Peter Maass, a war correspondant in Iraq, opens his gadget bag in a Gizmodo interview. He's got good kit.
You don't need a hardened computer, though breakdowns are frequent. I use an Apple iBook and took the precaution, during the invasion of Iraq, of covering the screen and keyboard in saran wrap, to keep out the sand. An item I didn't have, but dearly wished for, was night vision goggles. If you have to drive at night with the military in a warzone, as I and other non-embedded journalists did, you can't use any lights (you even have to tape over the red-light indicators on your dashboard). Driving without headlights in a desert behind a tank that doesn't have brakelights is an unpleasurable experience.
