Army Camouflage Update: Some Contenders Difficult To Spot
http://kitup.military.com/2012/02/army-camouflage-update-contenders.html/adstransitional-a
by Matthew Cox on February 23, 2012 · 63 comments

ADS Inc., recently released its entry into the Armys Camouflage Improvement Program, but it doesnt seem likely that we will see all the players in the competition until much later in the game. Kit Up!, Soldier Systems Daily and Army Times have been beating our heads against the Armys door for a look at all of the patterns the service selected for further testing as part of the final phase of the camo improvement program. PEO Soldier has decided it doesnt have the legal authority to release the five patterns.

The Army is letting the individual companies decide whether they want to unveil their patterns. So far, the ADS Transitional A pattern and Kryptek Inc.s Highlander pattern are the only contenders to come out of the shadows. Crye Precision LLC, the company that created MultiCam, was also selected as a finalist, but the company is keeping its new pattern hidden for now. The one government pattern selected was developed by Army scientists at Natick, but service officials still havent released it.

The Army launched the camouflage effort in response to a June-2009 inquiry by Pennsylvanias Democratic Rep. John Murtha, who was then chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. Before he died in February 2010, Murtha pushed the service to look for a better camouflage pattern after receiving complaints from sergeants about the Army Universal Camouflage Patterns poor performance in the warzone. The Army ended up selecting MultiCam to replace the UCP in Afghanistan in early 2010.

The Army is scheduled to evaluate the finalist patterns in field trials that will likely last until spring 2013. But with defense spending on a steep decline, it seems hard to believe the service will shell out the money for new camouflage uniforms.

http://kitup.military.com/2012/02/army-camouflage-update-contenders.html

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It looks like a horribly digitized Multicam, or a disaster of a MARPAT clone...

Multicam is the way to go. Or develop different patterns for different environments.

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You guys waste too much time (and money by my guess) on camo.

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Mother fvck the AKP.

I can't say I've ever been in a real back and forth fire fight during my time in the army, but after a lot of exercises over the years with people from various nations, using MILES type equipment (depends on where we're training, different countries have different names for it), I have noticed that some of the hardest contacts to spot at distances have been those using digital cammo. When simulated fire fights started, and we were advancing to contact, it made it really hard to pin point where someone was firing from because it was next to impossible to see a silhouette.. where as soldiers with "analogue" combats were easier to spot in front of a treeline.

I guess "waste" would depend on what a military considers important, and what it doesn't.



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Of course, the importance of camouflage should never be undermined, and while I've never been in a back and forth firefight with a person wearing camouflage I have been in firefights with people wearing plain green (or OD) clothing and red boots similar to those of the IDF. The only tactic given to us was fixing our routes so that we were never facing the sun, since they always attacked from above we didn't want to fight with something above us while looking at the sun cause then you'd just be shooting blind.

What I mean by waste is the amount of different camouflage patterns being developed. They produce things like MULTICAM and MARPAT for places like Afghanistan and perhaps other places but they're still producing BDU and giving them out to Special Forces in places like Afghanistan despite the fact that they already have camouflage patterns produced for those places. And then you have the old desert pattern along with that crappy gray ACU digital pattern thrown into the mix... seems like such a waste to me when they could be sticking to 1 or 2. I say we start wearing olive drab again.

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Mother fvck the AKP.

Well, I do agree with you that so many patterns are indeed a waste, and a strain on the logistics branch. Personally, I think Multicam is the only cam worthy of being an all purpose uniform. Other than that, I'm happy with the two CADPAT uniforms the CF is issued. It may cost a little more to make 2 uniforms per soldier, but with nations with smaller armies like Canada, the cost isn't too high.

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But I have no excuse for our CADPAT boots.. they're just, silly...

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CADPAT boots... wow :O I get weird looks for sometimes wearing tan boots in an Army of most if not all black boots... I wouldn't make it to the mess hall with a pair of those on.


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Mother fvck the AKP.

Well, we use them in the field. In garrison we use our black boots.. but regardless..a bit of cam paint on your boot in the field and you're good tactically.. We had absolutely zero need to make a CADPAT boot..

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We had those damn "jungle boots" where essentially the back half and the tongue was green and the rest was black. But we always wear polished black boots even in the field, even had an American soldier compliment on how "shiny" they were at a PX in KFOR heh.

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Mother fvck the AKP.

Heh, I remember one training ex with the CGG (their a guard unit, so they take pride in their shiny boots) and our patrol commander told the guy to stick some mud on his boots.. they were too shiny and will reflect the sun, giving away his position.. one of the most epic things I've heard a senior NCO say since someone called one of our Sargent "Sarge".. he replied "you don't call your country "cun_t", so don't call your Sargent "sarge"..

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Heh, I've always had a special place in my heart to hate those one liners you get from Sergeants

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Mother fvck the AKP.

Dude, they're classics.. If you've ever heard a good one liner from a senior NCO, chances are he heard it from an instructor when he was your rank.. It's a tradition..

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Then its a damn shame I'm not an enlistee eh? I went to the academy in hopes of being able to qualify for SOF one day like a lot of young people who just want to be SF, but we had a Senior NCO and he'd been a combat veteran between 1994 and 2011 suffering a shitton of injuries among other things and he'd have these epic one liners and quotes so nobody not even his superiors could really find a way to respond to him lol.

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Mother fvck the AKP.