House tells Pentagon “Pick one”, well…eventually
Chief Tango sends us a link to the Washington Post which reports that the House has voted to make the services pick a camouflaged uniform to replace the ten different patterns that they currently use;
The measure passed by a vote of 315 to 108.
That idea needs the approval of the Senate, which is crafting its own version of the defense authorization bill. On Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee approved a measure that would also require the Pentagon to choose just one camouflage uniform, a committee spokeswoman said. The Senate’s time frame was unclear, however: A summary of the bill released by the Armed Services committee says the change should happen “eventually.”
Enyart’s provision would require all armed services to share the same camouflage uniform by October 2018. It would still allow for variations in that shared uniform, adapted to different environments like woodlands and desert.
Although it makes sense, I don’t see any of the services giving any ground to any other service. The Marines didn’t even want to share MarPats with the Army last year so I can imagine what kind of juvenile shit we’re going to see over the next five years while they sort this out – or spend a couple of billion bucks more coming up with a pattern the fashionistas in each service will approve.
Category: Big Army
I would choose the Marine MarPat design. (I don’t think the digital patterns work very well at all.) If the military just has to have a new pattern, I’d use Real Tree. They do this for a living.
Fark em all, FIGHT NAKED!!!
fuck it, go back to woodland BDUs and DCUs, worked fine for 20+ years.
Never had a problem with the woodland BDUs. They were more realistic in the sense of cammies. The digitized ones, just don’t look right!!!!!!
I suppose I’m a fan of the MarPats–and not just because it’s the primary scenery around the office. The army’s colors just look ‘off’ and why the hell does the Navy even have a set? Dungarees forever. Never once while I was in did I want to ‘blend in’ with water.
The Commandant and Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps both said recently that upholding their traditions was just as important as making sure everyone had the best camoflage available. The Navy and Air Force designing their own camo in the last few years was nothing but making a fashion statement because the ground services bought new uniforms. As Andy stated, we all got along wearing the BDU with minor service-specific tweaks for 20 years without much fuss.
Multi-Cam For the WIN!
What is this “Marines don’t want to share” crap? “Marpat” doesn’t “belong” to the Marines anyway.
First off, they “borrowed” that pattern from the Canadians anyway (The CANPAT) and just inserted an EGA symbol into the pattern to make it “theirs” and second, last time I checked the Marines worked for the US Government, which is who actually “owns” the right to the pattern and who can righfully put it on any damn uniform it wants to including the Army, the Air Force, the Border Patrol, or the Park Police in Washington DC. And if the Marines don’t like it, the SecDef can call the CNO and the Commandant of the Marine Corps into his office and tell them to follow orders and STFU.
Why is this made to seem so difficult?
Yeah, martinjmpr, we had that discussion a few years back.
O. M. G. Jonn, now is the right time to post that picture I sent you a while ago, if you still have. 😉
I think the fabric store still has that stuff. 🙂 I still have a sewing machine.
Can mine be pink?
multicam ain’t all bad
These guys are fucking idiots.
Gawd dammit. I finally got my perfect battle suit put together, with 35 properly placed medals, 4 tabs and genuine Chinese made accoutrements, and now y’all want to change things? Do you have any idea how long it took me to save up working minimum wage? This puts me back at least another 6 months to make my world debut. See you after they make a decision.
So the House actually had to VOTE on something as stupid as telling the branch chiefs to pick out a pattern of cloth?
What. The. Fuck?!!!
@15: Funny how many times you hear people say “politicians shouldn’t be interfering with the military” but then you see shit like this and realize that there are times when they have to do just that.
#16- I’m with you. I just think there are more pressing issues politicians should be worried about than what troops are going to wear – whether it’s BDU’s or MARPAT, or whatever else, it’s all nonsense to me. In my mind, it’s not worth debating and wasting tax payers $$$$ over.
@17 The different services starting their own fashion trends cost the taxpayers about $6 billion in uniforms and equipment. The horse left that barn a long time ago, but at least they’re finally doing something to stop the madness in the future.
This shit has to running Sergeants Major crazy. (or their sister service equivalent)
Junior leaders always hate to be “micromanaged” but as I used to tell my junior NCOs, if you put me in a position where the only way I can accomplish the mission is to micromanage you, that’s exactly what I’ll do. This childish, silly inter-service squabbling would be amusing if it wasn’t wasting so much of the taxpayer’s money.
Makes me say – once again – that I’m so glad I retired in 2005 so I don’t have to deal with this crap anymore. My service spanned the entire BDU era (though the Army still had those awful “pickle suits” when I first came in, in 1980) and except for some teething pains (elvis collars?) the BDU was a pretty darned good uniform.
Why DoD allowed the Marines to “go rogue” and adopt their own pattern in 2002 is beyond me, but that’s what started all this nonsense. They should have been told then that if the Marines wanted to amend their dress uniforms, knock yourselves out but as long as we’re fighting a war, we’ll all wear a war fighters uniform and leave the fashion stars to New York and Paris.
Marine Corps takes initiative and creates better uniform with measly budget. US Army gets butthurt and wastes millions to emulate poorly. Other services want to to look high speed low drag because all of the cool kids are getting more attention.
Damn those Marines!!!
Why not just issue the exact same gear to everyone while we are at it? That’s what it’s going to come down to sooner or later. Won’t allow a small branch to choose operational gear for significantly different missions is essentially the uniform argument now. You better fucking believe Marines and Airmen are going to have different uniform necessities, but thanks to colossal butthurt incompetents everyone will now be punished.
It’s a shame you can’t buy competence at the Big PX. Some branches surely are in need of it.
All of the special SF/SoF kids are going to be wearing whatever the hell they want anyway as they always do and that means the services will want that too. It’s already happening with the older BDU’s and flight suits.
as if somehow it matters?
Why are we now going to pay MORE money we don’t have squabbling about what color pants we are wearing?
@21: How is it that a Marine unit conducting combat operations in Afghanistan has a “significantly different mission” than an Army unit conducting combat operations in Afghanistan? For over 20 years the Army and Marines wore the same BDU uniform (as did the AF and Navy.) So what changed?
And the only “butthurt” I see is coming from the Marines who are crying about having “their” pattern taken away from them.
The pattern doesn’t “belong” to the Marines. It belongs to the people who paid for it: The taxpayers of the United States of America. You know, the people you work for. 😉
How about everyone gets a cash allowance and goes to a place like Bass Pro Shops or Gander Mountain, and just picks out what they want?
If the military keep going the way it is, we’ll all end up with this uniform anyway…
http://www.freakingnews.com/New-Gay-Army-Uniform-Pictures-94788.asp
But this, this is what berets were made to be worn like? I think we were getting ours from here before Congress bolo’d getting them in China:
http://cnyipeier.en.made-in-china.com/offer/XeSJhPLAhiVD/Sell-Military-Police-Uniform-Cadet-Army-Beret-Caps.html
@24.
Bass Pro shop is attempting to put their HQ in the Pyramid in Memphis; right on the Mississippi River.
Great move. A leader in the industry operating on a pollution flow right in the cesspool that is Memphis.
Yeah, I want to fish there.
I recommend we follow the Royal Canadian field uniforms. The “One Team, One Fight” AirLand Battle is dead when it comes to the glamour of a uniform. Or in the USAF’s case the lack of glamour.
@23: It’s not the Marine Corps fault it continues to be retasked to augment the US Army which time and time again fails to deliver results. If you don’t think an expeditionary maritime force would need different uniforms than the Big PX give me a break. Just because everyone had to wear the same shit previously doesn’t mean that was efficient at all. Old BDU’s were notorious for the crotch blowing out, fading, and generally being a clusterfuck of wrinkles unless you starched the utter shit out of it.
On the contrary to what the misinformed think the Marine Corps isn’t an augment of the US Army.
Joke: (not really)
Why do Navy SP’s carry nightsticks?
Answer: To hit Marines.
I vote that we deploy the entire House of Representatives to Afghanistan to field test the cammo patterns in the real world. They could break up into groups and each caucus would wear one of the choices. After a six month testing period the number of survivors would be counted in each cammo caucus. The pattern with the largest number of live Representatives would win and be forced on all of the branches. Including the stupid navy. Blue cammo? Really?
…You gotta believe that the USAF just longs for the days of the Field Dress Uniform – it was still (officially) authorized when I got in but never actually saw it. It was the old standard green fatigue uniform….with a scarf.
Mike
The second that uniforms became fashion statements, I knew something was wrong. The Marines adapted CADPAT to meet their needs, creating woodland and desert camouflage that seems to meet their needs perfectly–both in combat and when it comes to marketing themselves (which you gotta admit they’ve been damned good at for the past 100 or so years). The Army followed suit with a “universal” pattern and uniform that isn’t, but at least we (the Army) started with good intents. The Air Force and finally the Navy then adopted their own proprietary camo and uniforms that do little besides try to attract kids to their recruiting offices. At least the Navy adopted their MARPAT-style NWU (or whatever it’s called) for deployments.
As a Soldier, I don’t want MARPAT regardless of how effective it is or isn’t. I can understand the Marines’ desire to look different, and since they’ve been wearing their own pattern for over ten years now it simply wouldn’t feel “right” for us Soldiers to start playing dress-up. Multicam seems to be a decent pattern for over here (Someplacistan) at least, and the improvements to the ACU over the past few years (reinforced seams, buttoned pockets, sew-on badges, etc) have made it an overall better design than the BDU, IMHO.
The Marines should keep their camouflage, and also go back to their historical mission of being the Navy’s expeditionary ground troops–instead of becoming another land-based fighting force like the Army. Hell, I’d be okay with the maritime forces (Navy and Marines) sticking with the two MARPATs while the land-based forces (Army and Air Force) adopt patterns that actually work for most of their missions (instead of grey pixels or tiger stripes that blend in with little outside of urban environments.
What is the possible cost savings of making all the services use the same pattern? It costs the same to print a uniform no matter what the pattern is. Let the services pick the ones they need for the environments they work in. But please, someone, get rid of our ACU pattern!
When I enlisted, I was issued the pickle suit. Never particularly liked it. It was an abortion for field duty — not enough pockets, too tight, fragile.
Really liked the OD green jungle fatigues. Lots of pockets, dried quickly after getting rained on, comfortable fit.
BDU’s worked fine. Comfortable, sufficient pockets, rugged. Thought the Woodland Camo was unnecessary because everyone looks like a dark blob when viewed at a distance. I thought that an OD version would’ve been sufficient.
Currently, the A-TAC pattern looks good to me. But, hell, I’m retired. I really don’t have a dog in this hunt.
I have been pestering my Congressman and Senators about this for the last 10 years…I have it set as a reminder on my Outlook to send them a letter reference this every month.
Finally it looks like it may pay off. Obviously I am not the only person (in uniform and out) that notices the idiocy of our current uniform system.
And I say fuck ever Sergeant Major that bitches, moans and complains about it. They need to retire.
It ain’t a uniform if it ain’t uniform.
@34 The main cost is changing existing equipment to match the new pattern. I now have two and a half sets of the same equipment in my garage because of the uniform changes for this war (BDU, DCU, ACU, and Multicam). There are also inventory costs at the depots for having to produce and store uniforms and equipment in different patterns from different manufacturers. It will save money in the long run if we can standardize the process.