I'm afraid I can't help with your great kilt query but I can relate you your comments re: cheating squaddies. I recall SOP kit checks as a grim experience, seemingly designed to give the inspecting NCO an opportunity to catch individuals for contravention of a standing order rather than ensuring that soldiers were adequatly equiped for tasks they had to face. As a basic-training tool to encourage blind obedience or to guide inexperienced soldiers in what they might need when out of Barracks seems fair enough. As does having your field dressing in a standard place for fast access by anyone applying life saving F/A when YOU most need it. These things I can understand but why the silly stuff continued into working units was always beyond me. An example that springs to mind is the shiny boot-polish tin (as in all paint removed) and the contents of said tin had to be new and un-used, and the brushes that went with said tin also had to be new; and why was it carried in an ammunition pouch?? I remember thinking, what is the point of carrying a tin of polish you can't open and brushes you can't use on your boots in a pouch you can't keep your ammo in now 'cause it's full of crap... Not to mention flashing a shiny tin around in a hostile environment is definately not the action of a wise man. We all used to cheat. I recall packing SOP's as per list, half an hour before the Sergeant turned up and then putting it all back the way I wanted it after he'd gone. A valuable lesson in life I suppose, maybe that was the point. I liked your theory about the Gladius and the chopped down Spatha by the way, I know I would.

I hope you find the answer to your Great Kilt question but from the pictures you provided it does look like the flys are tucked away.