comfortable and seems to wick sweat away really well compared to ordinary tops etc.
So I'm curious if I'm a weirdo that it feels warmer or if that's normal;) At the point I do think it would be awesome during the slightly cooler times. I do like the fit allot though and it's very comfortable under a plate carrier or vest. Enough so that I picked up another one in multicam this week that should be in today.
Either way was curious and would like to hear some opinions since this seems to run contrary to the conventional theory;)
Luke
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Necro time; you actually run the Massif in game yet Luke? Any thoughts after a year of ownership?
I ran the same Massif for about two months in some speed-soft games and a recc. It was a decent enough shirt, dried really fast but made me sweat more than a full-body dri-fire FROG. I really liked the sleeves and zipper pocket. At around $30 they're way better than the off-brand shirts for the price, but not my favorite.
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I have actually used it a bunch, and like it enough I snagged one in multicam for a smoking deal last year;)
So I still feel like sitting with no air flow it's slightly warmer than a BDU top, however with wind it changes the dynamic allot to where I end up far more comfortable. Same with running it under a plate carrier. I think the contact with the skin is the reason it feels warmer to me but I really don't know.
I will say this though whatever the physics involved, after running them last summer allot pretty much everytime I played airsoft other than Irene when I had to run DCU and didn't have one to match. I really prefer running them. Even under my ghillie suit I use them since it makes running one much more comfortable.
Downsides really are just they are thin, and BB hits are pretty harsh on areas that are exposed IE running one without a plate carrier or something like that. In the ghillie I've found sticks poking me that would be stopped by a BDU top but aren't by the combat shirt. Also they are prone to fraying because the materials aren't super durable to abrasion. However I still think the high points out weigh downsides in this case. And I need to pick up a couple more since the two I have work but I need more ideally in more camo options though I know that is an issue since they aren't really available in anything but common modern patterns. But I may pick up another multicam one, I'm not a huge multicam guy I'm typically woodland or something else like it. But I run that multicam top with woodland BDU bottoms to good effect often times. And with our team rules for play here multicam is green rather than tan so those two mixed are allowed for the green team.
But overall I dig them and need more;)
Luke
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Yup combat shirts are rad! I always kept in mind that they were designed for use in Iraq in conjunction with a plate carrier, so I never considered using them with a ghillie, glad to hear i'm not missing out on anything.
If you ever want to try something really different, Potomac (https://store.potomacfieldgear.com/store/comersus_viewItem.asp?idProduct=680) makes a combat shirt that is double-layered/pocketed to use these mesh cooling pads. I picked one up cheap on EBay and they're high quality shirts. They're a bit warm for summer use, but if you take the mesh pads out you have a combat shirt that's more durable and works better on a chilly fall/winter/spring day. That said, I haven't gotten much use out of mine. They also come in M81 Woodland ;).
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I find this combat shirt severely lacking in ventilation, which is the main feature people want to buy combat shirt if they are running with plate carrier. Material is not breathable at all, feels very ..