"Army Combat Uniform Changes Pattern Again?" Topic

I just heard the pixellated army pattern is on the way out.
Apparently the pixellation is good just the colour selection doesn't reall please anyone.

OK so what is coming in its' place?

Strangely enough the USMC is ok with their woodland and arid patterns. The Air Force is happy with the sandy tiger stripes.

The Navy,,,well no one can explain.

Hmmmm. How much will the change cost, and who is going to get the money?

YEPS….

Take a look at my post and it'll explain how once again, the "cool" factor and politics influenced the decision….

It will always keep changing. Changing is what it does.
-Kle.

Murphy-
what post?

Yes, the Army Times had a story on it a few weeks back. They are looking for a more unitarian uniform for both urban and arid enviroment.

Now on a personnal note it use to be Barracks speak that the fastest way for a LTC to make full Col. was to be on a new uniform board.

I can't count the number of uniforms I went through between the 70s and 2002. And in the last ten years they Army has changed four or five times.

In operations currently you will see a huge mix of Kit and colours. Black vests, with ACUs are still seen here and there.

I think it is great to compare how un-uniformed the US Army is over the past 20 years and the next time some Internet "Expert" on ACW uniforms point out that this or that is not the correct uniform point them to this thread.

Here I have access to military archives and tons of current images of US Soldiers via the multi media support office at the VA. I have seen tons of images and I think there is no real standard issue for Army units in practice these days. FUMs are telling me they have uniform issue for almost every different theater and deployment.

As for the other services, Commo for the Air Force and Navy are just fashion not function.

The Marine Corps is a much smaller organization than the Army, They do not go through as many changes as the Army in general. The budget is much much more limited in comparison.

VR
James Mattes

Agreed James … I remember while the Army changed to the BDU at Ft. Campbell, KY, we could wear either the old jungle camos or the BDU. And later at Benning for a while we could wear either of those or the old green jungle fatigues …

Looks like I'm gonna buy some solvent company shares. There's gotta be a huge upsurge when millions of disgruntled gamers flock to the hardware stores to buy solvent so they can strip their modern figures of paint and apply the new camouflage :)

Not me Cherno, I paint all mine in Chocolate Chip. I think it's THE Iconic color for US desert warfare in my mind.

And I said screw it and am working on Multicam (complete PITA in 15mm, I might add). Well, it's not hard to paint, actually, it just works too well!

Good because it does not work. We use guys wearing it as land marks when playing paint ball. even the USMC woodland does not work as well as the old woodland.

They should just wear capes – scarlet capes!

Chocolate chip is what they gave the Iraqis! At a ceremony outside Talil, the Iraqi Forces were wearing 11 different uniforms, it was interesting.

Anyway the US ACU uniform was never really standardized either. Many units deployed with some green OD equipment as late as 2010, quite a bit of Woodland Camo. We were issued a full set of ACU TA50 to include sleeping bags and rucks.

Current US SF wears pretty well what they want. Huminters wear civies and beards. CI guys wear civvies with either OD and/or desert TA50.

The current Reserve and National Guard motor pools reflect what we have: vehicles in green, woodland, a 1970s pattern camo, and two types of desert colors (tan, and desert yellow).

We were never – uniform, not at base camp USA and certainly not in Iraq anyway…

Gentlemen,
I can tell you first-hand the ACU is/was garbage. My last tour in Iraq I had the privilege of being an Aviation Brigade S2 and as such my boss was constantly taking me up with him when he flew.

We had a stryker brigade in our AO and you literally could spot GIs on the ground skulking around on patrol.

The Multi-Cam is a much better option. I've gone from BDU to ACU to Multi-Cam and Multi-Cam is a terrific option for the "all of the above" solution the Army's always trying to go for.

Personally the Marine Corps' marpat was a terrific idea and we should have adopted it. I heard some General actually picked multi cam because "it looked cool."

He's subsequently retired…

scratch that = the general picked ACU becuase it looked cool.

As for the cost of change it is usually "gradual" with some units getting top prioritythere are always Soldiers getting new uniforms and much change will happen at that point. Officers will all pay for ours, so will some of the dedicated senior NCOs who will not wait for theirs to be issued.

I certainly hope they take the Soldiers comments from the field, they sent out a survey and I know LOTS of Soldiers gave input.