NAVY GETS NEW DUDS

After months after the Army rolled out its sum­mer line of fatigues, the Navy is show­ing off new-​​fangeled uni­forms of its own.
The key word here is “uni­form.” Sailors have long had a vari­ety of work­ing out­fits. The Navy Working Uniform is an attempt to put every­one in the same clothes, the Navy News Service says.

The Navy Working Uniform is being designed to take the place of util­i­ties, wash khaki, cov­er­alls, wood­land green, avi­a­tion green, win­ter work­ing blue and trop­i­cal work­ing uni­forms. The nor­mal wear life is designed to last up to 18 months, com­pared to the cur­rent wear life of six months for the work­ing uni­form.
The work­ing uni­form design is not intended to cam­ou­flage Sailors against the back­ground of a ship. Instead, the mul­ti­ple col­ors on the uni­form — navy blue, deck gray, haze gray and black — are com­mon in the mar­itime work­ing envi­ron­ment, mak­ing them a more prac­ti­cal choice.
What we have heard from Sailors aboard ship is if they get a small spot of paint or grease on a pair of solid-​​color util­i­ties or cov­er­alls, its eas­ily vis­i­ble and detracts from the uni­forms appear­ance, Scott said. With the Navy Working Uniforms mul­ti­color pat­tern, a small spot or stain may be almost entirely unno­tice­able.
Another pos­i­tive aspect of a mul­ti­color pat­tern is that wrin­kles caused by daily wear would be less vis­i­ble, and the new uni­forms will be wash and wear with no iron­ing required.

There’s good news for the Navy’s gad­get freaks, too. Sailors in work­ing uni­forms will will now be able to wear cell phones and PDAs, Gizmodo notes. Lady gad­get freaks are espe­cially psy­ched. Skirts are now optional “for the first time since women offi­cially entered the ser­vice in 1908,” the AP reports.

October 19th, 2004 | Gadgets and Gear | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.