Sunday, June 16, 2013

House approves measure to have military branches share one camouflage pattern

In 2002, the entire U.S. military shared just two camouflage patterns — one forest green, one desert brown. But since then, individual services began creating their own patterns. That process became a case study in government duplication: As services repeated each other’s work, the results were both expensive and uneven.

3 comments:

Ed said...

"“Congress needs to exercise its oversight to make sure we don’t do silly things,” Enyart said..."

Love the irony there. No self-awareness in that statement that Congress also does silly things.

A simple solution would be to remove the Eagle-Globe-Anchor overprint from the camouflage fabric that comprise USMC uniforms to make them palatable to the other services. Since the screens used to print the fabric are the same as used in CADPAT with different color inks, the development cost of generating a non-EGA printed uniform should be relatively low. The strip above the pocket denoting the service (U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, etc.) should be sufficient for identifying the personnel.

Ongoing, it should be recognized that new developments in camouflage pattern, materials and design needs to adopted across all the services.

Anonymous said...

@ Ed, that's the most popular idea I've been seeing around. Besides, there are already green and desert digies that are available without Eagles, Globes and/or Anchors. The next best ideas are BDU's or pickle suits again...

37 IBCT
III

Charles N. Steele said...

Has anyone ever done a careful comparison of various camo patterns vs. plain old Army olive drab? I'm suspicious that an effective camo is really that much better.

Admittedly, OD is far superior to the Army's current digital, but so is my fluorescent green biking jacket; hardly a fair test for OD.