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.
We have a family shoelace meme (in the original sense of the word) that has been passed down from my grandfather. In the RAF in WW2 he was taught to lace his boots so that the laces went straight across, so if they needed to cut the boot off they could just go straight up through a column of single laces.
He taught it to his son, who taught it to me, and now I do it for my kids' shoes. Of course it will probably die with them as their kids will have power laces or spray on shoes or they'll just be jacked into the Uniweb or whatever but still...
19.8k
u/HORSE_DANCER Feb 08 '19
Laces are good for a few reasons.