If only we could kill the weapon systems, planes, etc. that the military doesn’t want but Congress does because of voter jobs there would be plenty of money for crap like this.
Over the next year, America’s largest fighting force is swapping its camouflage pattern. The move is a quiet admission that the last uniform — a pixelated design that debuted in 2004 at a cost of $5 billion — was a colossal mistake. Soldiers have roundly criticized the gray-green uniform for standing out almost everywhere it’s been worn. Industry insiders have called the financial mess surrounding the pattern a “fiasco.”
[…]
Army brass interfered in the selection process during the last round, letting looks and politics get in the way of science.
[…]
“As a cavalry scout, it is my job to stay hidden. Wearing a uniform that stands out this badly makes it hard to do our job effectively,” he said. “If we can see our own guys across a distance because of it, then so can our enemy.”
May I suggest a visit to the nearest Bass Pro or Cabela’s, take a look at the realtree AP. I am not a textile technician but the guys who are making millions selling camo to make hunters invisible might be on to something.
Yeah, but forest camo doesn’t work in the desert or in rocky terrain. Those guys look like they’re headed to the woods.
True, but these companies also make desert and upland camo as well, for hunters in the south west.
So do what wasn’t done eyeball it in the terrain of use under differing light conditions. Have more than one color, design, pattern. Put congress in the present design and put them out in the desert opposite enemy. See if they can understand the problem.
“invisible” to a deer is different than to another human. In any case, most of those commercial camos use real leaf patterns that will look out of place when you move to a different woodland environment.
“invisible” to a deer is different than to another human.” Yes, fooling a deer is much harder then fooling a human.
Actually, the main mistake of hunting camo makers is exact opposite – they make them invisible to humans, partly because like that they can show-and-sell. Humans should be able to see camo made to trick deer (because: deer are dichromates with only blue and green “sensors”, each centered at somewhat lower wavelength than human blue and green “sensors”. As wavelength goes up, deer see colors of yellow, orange, red …. as darker and darker shades of muddy greenish-brown. So, absolutely no need for green/brown/… typical camo for deer. It should be patterns of yellow, orange and red, obvious from miles away to any human, muddy and concealing to deer… )
The comments have strayed off topic from camo for humans (soldiers) to camo for animals (deer), but anyway…
We can’t be completely certain how animals see colors by analyzing the physiology of their eyes. Note that many animals’ natural colorations work as camouflage toward humans even though their primary predators are animals; by extension, if hunting camo works for us, it probably is just as effective toward animals.
Could be.! Or not! We really need a positive definate answer.
May I suggest a good book: “The American Way of War: Guided Missiles, Misguided Men, and a Republic in Peril”
Explains the trap the USA was in from WWII on.
Here’s a video of the author speaking about the book and his film.
http://democracynow.org/2008/10/20/eugene_jarecki_on_the_american_way
Link to film.
http://sonyclassics.com/whywefight/main.html
Politics in the defense dept., who’d of guessed. Politics killing our servicemen and women, same as it ever was.
Five billion on computer generated camo. Now there’s a paycheck.
“Brand identity trumped camouflage utility,” Graves said. “That’s what this really comes down to: ‘We can’t allow the Marine Corps to look more cool than the Army.’”
And that was exactly the problem. The Marine Corps changed their utility uniform to be more distinctive from the old woodland pattern used by the other service, and when everybody else went to Iraq and saw the Marines, decided they needed to be special too. Now you have all the services with different camouflage uniforms, including the Air Force’s silly tiger stripes to the even more retarded blueberry uniform of the navy. Really it just illustrates how much penis envy there exists between the services.
Hmmm… Desert camo?
Maybe it should be the color of sand???
Dessert camo, on the other hand, should be chocolate or strawberry.
Hah! Or cheesecake.
I think they call that pattern “neopolitan” (Yum!)
That camo falls into the same category as the M16 and the Osprey. Two turkeys that should have been killed off 10s of billions of dollars ago. If I were a soldier I’d want an AK47 or an SKS as my basic combat rifle. Or some other weapon that a bullet comes out of the front every time you pull the trigger. And I’d like to be transported to the front in an aircraft that hasn’t killed more of my comrades in training exercises than it will ever help kill enemies.
Sounds reasonable.
How fucking hard can this be, sheesh? What a bunch of morans.
Ok we know you ment morons if your talking about congress.
“If only we could kill the weapon systems, planes, etc. that the military doesn’t want but Congress does because of voter jobs…”
Don’t kid yourself. It’s never been about voter’s jobs. It always been about the Defense Contractors’ board members’ and major stockholders’ incomes. Congress couldn’t care squat about a few hundred, middle class jobs. All their campaign dollars aren’t coming from the rank and file employed. But from those who stand to gain the most, by Congress kicking back those juicy contract appropriations. And of course, then they label it as a “jobs thing”. But like everything else politicians do. It’s a total lie.
Yea, what evidence do you have that this is about Congress’ desire for jobs rather than Pentagon desire for more money. The Pentagon, and all government agencies, try to distribute the jobs and subcontractors across many districts so that they can keep the money coming. You have reversed it. It was this process that made NASA’s International Space Station go from almost being killed in Clinton’s first year to easily getting funded. They spread the jobs around from Nasa’s districts, to over 100 congressmen with jobs in their district related to the space station.
Jimmy Carter considers Obama to be a gross violator of human rights.
When I was in the service, they had just gotten it into their heads to reduce the white of rank insignia, by making it dark blue stripes on a dark green background. The reasoning being so snipers could take aim on us. But 90% of the personnel were state side. So why change everyone’s rank patches, when only a tiny fraction were in any hostel locations. The rank patch change was mostly to add another step before one could become a sargent. This was because the lower ranks, that do all the dirty jobs, were running thin, back in the late 70s. You still got paid as E4, after three years service. But were not a non-commissioned office, for another six months delay. And a bogus “orientation” class, that nobody had ever had to take before, to be a sargent.
Back then, at least they hadn’t decided to turn our dark green uniforms into these digital Jackson Pollack upchucks of gray and green. It makes one look like you climbed out of a shop vac. Totally killing any pride in the military uniform. Why is the camo design strategy always one war behind? Jungle camo, when fighting in a desert. And desert camo, when fighting in middle east cities and towns. I believe this is simply about turning military uniforms into a fashion parade. So some favored contractor (Cheney’s) can make a ton of money, restocking the whole clothing inventory, with every new war.
And what’s with the Army berets?
Around 1979 or 1980, the NATO member countries were switching their camouflage from a four or six (can’t remember which) colored pattern to a two colored pattern. It passed many tests though this pattern might have been to camouflage vehicles.
Was this the pattern that David Bowie wore on his clothes in 1985 for his and Mick Jagger’s music video of “Dancing in the Street” during Live Aid?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G4jnaznUoQ
Ya, I read this.
I wonder what would happen if we REALLY got down to basics in the military.
CHEAPER.
Didnt we have good Desert Camo in the past??
The Main problem I see, tends to be movement..NOT camo.
You only need it at Medium to long range. Close up its not the same type of Camo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TANKSaimingin2041102.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MARPAT_comparison.PNG
The best camo is “cuttlefish skin“.
Its reactive sheets, woven into cylinders of various diameter, of black or white tissue with electrical/motor control over sacks of red/blue/green “chromatophores” with fiber-optics wires woven into them which let one side of a “cuttlefish” adapt to whatever is on the other side.
It requires absolutely no intelligence or processing from the “cuttlefish“, uh, military asset/human resource, as it goes about.
Its extremely expensive but its extremely effective at breaking up silhouettes. (But it is electronic so it can run out of power on you and it does tend to stick “sky” where it doesn’t belong so its less effective at short range outdoors.)
(I don’t think I revealing any secrets here.)
And to think this all could have been avoided if they just chose Multicam to begin with, which is what they’re transitioning towards now.
The only reason why they chose ACU over Multicam was that Multicam was more expensive.
Personally, I’d pick those Red British coats with the X on the front. Maybe a little obvious but boy are those outfits dapper!
The part that got to me was
FIVE BILLION DOLLARS ON A FAILED UNIFORM!!!!!!
WHAT DO THEY SPEND ON OTHER THINGS??>>
Sheila
survivingsurvivalism.com
Tailored, starched and pressed, it’s probably the most striking issue yet for headquarters wear.
That’s nothing.
The real camo is the fact that the DOD is never audited.