[Firewalker]

1) A plate carrier carries armor plates. A tactical vest is just a piece of kit that can be worn over armor, but has no balistic properties. It is essentially used to carry your pouches, or will have pouches already designed into it so you can carry your ammo.

2) Depends on the size of the plates you are carrying. Large plates cover more body. However, most operators use medium plates in a plate-carrier worn over a naked (no molle/pouches) ballistic vest (a bullet proof vest as you've probably seen before). Vests generally occupy more torso room as it allows them to carry more shit.

3) Get a solid colour that matches multiple BDU's. This way you don't have to buy a ton of kit just to use a bunch of different camo patterns. UCP, Multicam, ATACS, Desert patterns, use Coyote. Woodland, CADPAT, MARPAT, etc the green stuff? Use OD. Simple enough. At the engagement distances we work with, you won't need the patterned shit. Plus solid colours look totally pro and the SEAL's use em ;P

4) If you plan on carrying a lot of shit, go with the RAV. Otherwise try and find something stripped down that will let you carry just enough ammo and other shit without hampering your movement. It's a sacrifice between speed and carrying capacity. Movement vs Ammo essentially.

Also, don't worry about the Denier of the material. That's meaningless if the stitching is shit. Avoid cheaping out on kit when you can. Flyye is meh, I'd go with Pantac. The denier only really indicates how many threads there are in a given amount of fabric. You could have a 1000D vest that's stiched shitty, it'll fall apart before any of the material gets worn out. So don't fall for the Denier marketing horseshit. 500D is more than enough unless you're expecting to be dragged around gravel roads by a horse/ jeep.