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Does it really matter? I mean seriously.

by Jonn Lilyea••22

Beretverde sent us a link to an MSNBC article about the Army wasting $5 billion on research for the perfect camouflage uniform for soldiers.

According to insiders, the design was selected after the Marines had switched to an eye-catching pixel-driven pattern. “That’s what this really comes down to,” the editor of Soldier Systems Daily said. “‘We can’t allow the Marine Corps to look more cool than the Army.'”

Yeah, I really don’t get this whole discussion. I’ve never seen a camouflage pattern that hides soldiers, and after a few hours in the field, all uniforms look the same – dirt. Of course, the last line of that paragraph above is what it’s all about anyway – the coolest pattern. So uniforms are a recruiting tool now, functionality is secondary.

With so many other things they could be spending money to protect the force, things like training which effectively make up for the fact that uniform camouflage patterns don’t do anything, why is Big Army mostly concerned with fashion?

And if a trainee is more attracted the Marines than the Army because of a camouflage pattern, does either service really want such a superficial dork anyway?

All it really is about is job security for those POGs at Nattick.

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22 thoughts on “Does it really matter? I mean seriously.”

  1. You see alot of this with contractors, and even GS employees, creating superfluous tasks to justify their existence at the expense of tax payer’s dollars.

  3. You knew that something was up when they initially only fielded ACUs to general officers. Then suddenly the GO’s aides and XOs were the only ones ACUs, then the guys on their staffs were the only ones with ACUs. It became the status symbol of the Army, because you had to know someone to be wearing ACUs.

    If the ACU was worth a crap, it would have gone to the soldiers in the fight first, HQDA and ASCC general officers last. Fielding it to GOs first ensured advocates at high levels (cash flow) so when the soldiers figured out it was crap, it would still be fully funded through the next POM cycle.

  4. Bobo–see my post about the plans becoming policy. Now they just figured out to do it in reverse, but the end result is still the guys on the pointy end going, “It’s a crock of shit and it stinks.”

  5. Can we stop with this fashion show that has become military uniforms? My ABUs are nothing more than BDUs with more pockets and color scheme. Let’s just give everybody Multicams and call it a day.

  6. Makes sense to me, Whitey_wingnut. But we tried that in the 1980s with the BDU, and it didn’t exactly work out all that well. Wasn’t “distinctive enough” for some, so not everyone decided to play. And after a while, everyone bailed.

  7. U.S. Army spending $5 billion on a uniform to study then field. And it turned out to be a bust. The Navy spent SIX (6!) years on research to change their uniform. What madness and a waste of time.

    The Military Industrial Complex is alive and well!

  8. Don’t forget the Air Force with their Tigerstripes (lol) and the Navy with thier ubercool Urban-Frigate-Camo (can’t have the Seaman onboard that 300ft destroyer being seen 50 miles offshore!)

    Shoot, give everyone Multicam and save a couple hundred billion.

  9. As someone who has been in 20 years with a couple more before I get out, and seen several uniforms come and go, I have to say that I want the durability and buttons of the old BDUs, but give me the OCP Multicam pattern.

  10. Here’s a question for the military history buffs, I guess. What was the first multi-colored uniform? Was it the tiger-stripe pattern used in Vietnam, or were there others before that?

  11. I remember seeing a pattern used by Marines in the Pacific in WW2…Can’t remember what the pattern was called, and I think it was just used on their helmet covers…

  14. Really John. I guess you have to blame this on “those POGs at Natick”. Do some fact checking first. There are a bunch of civilians, but most of the NSRDEC people at Natick are combat veterans or retired military that give a shit about the Soldier. They do whatever it is they can to save Soldiers lives. Matter of fact, their development of the ESAPI side plate carrier saved my Specialist’s life, along with many others. Politics and higher bureaucracy is to blame.

    I am grateful to the people at Natick. Perhaps you would rather still be wearing WWII era clothing and kit when you went to combat?

  15. What the hell kind of article is that? 10 lines and all it mentions is a Nintendo Game, an unnamed specialist and 5 billion dollars spent on uniforms.

  18. Sorry, guys, nothing can beat WAVES light blues from the 1960s. Nothing! Especially since I looked so cute in it! 🙂

  19. Oh? This is Natick?

    Guaranteed results:

    1. The pants are weak in the seat, and will require redesign in the stitching. Same thing happened to the BDU and ACU.

    2. Somebody up for re-election just hit the jackpot; and the GO who signed off on this will is guaranteed employment after retirement.

  21. Pintonag and Hondo, regarding the question about the first “multicolor uniform”. It depends upon the definition of “uniform”. The Italian army was the first to mass produce and issue camo items, but, it was in the form of a groundsheet/poncho that could be considered a uniform “item”, but wasn’t really what most would consider a “camo uniform”. The 1929 Italian camo material could and was, turned into trousers and jackets, but these were done by individuals privately or were “field made”. Not issued as such, by the army, until much later.

    Closer in concept were the Red Army amoeba pattern 2xpiece coveralls plus the Waffen-SS camo smocks from the period 1936-1938, the British para regiment and luftwaffe jump smocks from 1940. But, these weren’t exactly “uniforms” either. I think the first example of an actual trousers + jacket camo print uniform, was the USMC camo utilities from 1942. The US Army followed suit with their own and the Waffen-SS produced an issued camo print “utilities” drilich uniform 1n late 1943/1944.

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