this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2025
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I live in Germany and there are three "survivalist" stores with mostly surplus and replica military equipment for sale in my city alone. Also genuine military gear can be absolute dogshit. It depends on the country of origin and era but stuff is not automatically durable just because it was designed for war.
Here you can see an image of a surplus backpack that looks just like the one I used to carry as my schoolbag:
We have those stores in my country too. But we only use them for quick, cheap, "it'll get the job done" stuff. Everything else we take outdoors is lighter, tougher, higher performing, has more practical use.
Only the general infantry gets general basics, else we'd see it sort after by the civilian sector a lot more.
Honestly, it's training that gets the job done. The gear is always complained about. Army surplus is like access to a government's Wish.com. Plenty of people think they've found the best for a bargain.
This is what they call the exception proving the rule; you think you've countered them, but by explaining that it's literally one of three army surplus shops you have to go to and not just the local Wal-Mart equivalent (EDIT: or whatever clothing store, the size of the chain isn't relevant), you've proven their point quite well.
Shopping just works a bit different here with fewer large chains. Also walmart doesn't sell surplus. The point is you see people using that stuff all the time here too. Our equipment just looks less conspicuous.