Tactical Equipment

[Janne]

The best form of self defense is to avoid trouble before it happens.

Tactical retreat?

 

[TLM]

More like tactical foresight!

I have great difficulty taking anything 'tactical' very seriously.

 

[Janne]

Same here. Maybe because we have experience of the Armed Forces?

 

[forrestdweller]

As long as the Rum is Pussers Rum.

Used to supply the Brititish Navy.
So very much a Tactical drink.
Also Rose’s Lime Cordial.
They wanted the sailors to keep their teeth, as a last line of defence.
Or because the hard tack was so hard?

not sure if it was important for sailors, too but intact (front) teeth were important in the muzzle loading era after paper cartridges became common (==as the soldiers had to bite them open), this lead to issues with troops during the sepoy mutiny as the soldiers believed the cartridges were treated with (holy) cow or (unclean) pig fat...

to get back on topic: "tacical" seems to be (just) a marketing strategy (like "made in america" -- i stopped counting how many times someone tried to sell me junk using this argument -- my reaction ranges from political incorrect replies, pointing at the "made in china" label to a basic history/ geography lesson before walking off... even here locals ask me if i'm from "america" even though there's only one case of a country and continent going by the same name AND this part of the world was already known as "america" 250years before some fellas chucked a few boxes of tea into boston harbour)

 

[Tiley]

Everyone know where the name 5.11 comes from? Its a play on climbing ratings, the highest of which is 5.10.

Without wishing to be pedantic, the highest graded rock climbs in the U.S., from where this system comes, are currently up to 5.14, with subdivisions of 'a', 'b', 'c' and so on. I believe that '5.10' represented the top grade when Royal Robbins, who had some influence over the company before it went all 'tactical', was climbing; 5.11 was the aspiration, long since passed by climbers keen to push the grades.

 

[C_Claycomb]

Without wishing to be pedantic, the highest graded rock climbs in the U.S., from where this system comes, are currently up to 5.14, with subdivisions of 'a', 'b', 'c' and so on. I believe that '5.10' represented the top grade when Royal Robbins, who had some influence over the company before it went all 'tactical', was climbing; 5.11 was the aspiration, long since passed by climbers keen to push the grades.

Thank you.

Not being a climber all I knew was the point in time when the name was coined...not about the subsequent change, although it makes sense since climbers have kept climbing the previously impossible routes.

Got one of the Royal Robbins light polyester travel shirt versions of the 5.11 Tactical Shirt, nice kit.

 

[Corso]

5.11 comes from the highest rock climbing difficulty level that was listed in the Yosemite Decimal System at Yosemite National Park, which was developed by Robbins in the 1950s.

 

[TLM]

Did they intentionally mix it up? In most decimal systems after 5.9 comes 6, not 5.10! That is a numbering system not decimal; pedant off.

 

[Janne]

Weirdly enough, in the US they still use the Imperial system.
5.11 looks very much imperial.

5.10, 5.11, 6, 6.1 and so on.

 

[santaman2000]

Did they intentionally mix it up? In most decimal systems after 5.9 comes 6, not 5.10! That is a numbering system not decimal; pedant off.

Libraries and librarians still use the Dewey Decimal system.

 

[TLM]

Funny had forgot that totally, even though informatics was the first course in the Uni. Remember thinking what does the 'desimal' do there, maybe it means no alphanumerics, numbers only, if so bad choice.

 

[Tiley]

The prefix '5' indicated that the climb was done 'free', that is to say that the gear (such as removable nuts, cams and so on) placed on the route was there only for protection in the event of a fall; there was, in days gone by, also a series of grades that were preceded with a '6' to indicate that they were aid climbs, where the pegs, bongs, bolts and so on were placed and used as a means of actually moving up the route.

It's strange. The cul-de-sac on this thread drove me to watch "Dawn Wall", the film about Tommy Caldwell's ascent of that particularly face on El Cap. It was astonishing - really difficult (5.14d), sustained free climbing for the whole route. The state of their hands at the end of it reminded me of one of the reasons I stopped climbing! That and age, infirmity, responsibilities, yackety-yack... Happy days, though!

 

[TLM]

So it is a classification system where the point is used as a field separator. OK

 

[Laurentius]

Libraries and librarians still use the Dewey Decimal system.

Tactical libraries use tactical black dymo tape and titanium index cards in case hardened filing cabinets.

 

[santaman2000]

Tactical libraries use tactical black dymo tape and titanium index cards in case hardened filing cabinets.

 

[GuestD]

"Tactical" reminds me of " logistics ", a military derived word, now diluted to make something in normal everyday life sound more important than it really is. Like "Tactical underpants" . I saw a van with "Confectionery Logistics" emblazoned on the side. To the uninitiated, 20 years ago, that was a sweet van.

 

[Herman30]

Everyone know where the name 5.11 comes from?

Sure, it´s my birthday = november 5th.

 

[Paul_B]

Or May the 11th?

 

[Tiley]

Or May the 11th?

Ah! There speaks one from across the herring pond...

 

[Janne]

Month - Day - Year.
Why???