Desert Ranger combat armor

The Desert Ranger combat armor and the matching Desert Ranger combat helmet are pieces of armor in the Fallout: New Vegas add-on Honest Hearts.

Background
This particular armor is United States Marine Corps relic of the Sino-American War recovered and restored by Randall Clark, boasting a khaki/brown desert camouflage pattern and the usual equipment, worn with a light shade duster, and a pair of durable pants. The armor was worn by Staff Sergeant R.B. Vickers during their deployment in China, with the locations - Nanjing and Shanghai - painted on the helmet, together with a plea FORGIVE ME MAMA scrawled on the front. Judging by the writing, Vickers spent une through August in Nanjing, followed by a deployment in Shanghai September through May. The helmet also has multiple tally marks, though whether Clark added them himself or they date back to the Chinese campaign is unclear.

The entire ensemble closely resembles the traditional gear of the Nevada Desert Rangers and is readily identified as such.

Characteristics
Essentially a factionless variant of the NCR Ranger combat armor, the apparel provides 22 DT (comparable to a suit of T-45d power armor_ while still being a medium armor and weighing as much as its base version. It is a little bit stronger than it, however, with +2 DT on the outfit and +1 DT on the helmet. The helmet itself is also 3 points lighter.

Locations

 * Stone Bones Cave, at the end near a footlocker in front of the Survivalist's terminal.

Behind the scenes

 * The armor doubles as a storytelling device showing Clark's resourcefulness. The rag wrapped around the right thigh is based on his treatment of a gunshot wound received from a Vault 22 guard in Zion. He tied it around the leg to prevent blood loss and leaving a trail.
 * On the other hand, the writing on the helmet is similar to how soldiers deployed in combat theaters mark the passage of time. This was quite common in eg. the Vietnam War.
 * The helmet's lenses are green, like in the original concepts for the helmet. In a similar fashion, the helmet inherits the original's several traits, including the absence of a night vision mode for the player, extremely expensive vendor repairs (16 000 to restore a broken suit), and the helmet's weight of 0 (which could not be patched).