December is generally the time for presents thanks to St Nicholas and Christmas. This time, the presents arrived at the beginning of December in the form of four pairs of a new combat boot. Manufactured by the experts for alpine, sports and outdoor footwear as well as combat boots, Lukas Meindl GmbH & Co. KG.
The test is less about the boot and more about the new upper material. That’s why this test is really exciting. The four boots were distributed to friendly comrades within the Bundeswehr and have since been intensively tested in a wide variety of missions, climatic regions and everyday service.
The new upper material is EXTRAGUARD from W. L. Gore & Associates. It is intended to be an alternative to leather in the future. Meindl and presumably other shoe manufacturers will officially present their combat boots with EXTRAGUARTD for the first time at Enforce Tac 2025 in Nurnberg, Germany (24th to 26th February 2025). The current test will run until then, and the final report will also be given at the trade fair.
Gore wants to revolutionise this market segment with the new EXTRAGUARD upper material for combat boots. The aim is to move away from full leather boots or leather-textile mixes in favour of EXTRAGUARD. The manufacturer of the new upper material promises many advantages during use.
Low water absorption and quick re-drying
Leather requires intensive cleaning and care if the material is to provide long and reliable service. Especially if the boots frequently get damp and wet. EXTRAGUARD, on the other hand, does not require this and can even be cleaned with a steam jet. It also dries much faster. An important aspect of today’s combat boots is minimising weight. Gore promises a weight saving of around 40% in the leather content. Leather also becomes very heavy when wet, whereas EXTRAGUARD nearly dond#t add weight at all. The new multi-layer material hardly absorbs any water, as EXTRAGUARD has a low-water pick-up. The seams are also specially sealed/glued from the outside to prevent water from penetrating and keep feet dry.
According to the manufacturer, the drying time of GORE-TEX EXTRAGUARD combat boots is considerably shorter than that of boots made from conventional upper materials (leather, textiles or a combination of both).
According to Gore, moisture from the outside penetrates as far as the inner construction layer of the EXTRAGUARD upper and is kept out by it. This minimises the risk of heat loss, keeping feet dry and warm even in cold and wet climatic conditions.
Leather is already naturally flame-retardant. EXTRAGUARD wants to be on a par here too and offers flame retardancy in accordance with fire service standard 15025. In a leather-textile boot, both durability and flame retardancy are generally reduced by the textile component. EXTRAGUARD has been used in safety footwear for some time, e.g. by the manufacturer ELTEN. Now the military boot market is following suit.
Further advantages: A leather boot usually has to be run in intensively. With EXTRAGUARD, this factor does not apply. In addition, leather boots usually expand enormously when they are frequently wet for a long time, whereas Extraguard retains its shape and strength. Gore therefore promises that they are comfortable right from the start, do not need to be run in and retain their shape.
Initial testing
One of the aims of the boot test is to verify precisely this information from the industry. Before there is a nasty surprise on an exercise or away from the barracks, the boots are of course run in and thus subjected to an initial test. In my case, this was two days of 30 kilometres each and a total of 1,400 metres in altitude. In the end, I had no complaints about pressure points or blisters. The boots were comfortable from the very first second and without any problems. What is also immediately noticeable, despite lots of leaves, mud and sludge on the hiking trails, is that it is really difficult to get the material dirty.
But before we went off-road, the boots were first weighed on the scales. In contrast to full leather boots, the boots are supposed to be lighter even when dry, with around 40% less weight in the (leather) upper material. The EXTRAGUARD pair weighs 1,867 grams in size EU 44.5. The heavy combat boot (Kampfstiefel schwer) supplied by the Bundeswehr weighs 1,963 grams in the same size and ‘only’ 100 grams more. To be fair, however, it should be noted that the comparison with the heavy combat boot is perhaps also a little off. This is because the feel and look of the EXTRAGUARD boot is more like that of a heavy service mountain boot, and here the pair weighs 2,126 grams.
Meindl and most likely other manufacturers will be presenting their EXTRAGUARD footwear systems at Enforce Tac 2025. The Gore experts will also be available to answer questions at stand 7A-537 at the trade fair in Nuremberg.
Andre Forkert
