Question for the Army: Is It Time for Camouflage to Change?

[daftandbarmy]

Question for the Army: Is It Time for Camouflage to Change?

Is the dominance of Multicam a function of the environments that soldiers have found themselves deployed in nowadays? Or is it a “trend” of sorts? Will we see militaries continue to move to the pattern, or has the trend past its peak?

by Charlie Gao 

Thirty years ago, if you looked at a picture of a multinational field exercise involving the United States and the UK, it would be fairly straightforward to tell apart the soldiers from America and the UK. U.S. soldiers would be clad in the M81 woodland pattern, and the British would be clad in their distinctive DPM pattern.

Fast forward to today: Both the UK and the U.S. field patterns are very similar to each other. The U.S. Army has now standardized on Operational Camouflage Pattern (OCP), a variant of Crye Precision’s Multicam. Likewise, the British Army has standardized on MTP, also a partial variant of Multicam. Special operators from practically every NATO nation use the pattern, and even Russia’s special operators have been seen decked out in it. To the untrained eye, a lot of modern soldiers may look practically identical.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/question-army-it-time-camouflage-change-34482

 

[Infanteer]

Notice Crye created "Multicam Arid" and "Multicam Tropic", which look just like our Arid and Temperate CADPAT, the designs we're moving away from?

 

[daftandbarmy]

Notice Crye created "Multicam Arid" and "Multicam Tropic", which look just like our Arid and Temperate CADPAT, the designs we're moving away from?

This quote was telling:

'Multicam and patterns inspired by it will probably continue to be worn in environments in which it works well, but as militaries revert back from expeditionary roles and return focus to defending their own borders, the camouflage will likely become less widespread.'

So, for we who gallivant about tilting at various international windmills, what we really need to have is two different cam patterns: domestic and expeditionary.

If you're more likely to be invaded by the Russians, stick to the domestic pattern

 

[tomahawk6]

When I joined the Army we we had no camo uniform just an od uniform worn in garrison and in the field. I believe the CF did the same. Its hard to find a camo pattern that matched the terrain you are in plus its expensive.

 

[daftandbarmy]

When I joined the Army we we had no camo uniform just an od uniform worn in garrison and in the field. I believe the CF did the same. Its hard to find a camo pattern that matched the terrain you are in plus its expensive.

And, as one guy I know who served in AFG pointed out: 'After a couple of days outside the wire you're covered with so much dust and dirt that no one can tell what the real colour of your uniform is anyways.'