Instead of assigning equipment to a person assign equipment to a role, and then assign a role to a person
so say you could have a Heavy combat role,
that's equipped with Flamers, combat armour, four fuel tanks, 6 frag grenades, and a combat knife
then you assign that role to 4 different troopers who then are equipped with all that equipment
then you could say decide that the Flamers isn't the weapon you want, so you change the role to use a plasma blaster, then all troopers will return their flamers and draw Plasma Blasters instead.
also would make it quicker and easier to tailor the load out for missions as you just have to change the role to a new one and not the entire load out.