At least, don’t set patterns that don’t work.
The Army is considering a switch over to Multi-cam from the current ACU.
Since I’m not in the Army and don’t have to live with the current pattern (or deal with a switch), I’ll only ask the question– how much money is it going to cost to swap out all the deuce gear, the packs, the holsters, and so on?? Ouch.
My 1SG used to chew me out when I wore washed out BDUs like this.
JPP
You have hit the nail on the head, this is going to be very expensive. The Army is being forced to do this because Congressman Murtha has introduced language in the NDAA requiring the Army to do so.
I don’t know which is better, however I have seen some recent pictures, of troopers (a CAV thing) in ACU in Afghanistan where you had a hard time finding them.
I think part of the problem is we have a lot of &*^$ house experts out there who may or may not be smarter than the ones who picked the ACU. BTW the ultimate decision for the ACU rested with the then CofS Schoomaker who was a special operator–I don’t think he would have picked it if it was not good as advertised.
You know it’s going to be millions and millions of dollars to switch.
But better late than never.
I think Muti-cam is great. It does what they wanted the current ACU digital pattern to do- blend in with both woodland and desert terrain. The current pattern blends poorly in either environment (and just what is that grey/blue/green color supposed to be, anyway?)
I think the Corps will eventually go to multi-cam, too. It will ultimately be cheaper to have one pattern that does all, than have to make two.
BTW- I saw a British soldier in Camp Leatherneck that wore multicam. I don’t know why he did, when the rest of the British I saw all wore their typical tan and brown sort of tiger stripe pattern. I also saw a contractor or some guy from one of the three-letter agencies wearing multi-cam…
This was stupid from the get-go. Most of my friends being Marines, I have very few beefs with the Corps. That has kept me in pretty good physical health. With that qualifier, I have to open fire.
I believe the Marines set a horrible precedent when they went off on their own and designed a battle dress uniform for their service only. I know the Marines love their identity, and this is one of their strong points. However, I think they took it beyond the realm of common sense and entered into another realm entirely.
A battle dress uniform serves one purpose… commonality on the battlefield. Every American in combat knows who their friends are because everyone looks alike. When I was in Iraq I was on some patrols where, no shit, there were THREE — (count ‘em) — THREE uniforms being worn by Americans. There were the Army guys wearing their ridiculous ACU’s that wouldn’t blend in with the surrounding foliage even if we took that foliage and strapped it to ourselves. Then you had Air Force, who basically wore whatever they felt like. Sometimes DCU’s. Sometimes their new tiger-stripe looking thing… almost as ridiculous as ACU’s. Some even wore ACU’s with a USAF service tape on them. Then there was the Navy EWO who was hunting his CAR. He would wear DCU’s or MARPAT’s, although I wonder if he was even authorized those since he was attached to an Army unit and not a Marine one. Who knows? With all the damn battle dress uniforms out there now, I’m sure there’s about a million regs governing when and who and how you wear them.
It’s ridiculous. Once the Marines developed the MARPAT, it should have been adopted by EVERYONE! What an incredible waste of time, money, and manpower for EACH service to develop, test, and field their own uniform. I know what Marines will say… “we’re better than everyone else… we want to look like Marines… etc” Fine. Save it for the dress blues and class A’s. That’s when we can all sit in a bar together, look different in our different uniforms, and brag about how better we are than the other guys. On a battlefield, you stow that shit.
And then there’s the issue of the Navy, who apparently developed a lovely set of cammies that blend in perfect with a sea environment. The aviation bos’uns thank them for that. It’s going to make it that much harder to spot them when they fall off the carrier and into the water, which they do on occasion. It’s not like the guided missile fired at the carrier will think, “wow, I can’t see the sailors because they blend in.”
And don’t even get me started on the Army. Besides this ACU fiasco (which is what this has become), there’s the issue of the new Class A/Dress Blues that apparently the SMA felt we needed (which we don’t). It, too, looks awful and did away with one of the traditional hallmarks of the Army uniform: the divisional patch. Now they’ve turned them into these enamel pins which we can wear on our right chest (or abdomen for the female uniform).
If it seems like I’m ranting, it’s because I am. This whole thing is so stupid… it staggers the imagination when you think we’re supposed to have our best and brightest running the show and crap like this goes on.
It makes you wonder how the Army ever even won a war.
This whole exercise derives from a basic recruiting philosophy error. It is the mistaken belief we must convince our recruiting prospects that if they joing our service branch, they will become a sea ninja or an air ninja or a land ninja. So, we must dress like ninjas, mostly for PR. Ironically, you see this same mentality in the 3rd world. I forget the name of the African dictator who outfitted his PSD unit in leopard print camo, as in orange and white with black dots. Incredible. It’s an ego thing and it’s timeless. The only strategy being worked with camo capers is marketing stragegy and branding. It has nada to do with military strategy.
Is Marpat an improvement on woodland? Maybe. Probably because it has less black. But considering the shade and fade variations of ripstop and poplin woodland, it wasn’t much of an issue. In the environment it was designed for (North American and European woodlands) it rocked….for about 8 months out of the year. If the black had been replaced with a neutral brown or olive like the old ERDL brown pattern, it would have perfect.
The suckiest part of the whole deal is that now with all servicemembers traveling in camis by civilian transport, the DOD has succeeded in not only confusing the battlespace but confusing the citizens as well. Last month, I saw 5 patterns covering 4 branches in the Atlanta airport: DCU,ACU,AF,woodland,desert marpat. My 8 year old was constantly asking me to identify servicemembers and was thoroughly confused when I had to point out that soldiers, airmen, and sailors could be seen in various patterns. Marines were the only ones he could identify without asking (so maybe they were the only branch that succeeded.)
Personally, I cringe when I see cami’s in the airport. Maybe it’s a generational thing but chucks are for traveling in my dog-eared book.
Setting aside the Marines having their own pattern, which I concede is not the best idea, let’s imagine we wanted a universal all terrain pattern for logistical reasons. Well, the Army did a big study. But, guess what, ACU was not in that study. The winner of that study was a pattern called Desert All Over Brush. It looks like a slightly lightened Rhodesian pattern. It is a good looking sensible pattern with tans, greens, and greys. The Army ignored this study, picked one of the worst patterns in that study, arbitrarily removed black (which armchair theorists decided sucked, but actually has certain benefits in a pattern), and then digitized that pattern. It was the Track Urban pattern. It lost to Desert All Over Brush, which itself basically tied Multicam. (Multicam did better in woods, Desert Brush did better in desert, all patterns were basically equal at night).
What good is a study if some general is going to pick a pattern that looks cool to him?!? General Schoomaker made this decision and it should be a friggin scandal.