Air Force to adopt Army’s OCP uniform
The Air Force announced today that they are adopting the Army’s Operational Camouflage Pattern (OCP) uniform, according to the Air Force Times;
The Air Force announced Monday that it is adopting the Army’s OCP as its official utility uniform. The uniform will roll out across the force over the next three years.
While some airmen already wear the OCP ? such as airmen in the Middle East and Air Force Global Strike Command security forces ? the Air Force will start rolling it out to others beginning Oct. 1.
By April 1, 2021, all airmen will be required to wear the OCP, and the current airman battle uniform, or ABU, will be no more.
“Our airmen have made it clear, with a resounding, ‘Hey, we want to get into this uniform as soon as we possibly can,’” Maj. Gen. Robert LaBrutta, the Air Force’s director of military force management policy, said in a May 9 interview at the Pentagon.
Well, it was probably cheaper than coming up with their own pattern, too. There will be military fashionista designers who are unemployed as a result. AMFers.
Category: Air Force
I just saw this.
WTF & BFD. I’m *SO* glad I’m retired.
I was pissed when Merrill McPeak pulled his shit.
HEY ASSHOLES!!!! STOP FUCKING AROUND WITH THE UNIFORMS, OK?!?!??!?!?!?
I ETS’s just before the ABU came online. Got me a pair of those fugly green boots, which they then got rid of.
So sick of the uniform nonsense.
Going from “uni-sex” uniforms to “uni-service” uniforms? They have this much money to waste? WTF is wrong with the air farce?
Man, fuck McPeak!
Why? OCP is better than that ABU thing.
On the other hand, how am I going to be able to tell Soldiers from airpersons?
Back in the woodland camo days, we had to have attention to details. We recognized the different branch’s variations on the same uniform. It wasn’t hard.
AF enlisted wear rank on their sleeves. Also, if you look real close, where your uniform says U.S. Army, theirs will say U.S. Airforce. Now, for our next lesson, please look for directions written on the heel of your boot.
I believe chevron orientation would provide a clue, as well. O’s are the same, so no problem there.
/sarc
Not anymore. With this uniform they’ll be wearing it on the sternum, Army-style.
Now that’s a change I can get behind. Taking a dozen plus shirts to the tailor after a promoton made me very envious of how the other branches did it.
Hey YEF, a number of us on TAH, myself included, were in during the day when ALL of the Services *GASP* used the BDU Uniform! Not to worry, toy could still tell the difference AND it saved Taxpayers some money!!!
Yet, you are a dumb sumbitch. I’ll leave it there.
yes, because working on planes and in offices requires camouflage… *sarc
It hides the dirt and grease stains better than non cammo.
You might even say that the camouflage camouflages the dirt and grease stains.
Yeh , just like being on a ship requires blue camo, so if you fall overboard they can’t find your ass! genius’s
Just wanted to add that unless you’re wearing international ORANGE, it doesn’t matter what color or type of uniform you wear if you decide to fall overboard.
The Navy has been wearing a predominately BLUE uniform at sea regardless of what platform (except aviators & aircrew)for years: Dungarees, Coveralls, digitals AKA: Blueberries.
…And now, I would love to suggest to some Congresscritter that a law immediately be passed that when a military service changes a uniform it is forbidden to do so again (except in the demonstrated case of a safety or combat requirement) for ten fiscal years. The services have become addicted to changing the uniforms in lieu of their other many and manifold problems. Needs to stop.
I think it’s was back in ’12 or ’13 congress passed a bill stating the branches couldn’t spend money developing new patterns unless it was in pursuit of a joint service uniform.
Side note: when faded to a greyscale, the ABU makes a decent snow cam, but God Damn the pants were binding.
The Air Force is always on a mission to look like other branches so they don’t get laughed at. 😂
Aim high!
You mean like this bullshit???
http://www.sandysherbs.com/Misc/AirForceUniform.jpg
Now those right there are some true Space Cadets if I ever saw them ChipNASA.
I’m still trying to figure out why OD fatigues are no longer worn. It used to be that cammies were issued only when/if you were in a particular part of the world.
Now everybody is wearing cammies. Why?
And I never understood the Navy wearing blue cammies … I guess to make “man overboard” training that much more difficult: can’t see ’em in water if they’re camouflaged.
Sheesh.
Oops …. didn’t see Club Manager’s response down thread.
It’s useful to hide from the sharks?
*got nuthin’*
“I’m still trying to figure out why OD fatigues are no longer worn”
Because they sucked. Hot in the summer, cold in the winter, showed every bit of dirt or grease, ripped too easily, lousy pockets, crappy looking unless they were starched enough to make you walk like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz, ….
Please refer to my comment above. The surface Navy and subsurface Navy has been wearing a blue uniform at sea for a very long time, just different shades.
The digital blue camouflage uniform is ugly IMHO but it doesn’t make a person in the water any less visible than previous underway uniforms that the Navy has worn since before WWII.
When I first hit the waves in 1992, we wore Dungarees: light BLUE long sleeve chambray shirt, white t-shirt, dark BLUE dungaree pants and black steel-toed boots and then on my next ship our underway uniform was dark BLUE coveralls like our brethren beneath the waves wore underway (minus the sneakers of course!)
Yet another bold step to give the impression airmen are in a military service and not members of a country club. Breaking news: Chief Master Sergeants complain the pattern does not match that of golf course fairways.
Never could understand why people in the environment of concrete, fixed buildings, or Navy ships need to wear a camouflage uniform. I especially wondered what was the deal with the current AF camo pattern that looks quite like the Vietnam tiger stripe cammies. Guess everyone needs to look “special” to go along with their participation trophies.
I particularly like the Navy version. Guarantees if someone falls overboard they will not be found. Since they draw so much sniper fire at sea, I can understand why they don’t wear something that would quickly identify them in the water.
Navy is getting rid of the blue camouflage.
The line of BS when they started introducing them is that the grey and blue camo pattern was to blend in on base. Problem is, it doesn’t. Totally pointless.
Maybe because that camouflage pattern actually makes you stand out against that concrete, etc., environment.
Wouldn’t it be simple for all the branches to have the same OCP uniform?
Absolutely
Used to. When I was in, we were ALL in woodland BDU.
WTF was wrong with the old dungarees? traditional uniforms in the Navy were brilliant, all fit in a tiny locker, folded, neat and ready for inspection, until the a.h. zumwalt came along!
Yes – but the Air Force will be the ones that require to have the OCPs pressed, starched and with creases so you look awesome cruising a desk.
Yeah- ‘cept for us Marines. We’re special and need our own. ——–Yeah, seriously.
Is it true that if an Airman shows up in the correct uniform 3 days in a row, he gets a ribbon for it?
HEY NOW!!!!!!
*frowns at your shenanigans*
NO, it is 3 weeks in a row and you must have also worn your reflective belt while watching an Exercise Video.
That’s only a rumor, and its unproven as it has never happened this century.
Break yourself…I earned an AAM when I was an Airman. I’m still proud of it as an Army officer.
I seem to remember when I was a kid and all branches wore the BDU (what was wrong with that uniform, by the way? ) in its woodland and desert flavors with Army/Marine/Air Force/Navy ID tape on it. Seems like it was way easier on the budget that way.
As a taxpayer, this makes sense to me, provided that they actually stick with it instead of going for the cool new thing again next year.
And why don’t they just wear regular OD greens anymore? A runway is probably the last place where you wouldn’t want to be seen.
What was wrong? No Velcro, and no “cool-looking” digital camouflage pattern. Both of those were apparently determined to be “mission critical” uniform features sometime in the 2000s.
Personally, I like to think of the OCP as the “BDU v2” (or maybe “BDU Mk2” or “BDUA1”). Add the right fraction of coyote brown splotches to the original BDU pattern and IMO you’d be damn close to today’s OCP pattern.
Concur.
In DS/DS/DS we were issued a hooded coat to wear over our BDU’s, supposedly to confuse prying eyes. It was like a small tent with sleeves. Weird.
Velcro. Has anybody noticed how noisy Velcro is? Why they would use it on a field uniform is beyond me. Submariners aren’t the only people who need to worry about noise.
The Navy finally shitcanned the ridiculous aquaflage uniform, and went to a green and tan camo outfit. No one knows why.
Well I can certainly see how this pattern will blend in with current ship colors.
Right? Nothing says “Nautical” like a bowl of creamed spinach.
*facepalm*
Even the model in the picture appears to be disgusted with the whole thing.
“bowl of creamed spinach.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA*gasp*HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
NAILED IT.
Creamed Spinach.
Fucking Hellarious! (Stole that from here, left sometime over the weekend…)
Nailed that fucker spot on.
Didn’t see “nailed it” before, mea culpa.
Still Hellarious.
“…creamed spinach”
I like that.
Also; Hmmmmmm, Spinach!
Maybe the new Navy “creamed spinach” pattern is to celebrate Popeye, cuz everyone knows he was a real deal sailor man.
He’s Popeye the Sailor Man,
He lives in a frying pan,
They turned on the gas
And they burned up his ass,
He’s Popeye the Sailor Man
*Toot Toot*
It has been over a month isn’t the Navy due for a new uniform change?
Whoa ….
Aren’t those sold on the back cover of the VFW, AL, and DAV Magazines?
Nothing says “you know you’ve become a senior citizen” when your britches have elastic waistbands.
Oops … forgot the end tag to that blockquote.
Fixed it, ya lazy bastard.
*grin*
Thanks Ed!!!
It’s that obesity epidemic thing, ya know.
I told you guys they’d find way to hide you when you’re driving a riverine boat through the Mekong Delta.
Oh, wait – that was last century. Oh, well.
We wore dungaree pants, chambray shirts, dungaree jackets that were not actual dungaree material, dungaree caps, same cloth as the jackets and khaki N-1 foul weather deck jackets that were loaners and had to be signed for.
Forgot to mention on my above comment, that the shoes were called boondockers.
Boondockers were just that shitty McNamara boot with a lower top. Glad I was airborne so I didn’t have to wear that sorry looking boot.
You bet and they were great uniforms!
Oscar the Grouch nods head in approval.
“Our airmen (uniform manufacturer lobbyists) have made it clear, with a resounding, ‘Hey, we want to (get richer than Scrooge McDuck) get into this uniform as soon as we possibly can (so that we can pay off our obligations to our patrons on the Senate Armed Forces Committee)_,’” Maj. Gen. Robert LaBrutta, the Air Force’s director of military force management policy, said.
There Maj Gen Bobby – I fixed it for ya.
Damned if you didn’t fix it well for him too Brother!
This is just SOOOOOOOO special. Especially because it wasn’t done for budget or needs reasons. But because “Our airmen have made it clear, with a resounding, ‘Hey, we want to get into this uniform as soon as we possibly can,’”. So there ya go!
We are strong…ish
We are determine…more or less
We are…The Air Force
“Running after badges, bling and uniforms since 1947.”
For the record I served in the AF also.
Me too. I fully concur and support this message.
me three
Oooooo …. a wise guy, eh?
Count me in
I worked on an AF base once. Does that count?
I walked on and off airplanes at them. If that counts, I guess we can all get them and bling them up for veterans events
Mostly, walked on them though, with a parachute.
I’ll just leave this here….
“For when you absolutely have to forward deploy to Grandma’s House”
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cxmptAPYR-s/Ri5oc7aat-I/AAAAAAAAAtk/_VLydEBs3Co/s1600-h/camojncouch.jpg
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Looks like the backdrop to Obama’s official portrait….
A total failure. The portrait as well.
My golly, that pattern does work. I owe the military an apology. Of course it is still not a pattern found in nature.
I served through three camo uniform changes in the Army. The worst of course being that idiotic ACU where you can kind of hide in the arctic and stick out everywhere else.
Most line units I was in trained about half their days of the year in the field. The next year you were deployed to ME or Asia. So it makes sense to have it for daily wear. Air Force? If they want to play “Army” that’s fine. It’s not like anyone is going to make even more fun of them than they already do.
Not just the Arctic, the ACU pattern will perfectly camouflage if you’re on a pile of freshly crushed gravel or a 1940’s sofa!
I hated the ABU. It was a uniform designed only to give a distinctive look. Not based on any actual operational experience.
Why can’t we get field uniforms that are actually good in the field? It is abominably stupid that when you get ready to deploy they have to issue you different uniforms for the theater.
Never had the pleasure, but I’m told after a week or so in the field what your uniform looked like at the start really doesn’t matter.
Particularly noticeable in those nice white arctic cammo suits. People tend to forget that underneath all that white, fluffy, snow is the same old dirt just waiting for an excuse to turn into the same old mud.
‘Hey, we want to get into this uniform as soon as we possibly can.’ In other words, The Air Force wants to jump into the Army’s pants.
OK, you came out and said it but yeah, I read that exactly the same way.
Great minds and all that
/either that or we’re both sick and twisted. I believe the latter
No question about that. Of course, we aren’t the only ones who thought of it. In fact, I’d venture to guess that maybe one or as many as two here didn’t think of it. Bunch of twisted bastards. Makes me proud.
Best part of this…our supply sergeant, a SFC who seems to have his shit together, put out at the last battle assembly to be prepared for “Gen 3 OCP” (modified Gen 2 pattern and “subtle changes to the uniform itself”) in addition to dark woodland/jungle, desert, and artic familes sometime in FY19 through FY21.
I say fuck it. Lets go back to BDU’s.
“A-A-Ron! Check it out, man. Found this here box. Take a look.”
“Dag, Ba-la-kay. Lemme get a hammer, whack that phat ass, and see what happens.”
Well, since green is a ‘defense’ color, the Army and Marines should wear that. The Air Force can take over the blue camo pattern, because they can add clouds and unicorns to it.
And the Navy can go back to blue chambray shirts and dungarees, because you can at least turn the pants in to water wings if you get blown overboard by a jet blast.
Air Force in Baby Blues with digicam clouds- you rock, Ex!
*grin*
Is that why they had bellbottoms?
Yep! The good ol’ bellbottomed dungaree pants were able to be removed without removing your boot and inflated for use as a makeshift PFD in a pinch.
Laugh if you will but it worked! Plus, after about 20 washes, those pants were super-comfortable.
Now if they could have done without the butt-pockets on the front……Hahaha!
OD fatigues worked just as well … but you had to hang your boots around your neck before jumping in the ocean. Did that at water survival school (SVS6-A) at Homestead AFB near Hollywood, Fl., following the SV-80-A course in 1974.
I see that they moved at some point to NAS Pensacola, and just recently to Fairchild AFB. I suppose parasailing is no longer part of the course? That was great — got to do it 3 times!!
It seems as though the Air Force screwed up when they broke away from the ARMY in 1947, because now they want to wear the ARMY Uniforms in 2018.
Personally, I think reverting to the old Army Air Corps would be a good thing. But that’s just one dumbass’s uninformed opinion.
And whatever happened to bringing back the Army pinks & greens? Is that still happening?
Put the Air Force back in the Army? Ok, been in both. More Huah than Oorah. Engineer all the way! Fuck Bernath!
By the way, I would look stunning in Pinks and Greens!
Don’t much care what any of them wear but am more than a little tired of the needless waste of it changing every few years. Pick one. Any of them, and stick with it for a while. Preferably as similar to the rest of the services as possible.
Most sensible uniforms I ever had were in the early 80’s – we all wore BDU’s with appropriate service specific placement of names etc, AND the exact same dress uniform shirts and pants in different colors for the different service branches. Easy. Much cheaper, so, of course, it didn’t last long.
Mc Peak and his goofy shtick was an embarrassment. May never get over it.
Can we get a constitutional amendment mandating that each branch can only change any of its uniforms once per century?
First trangenders now crossdressing between the services.
David’s law: Every prior service member will defend to the death that the first work uniform they wore in the service was the best. All following uniforms are unacceptably flawed.
Hell, I would go for starchies, pre-pickel suit fatigues. Maybe jungle fatigues in hot weather. BDUs suck.
Jungle’s were still official duty along with Jungle Boots when I was in and I had a set or two. Very comfortable in the hot weather
Agree. They were the perfect hot weather field uniform. I still have a set in OD and the camo pattern. Their buttons don’t make noise in the field, and you can walk/wear them dry after they are soaking wet from rain.
I like the jungle fatigues and boots. I think I still have some jungle fatigues. They don’t quite fit anymore, though. They shrink, you know.
Oh yeah, baby! Cotton sateen OG-107.
Best utility uniform. Ever.
No.
No.
No.
No.
NO!
Bad rgr!
Maybe it looked good in parades all starched up with that cute little ascot and a shiny helmet liner, but it was a lousy working uniform. Even worse in the field.
I still have a bunch those with all my crap sewn on. I always thought they looked like a green version of what the gas station attendant wore. So I’m also an emphatic NO. They were useless as a field uniform.
When I came back from R&R I decided to be cool and wear a set of regular OD 107 fatigues back to the field. Big mistake. After a miserable two days I convinced my PL to order me some real jungle fatigues on “lifeline”.
I must admit that those OD 107s were not too bad in Germany for short periods in the field in a Mech. unit. For one thing, no cargo pockets to catch on things.
Sheesh, guys — you’re brutal. I grew up in the army and OD was my favorite color. Seriously, Dad was in from 1947~1970; then I was in from 1973.
Loved that uniform. Always hated the BDUs — hated the leg pockets.
““Our airmen have made it clear, with a resounding, ‘Hey, we want to get into this uniform as soon as we possibly can,’” Maj. Gen. Robert LaBrutta, the Air Force’s director of military force management policy, said in a May 9 interview at the Pentagon. ”
Said no person ever. WTF is wrong with this guy?
You beat me to it, but my response is a simple ,but heartfelt, BS.
I can see SOF operators, snipers and some others being camouflaged. Uniforms are just that, for uniformity. You really can’t be stealthy when you and a thousand of your friends are rolling in on tanks, AAVs, Bradleys, LAVs and what ever else. Just wear your uniforms with pride.
Someone is making a heck of a lot of money from the uniform game. Look up how much the Army paid to develop their uniform versus the Marine Corps.
To be fair, the Marine MARPAT was cheaper because it was already based on an existing pattern that the Army had paid for and declined to use.
So really a few hundred grand to figure out where to put an EGA seems gratuitous when you look at it that way.
Shades of Admiral Zumwalt who felt that the Navy needed to adopt a uniform in keeping with the other branches.
The problem was Navy personnel do not have the same storage space aboard ship as other branches do ashore.
I also remember clearly the facial hair debacle……sideburn, mustache etc
Hey, come on….you got to wear a beard!
I think I know where the cast of “Queer Eye For The Straight Guy” went when the show was cancelled; fashion consultants for DOD.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5dZ4QG7dW0
This week’s episode, the OCP uniform!
The Army loves changing uniforms at the drop of a hat. In 30 plus years I’ve had many.
Basic was issued straight green duty uniform, Class A w/Brown dress shirt. Class B Kakis (my favorite).If I’m not mistaken I was issued a green trench coat.
1984/85 moved to BDUs, butterfly collars, with tab Sizers.The original ones would tend to bleed the black color to a bluish tent.
They eventually switched the collars and removed the Sizers. Switched to the Green Class A shirt with flat pockets for awhile then for no reason at all green shirts had tabs in the middle of the pocket. Issued black trench coats, one had a belly belt one was not fitted with one.
Wore the DCU (chocolate chips) but with jungle boots (They were lovely in the desert).
Then had the ACU foisted on me, and shortly thereafter along comes the OCP and the ASU.
Don’t even get me started on PT uniforms, it used to be you took off your blouse, unbloused your pants legs and removed your headgear and you’re ready to begin PT. Next the banana suit (There’s a place in hell for whoever designed it as it was hot and shrank), the gray cotton Pts, then the gray poly PTs and now the black ones that are mandatory…damn I’m old.
My favorite Army uniform change was the “wonderful” Greens change in the late 1990s. Other than a slight difference in color, the two uniforms were identical – same cut, same style, same pockets, same buttons, everything. Just a slight difference in the shade of dark green used.
The colors were so close that you had to literally lay the two uniforms side-by-side to be able to see the rather subtle change in color – as I recall, the newer one was slightly darker than the older one. And I’m guessing that after a few drycleanings you might not have been able to tell the difference in color between the two at all.
Yet acquiring the new Greens and ceasing wear of the old version was mandatory by a certain date.
I had forgotten about the different shade Class A. You’re right they looked almost indentical.
That was the one that p!ssed me off the most. I lived through most of the others you reference (I missed the OCP/ASU changes as I retired not too long before the latter, but did see the phase-out of the starched cotton fatigues). All of those other changes at least actually changed one uniform in use for something noticeably different. The late 1990s Greens change merely put extra tax (and in some cases, personal) $$$ in uniform manufacturers pockets for no meaningful reason.
Funny how the Army uniform changes started accelerating right around the same time that AAFES took over the clothing sales store.
Still here Mofos!
Good!