"SWAT in Digital Camo" Topic

I was talking with a member of a local SWAT team today at lunch. He and his fellow officers were attired in the current US digital camouflage "BDUs". The reasoning was quite sound – black makes you stand out in all but full darkness and the digital pattern was designed for urban environments.

Just something to keep in mind when painting up modern SWAT figures.

Wyatt

except that it does not work. The color changes are to small and the human eye sees them as one color just like the blending pixels on a TV set. so they dont brake up your outline at all and the color you see does not blend into any background I have ever seen, except that couch that was in a old post here. so they should just where black or gray or better yet a mix of black and gray.

They wear black for camouflage? I thought they wore it 'cause it was kewl.

Yes it does work – and it works in all environments because it's low contrast. Any camo that "breaks up your outline" will only work in the specific setting it was designed for – and will be much more noticeable than no camo at all in many others. And the more finely tuned a camo pattern is, the smaller the area that it is suited for (like this field, but not that field).

The entire purpose of the digital camo is to have one pattern that works (to some extent) in every setting – so you don't have to stockpile multiple patterns – or worse – end up sending soldiers somewhere with the absolute worst camo possible for that environment.

From lots of time around the various digital patterns (MARPAT and ACU), they *do* break up your outline, and even make it hard to find the center of mass. Most photos of digital camo are taken close enough that your eye can see the different colors. If you back off to about 75 feet, they all blend together into a single color, which *can* match the surroundings very well (MARPAT works very well in a rainforest, like Western Washington).

It's not perfect, but camo that mostly works in every environment is better than something that makes you stand out like a sore thumb.

Most of the top SWAT teams don't wear black for camo reasons, but for intimidation anyway.

Oh, and the Marine Security Forces response platoon on my base was usually in green nomex flight suits.