The blog has covered a lot of MOLLE pouches and equipment over the years, normally from the Osprey system. Tonight however we have something a little different, this is a holster from an aircrew modular vest:The aircrew modular vest was developed by Beaufort to combine body armour with a life vest and give aircrew places to attach pieces of equipment such as holsters and pouches for escape and evasion purposes. The images from the company’s brochure show the features of the vest:The holster can be seen on the right of the image. The holster is designed to carry a 9mm military automatic and a spare magazine. Here it is with a Browning Hi-Power:A strap goes over the backstrap of the pistol to hold it secure, held in place with a lift the dot style fastener:The spare magazine is held in a separate pouch on the front secured by a tape and press-stud:The holster is made from soft cotton rather than the Cordua nylon most military equipment is today. The bottom of the holster includes padding sewn inside the fabric to help protect the muzzle of the pistol and to protect the wearer from the front sight of the automatic:The back of the holster has a pair of heavy duty nylon MOLLE straps to allow the holster to be attached to the rest of the vest:In this case it has been taped up with sniper tape to make a belt loop to allow the holster to be worn there rather than on the vest. The back of the holster has a sewn in label indicating it is made by Beaufort and is a ‘holster pocket’:Although a well thought out system, the aircrew modular vest was not hugely popular as it was felt to be a bit delicate compared to other webbing out there and many aircrew dropped it in favour of other designs. This example is in Desert DPM fabric but it was also produced in standard DPM and in the newer MTP fabric. It is an unusual piece as far smaller quantities of aircrew equipment are procured when compared to standard infantry webbing so this is a nice addition to the collection.