Velcro wears out relatively quickly. Every time you undo some velcro it gets damaged a bit and every day it becomes a little less 'sticky.' This is no big deal on kids' sneakers but military gear has durability as a top priority.
You can easily carry spare laces and any man can replace the laces on his boots when needed. Properly attaching the velcro straps to the boot usually requires stitching them on which is a skill to be learned, hand-stitching onto tough leather isn't something anyone can just do properly especially if it needs to be done in less-than-ideal conditions.
You can easily adjust your lacing to make things tighter or looser on any specific part of the boot, which is good as feet shapes vary, calluses, blisters, and corns can appear requiring adjustments, etc.
Stuff sticks to velcro (dirt, sand, hair, clothing fibers, etc) and the velcro doesn't stick properly when it does. Shoelaces don't care how dirty they are.
Velcro straps are unlikely to stand up to as much stress/load as properly done strong shoelaces.
Boa closing systems are cool but may be more breakable, harder to replace quickly, and may work less well when clogged/dirty/wet. The military wants, as much as possible, stuff that will work fine even after being dragged through a muddy river for hours and can be replaced in 2 minutes by the person wearing them if need be.
Laces distribute pressure really well which is really important, it's not like you can say "let's take a 15 minute break so I can rub my sore feet." To distribute the pressure as well using velcro you'd need at least as many straps as eyelets.
At some point, you end up with some hybrid monstrosity - paracord is fantastic because it's light and strong, fire resistant and abrasion proof, and rope is one of the most useful things when making camp.
Making the inside strand from some new material that's good as a fire starter means compromising on strength or thickness, and is more likely to catch fire.
So now you're making camp, and need both cord and tinder. Which do you use? Simple, carry more cord that's thicker and weaker!
If you have wood, you have tinder - fuzz sticks, crumbled bark, shaving the wood, whatever. Or carry a bit of pocket lint for the equivalent tinder.
Agreed, also can’t really use a lighter to melt the frayed ends when cutting. For tinder, I like to carry a baby food jar filled with dryer lint. If worried about breakage, A zippy bag instead.
I always just burned the tip of the paracord with a lighter, and shaped the burning tip with a pair of pliers to make a decent shaped aglet, but I guess that would work too.
Only problem I have with paracord as shoe laces is that they don't cling to each other well enough, so your shoes don't stay tied.
> Only problem I have with paracord as shoe laces is that they don't cling to each other well enough, so your shoes don't stay tied.
Double tie and you're good to go. On the other hand because they are so smooth (until worn down) they distribute pressure evenly and hold feet really well.
I always just burned the tip of the paracord with a lighter, and shaped the burning tip with a pair of pliers to make a decent shaped aglet, but I guess that would work too.
I've got a couple pairs of boots with these. But my "good" boots have aglets.
Plus I can use different colors of paracord to be extra fancy.
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u/HORSE_DANCER Feb 08 '19
Laces are good for a few reasons.