I know, I know. All the usual admonitions for radio selection. What others have in my group. What mission, etc. I just want to know what is the toughest radio you've used, other than .mil radios, when out and about. Yaesu is fairly tough, except for adding a headset or speaker/mic. I have had Motorolas that were bricks, you could practically drive nails with them. The programming is the main problem with them.
Other than that I have no experience on how tough the newer radios are compared to each other and previous versions. Single or dual band? What's good, what's junk?

Check out the Ailunce HD2.

Gives you Digital Encryption and UHF. The other cool feature with that radio is that it can do text messages, why are text messages important? A Text Message has a lower Electronic Warfare (EW) signature as it essentially burst out in miliseconds making it much more dificult to detect and fix the transmission point than regular voice radio transmission, so that's a good feature to have.  

It's also IP67 waterproof and dustproof, which is pretty good.  It's a lot less expensive than say a Hytera and although a lot more expensive it is way more capable and rugged than a UV5R Baofeng. Below is a good video by Grunt Proof that he just did.  It's a good middle of the road option in terms of price, capability, and ruggedness.  You can always get something better, but it will cost you as there are radios that go up to the cost of a decent used car out there. Make sure you do follow the FCC rules as they are the law and it's not that hard to be in compliance with them.  

In my experience, the EFJ/Kenwood VP600 is nicely overbuilt and holds up well to underground miners. Having a top display is really nice for both occupational and tactical use; the radio can be manipulated quite a bit without removing it from its pouch. They're discontinued and good deals come up sometimes.

Motorola programming software is also far easier to obtain than it was a decade ago, not to mention usually free. If it's within your budget, an APX in the correct bandsplit will serve you well. APX4000s and 6000ANs have come down quite a bit in price lately.

Assorted DMR stuff exists too. I've never been impressed with DMR and regret spending money on any of it.

They're getting rarer but the EF Johnson 5100ES is a good option.  Is very similar overall to the Moto XTS5000 and even uses the same batteries and accessories, but the upside is that the programming software is freely available, you can enable front panel programming in the software, even on models without the full keypad, and they all can do encryption via a keyloader without needing to see if it has the right option board.

They're still mono-band, but can do analog and P25 digital.  Overall a really nice compromise between the feature sets of the older gen Moto radios, without a lot of the headaches of the Moto ecosystem.  Just make sure you get the "ES" version, the original 5100 was a dog.

Yaesu VX-6R/7R has a screw in top speaker/mic. You can screw in your Disco32 PTT and use Peltors. Great setup.

I like this one. The mic attachment is a Motorola M3, which I believe is water tight. It is dual band and the encryption is a nice feature.

A good pouch and placement is also just as important. Having your radio change channels when you go prone is no fun

Too true. Every radio has a different lock scheme for the controls.

Yeah, it's not a flawless perfect solution, but I think they offer us a lot for our money with it.

I put my radio is a kydex clamshell, and then in a nylon molle pouch.

I use this one for a TYT-390. You can use the mounting options and not even use a nylon molle pouch if you want.

https://mckydex.com/messenger-radio-carrier/

(Note: I do not wear plate carriers)

I have several of those knocking around as well; one of them is about to go into a homebrew DVRS. They're great radios - not quite as durable as the newer stuff but still quite tough. Audio quality is much better than any XTS; the 5100ES was one of the first portables to introduce the full-rate AMBE vocoder.

I've encountered a couple of 700/800 MHz 5100ESs with a clear-only logic board and no encryption capability, but every VHF or UHF unit I've handled can be keyloaded without any hardware changes as you said. @zapzap will happily talk your ear off about the things.

Personally I use a VP6000. One of mine was new open box at a crazy discount, the other was purchased new from a dealer at a reasonable discount off list, but still quite a chunk of change. Subjectively I believe the VP600 is more durable than the 6000, but the second-generation radios massively improve power efficiency. They'll get similar runtime on a 2000mAH KNB-L1 to what a 5100ES or VP600 will deliver on a ~4100mAH pack. That's huge if you depend on packing batteries in or recharging in the field.

I only have a few of them...

Turns out the HD2 has a bogus type acceptance.


Being a Karen, he will report it to the FCC. Bye bye HD2.

I just picked up an Icom IC-T10 for this purpose. I was already in pretty deep on other radios, with the Anytine 878-UVII being my go to model even over my Yaesu, but the use of a non-sealed speaker mic port bothered me.

The IC-T10 is a pretty basic radio, but it performs well at what it does. Dual band, low power consumption, IP67 rated. The speaker mic port uses a screw down type for weather sealing, too.

The Yaesu-VX-6r is also good, but I was frustrated with how little support there is for that particularly accessory port.

If you ever wanna get rid of one, I want to pick one up in a usable band to play around with. It can even be shoot me orange as long as it works.