The Army’s new field uniform
So the Army pointy-headed folks at R&D have decided on which pattern they prefer for maximum Cool uniform designs and…surprise…it’s a slight variation of the Multicam pattern that they call Scorpion, again for maximum Cool Points;
From Stars & Stripes;
The new pattern is said to be very similar to the MultiCam pattern, which became the standard for troops deployed to Iraq in 2010. MultiCam is privately owned by Crye Precision, the company that developed the original Scorpion pattern for the Army more than a decade ago. The Operational Camouflage Pattern, a modified version of the Scorpion pattern, belongs to the U.S. government and requires no fees to use.
If ever there existed evidence that the Army needs adult supervision, this is it. They’re like fricken 13 year-old girls with a credit card at the mall. The thing that they don’t seem to realize is that no matter which camouflage pattern that they waste money on, every soldier’s uniform matches his environment within a few hours of rolling around in it. But, then, the people who are wasting money on all of this research and development don’t have much experience in rolling around in the environment – they only care about how cool they look at the PX snackbar and the payday loan office.
Category: Big Army
How long did the U.S. Military use the BDU-style camo pattern?
Now this is the fourth change in the past ten years?
BDU was introduced in 1982.
Since I joined in ’93, this will have been the sixth type of fatigues I’ve worn in the Army.
Huh. So they say it resembles multicam. I say it actually resembles BDU’s, so I’m thinking that maybe the Army could have just raid modded BDU’s, and saved enough money to pay off the mortgage of damned near every homeowner in the U.S. What an effing waste. What ever am I going to do with my ACU’s now?
That was exactly my thought on first seeing the photo, Civilwarrior – BDU with a bit more brown.
Back to the future, I guess.
Sooooo, discussing new camo patterns is actually a circular argument, then?
You could always recover your grandmother’s couch with them.
Oh, HELL to the no!
You mean like this, ArmyATC? (smile)
I love that photo! The first time I saw it, I gave it kind of a cursory glance, and thought it was grandma’s couch with a cat sleeping on the left side (where the troop’s boots are).
I thought congress mandated that all the services must use the same pattern to save money. Are they just ignoring that?
And will we be going back to a deseri pattern second uniform?
Only if we come up with a “whole new” uniform do we have to all have the same one. This pattern was already in the Army’s inventory, so they can use it because that’s how Congress wrote the law.
Thank God Army wives love the ACU pattern! Sold all my ACUs to an old lady that makes bags out of them. Good riddance!
Maybe its just me, but the OCP was authorized for use in Afghanistan in 2010, not in Iraq. S&S seems to have pushed that out a little too quickly.
And WTF do we pay people at the Pentagon for? They are supposed to be doing the thinking and analysis and they don’t have half a brain between them all.
Lastly, I’m going to throat punch the next Senior Ranking person who tells me that “Well, don’t just complain, come up with a recommendation to the issue you have.” since We are paying people obscene amounts to be the “thinkers” and make things better.
My Unit was among the first ones to get ACU’s issued to it before we went to A-Stan in 2005. We referred to them as “pajamas” not only for their frumpy appearance, they fell apart that quickly in the field! At least one set had Goodwill listed as the manufacturer, and the Velcro on the trouser cargo pockets wore out in no time, making a visit to the tailor shop necessary to avoid looking like Joe Shit the Ragman!! I wonder how many lobbyists and pols these consultants and “experts” bribed before they got their contracts? I’ll at least cut each one in two before I toss them, I don’t want to end up supplying some POSer with usable garments!
This may help:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/08/01/history-camouflage-military-united-states/13485491/
We could always do like armies did a hundred years ago and go to war in our dress uniforms.
What’s wrong with the OD Green fatigues I wore 1963-69 ?
If the Army still operated QM laundry, there would be nothing wrong with those, OldSargeUSAR. Since they don’t, I’d recommend their perma-press replacement (the OD-green “pickle suit” of the 1970s) instead for routine in-garrison wear.
Most common-sense solution would be to go back to that, plus make the camouflage uniforms a TA-50 item and issue 4 sets based on base location (and as-needed for an out-of-home-base-region contingency).
OldSargeUSAR, I did like my OD pickle suit. Looked good and sharp and well, it’s all we knew so we wore it.
As was explained to me by my learned and wise boss; the pickle suit had to go because the pants and shirts faded differently and just didn’t look military enough. The shirts were made by one company and the pants were made by another.
I called bs on that and suggested the pants be replaced by straight legged denim pants. I argued that it was a in garrison utility uniform and not a parade uniform. BDUs were a fine idea for those in the field; but too expensive for in garrison. Furthermore, the light weight BDUs had a butt load of pockets that couldn’t be used because of the little holes that would form at the flap.
I thought a pickle suit shirt with all of its badges and stripes with denim pants would look good; my boss thought I would look better with a closed mouth.
I believe Terminal Lance did a strip about this recently.
http://terminallance.com/2014/07/22/terminal-lance-335-past-tense-dress/
Why not just send everyone to the fabric shops that carry big bolts of cloth and have the troops make their own duck hunting suits? I did. It was cool.
I always thought that the best camouflage ever invented would make the soldier look like a whitetail deer. The whitetail is nearly invisible in almost any background. Woodland, desert, savannah, scrubland, and even urban areas. The color is hard to define. It is a greyish brownish tone that defies description. It works in any light virtually disappears if the animal is not backlit. Antlers are optional.
Yah, dem antlers might be lethal to da wearer up in ‘sconsin during deer season.
Did anyone else read “War is a Racket” by Major General Butler? He goes into depth on the amount of profit uniform manufacturers haul in for the cause of freedom. In WWI, 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were created in the US.
BDU woodland 4 life!
Going back to that would have been the 2nd-best solution IMO – for all 4 services. But that wouldn’t “look cool”, so we won’t see that.
What I found interesting in the article was the part about overdying ACU pattern TA-50 with the coyote brown color. That’s going to save a good bit over having to replace all that crap with OCP pattern stuff until it wears out. And coyote brown is just about the best shade for all around wear.
Heck, they could have just made the entire ACU in coyote brown and been pretty well off.
Shame they couldn’t figure out how to make that work with existing ACUs, isn’t it?
Day 1 that we are authorized to start wearing them, I will show up to work in them. I hate ACUs with a passion. Purely because of the coloring.
One word: Why?
Out.
Job Security. Present and Future…
The best excuse for the Navy’s Aquaflage uniform I’ve heard is, in the event of falling overboard, the sailor can hide from the sharks.
I’m enjoying some of the comments of you ‘new’ old folks. It was OD (olive drab) for me and mine with black boots every day. It was OD for my Dad’s and his with brown boots every day. Welcome to the club, new old people!
Yep, OD and boots. Camo was for war zones, and not always then.
Black on white name tapes. Yellow on black “US ARMY”. Cochrans.
Oh, and a Fidel Castro hat.
Gimme authority for the Castro beard and the cigar, and I’ll sign up! (smile)
I date my self, but I went though 3 uniform changes: od cotton, od permanent press (melts to the skin in any kind of intense heat situation)and finally 2 kinds of BDU, regular and summer weight. Still use my BDUs to work in.
Yup, me too.
The Pickle Suit didn’t have enough pockets. The Woodland BDU was okay, but I always thought that an OD BDU would’ve worked just fine and be much less expensive.
“If ever there existed evidence that the Army needs adult supervision, this is it.”
Preach it, Brother!
One of my “pet projects” is writing about a Fictional Country duringthe 1920s that has to establish a military.
One of the things that they do is they have NO dress uniforms. They have a set of “garrision” or “parade” regulations where awards can be worn, but other than that its green with brown ruff boots.
I would like to point out something a lot of you seem to be confused on. The ACU is the cut of the uniform, not the camouflage pattern. We are still going to be wearing the ACU just in the new OCP camo as opposed to the UCP we currently wear.
Along with the pattern change we are also getting rid of most of the velcro still on it. Shoulder pockets are getting zippers and both the knee and elbow pad internal pockets are getting removed.
This weeks Army Times actually has a decent article on it.
Also Scorpion W2 is now the operational camouflage pattern (OCP), whereas Multicam is the objective camouflage pattern (OCP). Which I am sure is going to cause some confusion in the quartermaster corps.
What they need to do is make the uniforms white and ship them with a box of appropriately colored magic markers ea.
Then the troops can do their own camo.
It couldn’t possibly be worse than what the Pentagon numpties come up with.
So here we go again. Anyone want to take bets on how long this one will last?
High-Angle: I Hated those perma-pressed pickle suits. Blistering hot in the Georgia sun, and the “baseball cap” had a leather sweatband that turned nasty within weeks. The BDUs were a huge improvement, although I always thought it was funny that the Army issued you a hat with earflaps that you were never, ever, allowed to use.
I actually found the early BDUs as hot or hotter than the perma-press OD fatigues, Martinjmpr. They were just about as dark overall as the ODs (the light areas were balanced by the pure black areas), and the material in the BDU was heavier.
The lightweight BDUs released a few years later were much better in hot weather, though.
And yeah: the ear flaps you weren’t allowed to use on the BDU cap never did make much sense to me, either.
And when BDUs were first introduced, they supposedly had an anti-IR coating (which was part of the reason they were so damn hot) so you had to wash them in cold water, no ironing, no starch. They looked like shit, so within a few months you could ‘touch up’ spots (yeah, right) with a cool iron… then full iron, then back to breaking starch and to hell with the IR coating – this whole process took maybe a year or two. They cost three times as much as the pickle suits, and the only added functionality in fact was double layered knees.
David: in fairness, the BDU’s extra pockets were also nice in the field. But the original “temperate” BDU did indeed have its issues – many of which you described.
The later versions weren’t bad.
I can’t believe how much this “new” pattern looks like the old BDU woodland pattern. I loved the summer weight BDU/DCU’s. It always seemed to me the Army only changed after the USMC came out with their new pattern. Suddenly everyone had to have their own. What a waste.
Yup, I blame the Marines for this current fiasco.
Actually, that’s not fair. I don’t blame the Marines, I blame the SecDef and the CJCS for not stopping this nonsense when the Marines tried it. They should have said “Thank you, General, for your great idea, but we’ll be staying with one field uniform for the entire US military since that makes sense both tactically and fiscally.” (After all, we’re all fighting in the same countries, so why should different services have different camouflags?)
IMHO, the USMC came up with something that worked, thus the Army’s top brass shit their starched drawers thinking the USMC had just one-upped them and we ended up with the “Grey pajamas” which WILL perfectly camouflage you the moment you lay down on a pile of freshly crushed gravel, but nearly nowhere else.
I know these departments all seem to operate independently of each other ie; Department of Force Retention vice Department of Cool Office Camo…..but a little coordination would be nice.
I suspect it already sucks getting pink slipped in a war zone, but reading about what troops other than those with pink slips will be wearing after the Army gets through the RIF has to be a less than stellar motivator to complete a job in good faith. Especially when one starts to do the math monetarily…..
I’ve been out of the military since mid 1983 and I still have my OD pants and black boots from 1978…..along with a few leftover camos…and a t-shirt from basic. That clothing is older than many of the posters here….if that stuff held up why is the Army needing to change so many times in so few years?
Lets not forget the OD jungle fatigues and boots. Fatigues are till are kicking today, boots dies after the first resole but the black speed lace boots are still used.
I still have the two pairs of black speed-lace boots I was issued in the CO ARNG in 1999. They are my motorcycle riding boots and they work great. I probably put polish on them once every 3-4 months but 15 years on they show no signs of wearing out.
I sure loved those OD jungle fatigues. I wore those every chance I had for the last few years they were authorized. I had the soft duty of being the commander’s driver for a time back then and he decided to buy them because i was wearing them. Kind of backwards but he’d been an SFC then a CWO and was a CPT so he’d been around. That was in 85-86ish. I preferred them to the initial BDU issue which was heavy and hot IME.
The pic at the top looks like Her Majesty’s Training Film #42, “How Not To Be Seen”
David, thanks for the Monty Python skit. LMAO again.
I am a fan of the BDU with black boots. BDUs were actually camouflaged to most of North America and most non-desert areas. You could press one up nice for Garrison duty and impress the officers who have nothing better to do than look at how high speed their NCOs look in their pressed BDUs. Not to mention, polishing boots instills discipline and attention to detail. Oh, and they’re waterproof!
The issue with that is, black is not a color normally found in nature, except in volcanic rock and fire ash. While I personally preferred everything about the BDU over the ACU, and even miss polishing my boots,the removal of black from any camo pattern actually makes tactical sense.
My two cents, and to give credit where it’s due, I saw it in Armor Magazine years ago.
A garrison uniform. I say an emerald green polo with pressed khaki pants and black spit-shined boots. Save the combat uniforms for, you know, actual combat.
Is that the uniform that Gen Patton designed? The one with the row of brass buttons and a red sash?
“Oh, Here we go again, same old sh*t again, marching down the avenue…”
After umpteen years of “trial and error” you would think that the brainiacs at the Pentagon could get this right! Let’s hope so!
I remember the hoops we jumped through even before the current rounds: starched fatigues (military creases optional), permanent press (ya gotta be kidding), hot weather surplus solid jungle fatigues (wear ’em if you got ’em, because it’s too hot), disco collar BDUs (blue tint after washing was an unwelcome surprise), light weight BDUS (should have replaced all the heavy weights with these and been done with it)… And the list goes on…
Don’t even get me started on the “new” service uniform… C’mon Senior NCOs – SGMs, CSMs, and 1SGs, did you guys have any input in this? A white shirt with straight tie (bow tie for formal) is fine, but that short sleeve white shirt for the office has got to go….
Whew, I feel better now…
So, when we switch over to the new uniform, is this website going to change the ACU patterns on the side to that of the new uniform?
IMO the Army hasn’t had a true combat uniform since the camo jungle fatigues in the seventies. But the truth be known I have always felt that camoflage uniforms were of only marginal value for most troops. The two things that are most likely to get you noticed are movement and noise regardless of whether your uniform is one neutral color (OD or khaki) or a camo pattern. Any formation larger than a platoon (even platoons are questionable) is going to make noise and be noticable moving even in the best camo. Camo is something needed for small formations that primarily work in enemy territory and don’t move often.