V E R Y Interesting article on MULTICAM and where the high prices are coming from

[7SFCW4]

http://soldiersystems.net/2014/03/1...garding-us-army-efforts-adopt-new-camouflage/

"...- Continuing its efforts to reduce costs to the Army and in an attempt to eliminate the Army's concerns that MultiCam was more expensive than UCP, Crye submitted several formal proposals which proved that the Army could procure MultiCam gear at prices within 1% of UCP gear. Crye's proposals additionally showed that this could be accomplished with no upfront cost to the Army....The Army rejected all of Crye's proposals and did not present any counter proposals, effectively saying that a proven increase in Soldier survivability was not worth a price difference of less than 1%...."

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[AMProducts]

Hardly surprising... the army has always been a lumbering giant of bureaucracy, it takes pride in things that make no sense (UCP was a source of pride when it first came out), it's overly political (goes back to pride), and at the same time, it's controlled by people who want to keep the organization politically correct.

The good gear they have seems to have happened by accident or was bought OTS from a vendor.

It seems perpetually that the army makes bad institutional decisions, and then because of political correctness they double down. This goes for personnel decisions (retaining Nadal Hassan), lowering standards (to put females in combat, and increase recruiting numbers). As well as foolish command dictates, counter-productive combat policies, it's a friggin mess.

I have some theories as to why this is, but I'm fairly sure they will absolutely piss off everyone who has served in the army, (navy, USMC, and chair force might agree).

 

[Sgt Nambu]

"The right way, the wrong way and the Army way."

 

[CamoDeafie]

origins of the ACU right here.


you can clearly see that the grays were already in place, along with an ugly shade of orange visor....

and also pretty clearly shows how the green woodland WORKS in that particular environment compared to the gray suits...

and heres something from 2006....


isn't 2006 right around the time MultiCam came around???

Anyways, the reason the US Army didn't pick MultiCam for everyone, has much to do with politics (Not Invented Here; ergo Not Applicable To Our Egos and Contracts of Money) and much to do with contracts with the companies making the patterns and they didn't want to admit that the USMC have a great concept of two camos for two environments (MARPAT and Desert MARPAT) and that the Navy allowed versions of the USMC camo (without the EGA print) for their NAVY SEALS; while giving their sailors the ugly to me digital blue camos for work uniforms.....I don't think the USAF's ABU with the same colors of the ACU really works on the ground.....but I do see it works better on bases that is mostly grays and concrete grays and gray aircraft....

 

[The Heretic]

I doubt it is just about being stubborn - usually defense contracts have some kickback going on, not to mention someone in the Congress pushing business to their state or to someone who has donated to their campaign.

In short, follow the money, even if the choice they make is less expensive.

 

[7SFCW4]

Amproducts is pretty spot on. Don't worry about pissing off the veterans in the room, I agree with you. Hyperstealth's research adding NOD\NVG data to testing, as well as adding light flash data is very telling, sadly shows great weakness in MARPAT. Take a look at US4CES and Hypeerstealth research, it's eye opening (and long winded). In the olden days in the "small Army" our OG107,s pissed everyone off, but compared to the pickle suit, we!!, there was no comparison
pi

 

[gaijinsamurai]

The Army's refusal to negotiate with Crye Precision is downright disgusting. Undoubtedly, they will end up spending more money and wasting countless hours of time on multiple tests, selection panels, and bull$hit, than they would if they had been willing to compromise with Crye.

It further pisses me off that the Marine Corps will be dragged into it, due to Congress' mandate that they share the same pattern.

If I were Secretary of Defense, I would tell Congress to butt out of DoD matters, the Army to go with Crye's Multicam, and the USMC they can keep MARPAT.

 

[viehmann7680]

Honestly I don't fully blame the army. The fact is that Crye precision is who they are dealing with... They are just over priced in everything. And a lot of companies that have come out with possible contenders take the same note. They'll pay for it because it's the best. Multicam, kryptek, ATACs. They are all over priced, and not willing to budge. And for the matter of universal uniforms, they should all wear the same thing. They can put together a board and come to a conclusion. They would save more money in the long run that way. It's just every branch thinks they are the best and need to be distinguished differently. If they took from every branches budget to fund it, it would be easier. All the branches waste too much money on useless stupid stuff... most soldiers don't even want. And the money could be better used towards unifroms that work and more/better weapon systems. I was a soldier and know plenty of marines that would be happy with a good rifle and basic gear. This whole thing just boils down to useless, bad politics.

 

[gaijinsamurai]

From what I have read, Crye Precision was very reasonable in their negotiations, and tried to reach a compromise with the Army. The Army, under orders from Congress to slash spending, thought they could strong-arm Crye.

When the US Marine Corps tested and ultimately adopted MARPAT, they tried to get the Army to get on board and join them, but the Army refused.

<broken link removed>

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/03/20/army-balks-at-camouflage-price-tag.html

 

[7SFCW4]

There is alot of merit in what both of you say. The US Army is one huge CORPORATION, intent on maintaining the status quo at all costs. They don't call the RLO's for nothing. I do think that CRYE bent over backwards to do the right thing. I do think that the US Army (General Officers Corp) has spent too much time in garrison and not enough time humping their own gear (ever walk thru a field Division HQ??).

I would assume that the end of the supply chain, the re-sellers are the ones keeping MULTICAM prices high and not CRYE, but that is unsubstantiated speculation.

Knowing the guys at KRYPTEK personally, I feel confident in saying that they are alot like CRYE, not out to gouge their customers.

 

[viehmann7680]

I do agree that the people making the decisions have no business making those decisions. But i remember back when they switched to the ACU's they were originally suppose to go with multicam but it was too expensive. So the high price tag was around even when they had an almost unlimited, unregulated budget.

 

[AMProducts]

Multicam has become a good de-facto pattern for many environments, IMHO, it's too light for most woods, and it's too dark for much of the desert. The MARPAT desert absolutely disappears in the mojave where the USMC does much of their training, however, 3-color desert is also a fantastic pattern for these environments. The thing that never made any sense is why the army abandoned two very good camouflage patterns and opted for one very crappy one.

The "jungle" marpat works really well in darker and heavily forrested areas (where everything is either green, brown or black (shadow)). In mixed ground (like what you see out by spokane) patterns like flectarn and multicam start to work really well.

When hunting, I run a mix of multicam, 3-color, desert marpat and coyote. Frankly, these fit in perfectly into the environment of norcal up to the penninsula. Yea, it's frankencamo, but it works well at a distance.

As far as the other patterns go... the marines took a look at UCP, they gave it to the marine sniper school, who made it darker, put in some black, darkened the green, and then added flecks of that red earth (which is the color of the earth in virginia) and then adopted it as MARPAT. The navy took a while to come up with their own camo, but the NAVPAT, aka PLE (paint locker explosion) is intended for shipboard work, it's not intended to actually camouflage anyone, it's intended to not show dirt and grease as much, which is something it totally succeeds at.

The ABU pattern isn't as horrible as UCP, but it's far from great, they made bigger splotches, made it a bit darker (one of the issues with UCP is under moonlight you look like a glowstick) and it's greener. However, much like the NWU (navy work uniform) it's intended to be a work garment as much as a camouflage pattern.

I'm a geek when it comes to things camouflage and military, and I've looked at tons of camo patterns over the years, generally, the worst ones out there are the "digital" with anything "universal" being the worst. From what I can tell, the best patterns in modern usage are the DPM derivatives, that adopt a pallet from the field where those soldiers will be deployed.

 

[CamoDeafie]

I thought the MARPAT woodland came before the ACUs...at least, it was being used at Camp LeJeune in the summer of 2003 when I was browsing their base exchange stores (worked for the Navy as a civvie contractor at that time)......and my first impression was that it was simply a darker palette based on the M81 woodland camo, and digital version, based on the Canadian digital camo pattern which was out before then.... At the very least, I vividly recall the T pat being trialled by the USMC during the late 80s for urban warfare, and it wasn't successful, and I also remember the urban and desert prototype uniforms before they became digitized, they were basically paint brush strokes somewhat similar to the French Lizard pattern....

 

[Swedish K]

what does anyone think about the ATACs pattern? from what I've seen it seems to blend fairly well

 

[AMProducts]

I thought the MARPAT woodland came before the ACUs...at least, it was being used at Camp LeJeune in the summer of 2003 when I was browsing their base exchange stores (worked for the Navy as a civvie contractor at that time)......and my first impression was that it was simply a darker palette based on the M81 woodland camo, and digital version, based on the Canadian digital camo pattern which was out before then.... At the very least, I vividly recall the T pat being trialled by the USMC during the late 80s for urban warfare, and it wasn't successful, and I also remember the urban and desert prototype uniforms before they became digitized, they were basically paint brush strokes somewhat similar to the French Lizard pattern....

You're right... it was the CADPAT that was sent to Quantico and modified to become MARPAT. IIRC the army wanted to adopt MARPAT, but the marines said no, as the pattern had the SBF (seagull, beachball, fish hook) logo embedded in the pattern.

http://camopedia.org/index.php?title=USA <-- gives a brief history of US camo patterns

 

[The Heretic]

Color does matter IMO, and in my experience it can matter as much as pattern. I don't have combat experience, but I do have hunting experience (although deer can't detect the difference between red and green).

I remember hunting with a WWII OD green (no pattern) surplus sack I borrowed from my father - small, but it had some survival gear and deer gutting/cleaning/etc. equipment in it. I shot a deer in some woods, set the sack down to mark the place so I could come back to it while I went to find the deer after it had fallen in the ferns.

I found the deer in a few minutes, maybe 30 yards from where I shot it. But it took me 30 minutes to find that sack again even though I had set it on the path I was walking. It faded right into the ferns. I was sweating it for a while - I thought I had lost it and my dad would be pissed.

Another thing that can matter is texture - I have a number of synthetic "fleece" garments that are earth tone or green and have a texture of rough wool, that work well in the woods of the PNW.

 

[mjbskwim]

I doubt it is just about being stubborn - usually defense contracts have some kickback going on, not to mention someone in the Congress pushing business to their state or to someone who has donated to their campaign.

In short, follow the money, even if the choice they make is less expensive.

Most any change in specs is because of this not because anything may be better.
Someone's daughter needs braces

 

[aslinged]

Hilarious. Someone thought saving money was within the scope of the DOD. Who will give me 2k for this extra toilet seat sitting in my garage? I've also got red Solo plastic cups for 6 bucks a piece if you're interested.

 

[gaijinsamurai]

You're right... it was the CADPAT that was sent to Quantico and modified to become MARPAT. IIRC the army wanted to adopt MARPAT, but the marines said no, as the pattern had the SBF (seagull, beachball, fish hook) logo embedded in the pattern.

http://camopedia.org/index.php?title=USA <-- gives a brief history of US camo patterns

When the USMC set out to develop MARPAT, they wanted to include the Army (mostly to defray the costs, as the USMC R&D budget is tight), but the Army said "no". After MARPAT was adopted by the Marines, the Army changed their tune, but the Marine Corps gave them the finger. Their stitching of the EGA (Eagle, Globe & Anchor) was a way to trademark it as their own. IIRC, Navy Corpsmen and chaplains who serve in Marine units do not have EGAs on their utilities.