What is MOLLE

The modularity of gear is the biggest benefit and the reason for getting MOLLE gear. You can configure your vest or chest rig according to the mission. If you are a sniper, you might run a more minimal setup. If you use an SMG, you can use SMG-specific pouches. If you run a rifleman loadout, you can run all sorts of pouches to help you perform better. Plus you can outfit yourself with additional pouches that improve your quality of life out on the airsoft battlefield, such as hydration carriers, gear bags, and dump pouches. You can play with the placement of your gear so it's easier to reach, too.

If you find your needs to be slightly more vanilla, a regular vest or chest rig with fixed sewn-in pouches is more cost-effective. And that brings us to the one detractor of the system. With all this modularity, you must now spend on individual pouches to complete your setup.

That aside, to configure your vest, you have to mount pouches by looping the straps through the webbing. That's time-consuming and troublesome for people, so that's one thing to consider. There are few options outside of this if you want genuinely modular gear. But the nice thing is that once these pouches are attached correctly, they are not going anywhere.

As a side note, most airsoft gear made from nylon may have a material density count listed in Denier. The higher the number, the thicker the material used. This makes the gear more robust but also makes it heavier. An extremely low number might be very lightweight but unsuitable for heavy-duty or long-term use. Real-use gear will include these numbers in their specs. Lower Denier is not necessarily a mark of low quality, as some people prefer something lighter, which just needs to last for a deployment rather than a lifetime. With the way this webinar breathes, it is understandable that some might want to move away from the overbuilt stuff.

Let's say you're ready to throw down and buy some MOLLE web gear now. What kind of setup should you get? This goes back to the old chest rig versus plate carrier conversation. In airsoft, if you are a function-over-form type of person, a lightweight chest rig that breathes nicely might be ideal. It will carry nearly everything a plate carrier can but is more comfortable. Most people are not going to be buying a plate carrier for protection as much as for looks. Functionally, a plate carrier will do anything the chest rig will, but it is a little bit bulkier. It is called a plate carrier because it is designed to carry an armored plate. While this has no meaning in airsoft, those who aspire to build their loadouts for milsim might go this route purely for aesthetic reasons.

At the end of the day, it's really about how you feel when you play. Whether your thing is to look cool or go purely for function, go with what you want since this game is all about having fun anyway.