[Drakker]

A battle belt is great, I use both chest rigs and belts, sometimes even together, but as a starter, battle belts can get expensive fast. A good chest rig will have many pouches built in, so you don't have to pay for much except specialty pouches like radio pouches. A battle belt comes empty, so you need to buy many pouches, maybe a harness if its your style, most of the time it also requires an inner belt that is a few points bigger than your size, etc. The total price can go up real quick.

With that said, battle belts are great, just not that cheap to start with unless you get a great deal used.