While you may not imagine yourself finding use in a tactical bug out vest, the truth is that they are highly useful for purposes other than carting munitions around. In a SHTF situation, having an extra layer of protection may come in handy, particularly when riots break out and you are still stuck in the city. But what other benefits can they serve?

Wearing a vest can give you better personal protection from knives, gunshots and physical trauma. They can also aid in distributing the weight of your gear over your body and allowing you to carry more (if you need/want to) and have instant access to certain pieces of kit.
On the other hand a vest will add additional weight to your setup and can be difficult to move around in / wear with a pack. The next thing you will need to think about it what are you using it for?
A good vest to start out with for maximum customization would be a basic Molle web vest. This allows you to attach your own pockets and facilities wherever you want and whatever size you want. The downside here is the webbing itself. The pockets can detach, be ripped off or the webbing itself tear and come loose.
To avoid this, a basic commando vest could be a better way to go. This kind of vest allows the best of both worlds by having built-in pockets around the midsection about the size of an AR-15 single stack magazine, a medium sized dump pocket on one side of the chest and pistol magazine sized pockets on the other side.
The downside to these vests is that they can limit maneuverability and get very hot when fully stocked with equipment. Finding one with mesh padding as opposed to leather or thick material is preferred.
The last type of vest we will look at is a heavy protection vest such as the U.S. army`s Interceptor body armor. These usually have a crotch guard and padded shoulder and arm plates that come down to the elbow joints. These vests have limited storage space and a significantly heavier and hotter than other types of vest. As they are built for heavy combat they can withstand gunfire and knife blows so they do offer the most protection of the three. This vest weighs up to 33.1 pounds (15kgs) unloaded.

Simply the act of wearing a tactical vest loaded with gear may be enough to deter aggressors, as it will signal that you're not someone to be messed with and you probably know how to use that gun you've got strapped on.

Carrying a vest also allows you to always have your essentials on your person and more evenly distributes the weight of your gear, allowing you to potentially carry more with you without resulting in fatigue.

While you probably don't want to lug a 30-pound vest around, having some form of tactical vest could be an enormous boon to your chances of survival, particularly in an urban survival situation.

To learn more about this idea, check out The Prepper Journal.