We posted an excellent story today written by one of our contributors critiquing the Armys new combat uniform. Eric Coulson, who commands an engineer company doing some IED-busting in the sandbox, tackles the issue of the uniforms color scheme, construction and materials.
One thing he mentions is the under-the-radar popularity among some in the military of a new pattern called multicam. The Armys Natick Soldier Systems Center is looking at multicam for its defunct (sort of) Future Force/Land Warrior ensemble.
While the multicam looks good for a woodland — or even urban — environment, I wonder how it would work in the desert. The most popular desert pattern in Iraq is the Marine Corps desert MarPat scheme, which blends in well against the mud-brick construction of Iraqi buildings and can barely be seen through night vision goggles with a desert rock backdrop.
There are some photos out there on the net of operators wearing the multicam in Southwest scrubland, but thats with a lot of green around. Surely the folks at Natick are hard at work tweeking the multicam pattern for multi-environment use.
I think the ACU pattern was selected because it helps officials to hide from reporters against the blue-grey backdrop in the pentagon briefing room.
Except for covert ops/SOF/snipers, blending with the environment is impossible. If you are on patrol, anywhere in the world, you will stick out like a sore thumb, regardless of the cammo pattern.
One thing that I never understood, is not using Kevlar and Nomex for the materials.
It’s enough if camo makes it very hard to aim at you when dust, vegetation or smoke limit visibility. Nobody want’s a stealth cloak.
The whole problem of optimum camo pattern is very complex. It depends on range, background, motions, daytime and use of vision aids, equipment worn over the pattern, use of additional camo materials in addition to the camo pattern and so on.
Distance for example — a very fine structured pattern is a one-colour surface at long range. A pattern with strong contrasts and large unicolor surfaces as the 80’s woodland pattern is easily recognizable ast small distance.
In my opinion camouflage should be based on not suspicious colours for the whole equip
The problem second to camo is breaking up the human profile. Perhaps if helmets were irregularly shaped to look more rocklike…
Color is color. I don’t think you can fix that.
Perhaps the fabric should add in certain colors depending on temperature. Extreme cold and the uniform turns mostly grey and white with a camo pattern. And when it’s really hot you have more tans and greys.
A better scheme would be an induced current to change the colors. So you could dial in desert, tropical, urban or artic patterns. The overall uniform would be grey, until the camo patterns are dialed in.
A plan I had years ago involved two sets of reversible pants sewn together at the legs. You could have 4 different uniforms available that way. And the shirts would be sewn together at the bottom to give you 4 shirt combinations. That way you’d have 4 camo varieties per uniform set.
I’m in the army and the ACUs don’t blend with the wood line of Korea or Washington state. ive seen pics of the multicam and it great. the way it can really blend in
BTDT, not impressed with the ACU’s. “Gray Man”???
What were they thinking, Cold war urban? Urban environments over in the war we are fighting are olive drab to tans in color and not gray. Digital tones do good with the right colors for the environment. The towns over there are not gray shades. If you are looking at some one a long way off with smog haze I might buy that approach, since most fights are under 300 meters, I want to blend in and Gray does not do that. If you are fighting the Soviets, that could be a different matter. However, we are fighting in mud hut villages and in tans colors mostly with olive drab colors.
The MARPAT Desert is nice.
Multi-cam got it right for a best solution role IMHO. If you have to wear this in the jungle, it will still be better than the ACU.
I’ve found the ACU works best when you lay down on gravel roads in camp on the way to chow hall, other than that, worthless.
I hope the boys at Natick Soldier Systems Center fix this problem for our guys. You don’t wear a Combat Uniform because of fashion, you wear it for blending to the environment we are war in.
In the Beach City is such fearfulness, I am owning many Archlord money in my pocket.
The digital pattern is good, but I don’t understand the grey. I think the rebs of the south would like it though. It needs to go. The Army needs to stay green with differnt shades of green.