The Army in coming weeks will select its top camouflage contenders to cover your next combat uniform. A leading choice is the Marine Corps’ MARPAT.
But although the outgoing top enlisted Marine says you can’t use it, the Army general who launched the effort begs to differ.
The Army is spending as much as $10 million to field three new combat uniforms — a woodland variant, a desert variant and a “transitional” variant that covers everything in between. The Army in July will select five contenders: three from industry and two from the government. Wear and field tests will follow. If all goes as planned, production will begin in October 2012.
MARPAT is a leading contender. The pattern is so effective that the woodland and desert variants will be among the baseline patterns used in the forthcoming tests. The others are the Operation Enduring Freedom Camouflage Pattern, or OCP; and AOR 1 and 2, which resemble the Marine desert and woodland digital patterns but are specially treated to reduce the wearer’s infrared signature.
Army officials have said they want soldiers to wear the best possible camouflage — even if that is the MARPAT. But Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Carlton Kent says don’t count on it.
The Corps owns the rights to MARPAT and wants to retain it for its own use, Kent said late last year. Marine officials said they have no beef with anyone researching and testing MARPAT, but they want Marines distinguished from other service members on the battlefield.
“The main concern for the Marine Corps when it comes to other services testing our patterns is that they don’t exactly mimic them,” said Kent, who is scheduled to retire June 9. “The MARPAT design is proprietary, and it’s important those designs are reserved for Marines. We just need to make sure each of our designs is unique to each service.”
h/t Doctrine Man
By: Brant
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3 comments:
In a new era of budget cuts, this constant iteration on uniforms is ridiculous. The Army is the worst offender, but the other services have also contributed to this fiasco.
Here's Guardian's simple answer: Multicam for everybody and be done with it.
Put the money toward better weapons, better optics, better comms, and better sensors for the individual trooper so that they can regain the tactical initiative by seeing first and shooting (effectively) first.
Of course, if we REALLY wanted to save some serious money, we'd consolidate all the services, but that seems unlikely given that we can even get everybody to wear the same uniform.
-- Guardian
P.S.: I'm a relic from the BDU/DCU era. I hear the comfort and functionality of the ACU is great, but I still don't understand how the Army could have designed and approved that pattern. It sticks out like a sore thumb if there's even a little foliage in the background.
Guardian, I couldn't agree with you more. So much money is pissed away on this crap. 99% of soldiers saw the worthlessness of the ACU a mile away. Some oxygen thief wasting space in the Pentagon is probably responsible. More money on bullets and training, less money on a fashion show.
And I'm from the days when the Canadian Forces used a plain olive-green uniform - it worked fine; even in the desert it wasn't all that visible after it picked up enough dust. And I still don't understand - who the hell puts Velcro all over a field uniform?
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