It's called Ruthenium Polymer treatment.

I heard that the new uniforms were designed with extensive input from the US Army NCO corps. Having talked to a few vets I have heard nothing but glowing reports from the sandbox about these new uniforms and how they had stood up in actual combat operations. The old BDUs were horrible for body armor and all but unusable with the introduction of LBVs.
LBE/ALICE was crap, to be frank. It was a half-ass band-aid for even worse gear and we're just now starting to catch up with the Chi-Com and Soviet-bloc infantry load gear after over 40 years of everyone hating the stuff we had. My buddy spent time in the Rangers and he spent more time humping and lumping in those 3 years than most infantry do in their lives. He hated the old stuff and gave me a very long laundry list of the system's faults. When he read about the new gear, he just about wet himself talking about how great it would be for the man in the ground.

Just odd to hear a negative view after hearing how much infantry, Airborne, Spec Ops, etc. loves them is all.

And a messy name tape and perfectly straight insignia/patches? That's something for the REMFs to worry about. If you're in garrison than you have the time to take care of that anyway. The pen pocket? That's why smart NCOs use a pencil. They write when the pencil or the surface they're writing on is wet and you can erase or edit your comments later. Sharpen it with your knife as needed and it never runs.

P.S. Black berets are for Rangers. It was very chickenshit of that general to give that color to any pogue who signed up just because he didn't qualify for the regiment back in the day.

Heh.

I've heard quite a few negative reviews - mostly minor complaints, in the grand scheme of things, but complaints nonetheless.

1. The ACUs are not as durable as the old BDUs. I can't speak to that since I've only worn ACUs.
2. Spec Ops - Green Berets? Pretty much wear what they want.
3. Messy name tape and service patches? Believe me on this one - Fort Bragg is anal about most things. LSA Bragg (Balad/Anaconda) is no less anal. On the smaller FOBs, on convoys and generally outside the wire, I suspect nobody really cares. Inside the wire, some bored CSM is always looking to embarrass someone. Which makes the adjustable velcro a minor annoyance, but still an annoyance. I am led to believe that Infantry units are even more anal about meeting uniform standards, but I can't speak from direct experience. At the end of the day, the name tape doesn't bug me all that much, but a fair number of the older Soldiers in my unit don't care for them or at least express a personal preference for sewn patches.
4. I'm assuming you're being funny about pencils - I've yet to see any NCO with a pencil. Hell, anyone - lower enlisted, NCO or Officer. Not in garrison and not deployed.
5. Yeah, taking the black berets away from the Rangers was an asinine decision. Hell, I'm not a fan of berets in general.
6. Infantry and by Airborne I assume you mean Airborne Infantry - fair enough. I don't pal around with enough combat arms guys to tell you the average review. I've known a couple ex-infantry and ex-tankers who didn't care for the ACUs, but that wasn't intended to speak for the entire Infantry or Armor Corps.
7. No arguments about the LBE/ALICE systems.
8. "Extensive input from the US Army NCO Corps" should be more impressive than it is. Every NCO is a "member of a time honored Corps, known as the Backbone of the Army."

-Siege

heh, reminds me of the million dollar nasa pen vs the soviet pencil...

Well, they hopefully still carry two pocket-sized notebooks (one for patrol and one for admin notes), at least one waterproof marker/pen (ultra-fine Sharpies are great for this), and a grease pencil (for marking acetate or other laminated items) nowadays. Hate to think that the NCOs of today rely entirely on techno doo-dads that can fail for any number of reasons at the worst possible moment (Umm...anyone got some spare batteries?).

As for the pencil thing, try it yourself sometime. Buy a one dollar box of pencils (many are matte in color if you look a bit), cut the them to length for the pen pocket with some extra room for a few sharpenings and carry it instead. It will mark anything a typical Mark One, Mod 0 Skilcraft pen will and works in the wet/heat/cold and the washing machine without running at all. Often the latest and greatest isn't as good as the tried and true old standbys.

My NCOs aren't that high speed.

Thanks for the permanent marker idea - I'll give it a try.

-Siege

Right, but I was thinking more in terms of the modern era.

Well almost no standardized camouflage suit will actually cut it. Regional colour variations make a mockery of a standard camouflage suit. And this is worse in urban environments, because they differ so radically in colour. You might be concealed in that concrete grey camo, but you're spotted as soon as you pass a car, or a red brick building. In wilderness environments, if you've got time, you can tailor camouflage to your surroundings, using the colours of the region, and adding elements of the local environment to your camouflage too, such as soil and some local flora. Then you've got a ghillie suit.

Imagine if you have a ghillie suit made for a forested North American region. Sure, it might work there, but try and take it to europe, or here to Australia, and it would stick out like a sore thumb.

Urban Ghille Suit? With trash sewn into it?

When I think inconspicuous, I don't think armed and loaded trash heap running through a building.

Ghillie suits don't suit a city. There's buildings for sniper perches. And if you really want to blend into a city, wear streetclothes or some serious body armour. There's enough concealment in the city if you move fast and know what you're doing.

Couch shaped Ghille suit?

(Dun dun dun)

Dont' be silly.

Coke machine gillie suit.

Now THAT is camouflage.

until some troll walks up and wants a soda...

That's why you have a soda ready. And hope that he doesn't mind that it's piss warm!

Or worse, a naked, sexually deviant technofetishist troll with a penchant for soda machines.

Well, I have a new disturbing image to accost my group with.

Keep in mind that there are two separate goals for camouflage. What works best in one case is not always the best in the other.

One goal is to make an object harder to spot. The other goal is to make an object harder to target.

Another issue is the subject, that is, what you are camouflaging against.

For example, to a terrorist on the tarmac at an air base, the Stealth Aircraft stick out like sore thumbs; in the air, it's a different story.

Are you trying to hide, blend in, or confuse a sensor?

Can't you do all three?

You could do all three if you had a disguise as a potted plant

From what I've seen, most cities do have at least some green areas, and plenty of trees. If your goal is to hide, I'd have to imagine your best bet would be to go up. People tend not to look up, and it gives you an excellent view of the local area. Wouldn't help much inside of buildings, though. I think you're stuck with ingenious disguises for that.

Ragged Longcoat, beat-up hat, empty Soycaff cup in shaking hands.

Noone will even notice you.

Had a character burn a new chip for his rapid transit suit so he could have several camo patterns and several different civvies all at a touch of a button.

All this talk about urban camo earlier, makes me think of...
This scheme.

Coooobraaa!!!!

Well, we have Trubble Bubbles now, so why not?

Anyone watch CSI Miami? They had a sniper on there that used a urban gillie suit colored to match the rooftop of a highrise. Basically grey colored burlap with roofing gravel glued to it. Blended real well.

http://www.taylorgroup.net/MultiCam.htm

Seems to be pretty effective. Works by having enough paleness to be able to reflect the ambient colour scheme. Apparently.

Edit: the "pricing" page has some more pictures in its pdf. Shows some pretty effective urban camo effects.

http://www.taylorgroup.net/NFC%20MultiCam_Pricing.pdf

I find that the best camo is pink since I can easily camouflage in among plushies while being under the covers.

True - but that was a highly specific suit for a very specific purpose. For that matter, he could have sprawled out under a tarp with the same color pattern and nobody overhead would have been able to distinguish the man-shaped outline beneath.

If he'd been stopped in the street and searched, he'd have had a helluva time explaining the suit versus, say, a gray painter's dropcloth.

-Siege

I don't have first-hand experience with this stuff, but the rumor mill is hinting this might be the next camo trend.

-Siege

And amazingly cheap too. I'm genuinely tempted. I'm just wondering where you put the batteries?

Works well in deserts as well, amazingly.

During World War II, one of the British Commando teams in Africa were known as the "Pink Panthers" as all their vehicles were a dusty pink.

bah, spend enough time in the desert, and everything becomes a dusty gray/brown mix...

Pink is also used on airplanes as it apparently blends well in the sky.

Here is when urban pink comes in handy:
http://www.wildorchidquilts.com/upload/HOTCAMOQ.jpg

Amen.

-Siege

Camouflage consists of two basic elements - color and pattern. The pattern need not inherently resemble anything found in the environment, so long as it distorts the wearer's shape from a recognizable one to an indistinguishable one.

Be advised, however, this does not mean your color pattern can deviate dramatically from the local color schemes - hot pink will still stand out among a wood line.

They used to camouflage battleships in WW2 with large swathes of paint in an attempt to distort the ship's profile on the horizon.

-Siege

Link 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camouflage
Link 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_camouflage

ugh, my eyes!

Long Range Desert Patrol Group. One of the forunners of the UK Special Forces/SAS. IIRC, the same pink camo scheme was used for the landies used by the motorised SAS patrols in Desert Storm.

I wonder how such a scheme stands up to the colour-deficient vision of some of us... It'd look like a pale grey to me, and might stand out quite well against ochre desert sands... it's one of the theories for why the gene for red-green colour blindness survived: that there are some natural camo patterns that don't work as well against chaps (it's mostly male chaps), so having the odd member of your hunting troop who saw "differently" gave an advantage.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4498734.stm

Huh, I never knew that about color-blindness.

Worth modifying the flaw?

See also http://www.multicampattern.com/

I don't see camo changing any time soon. The contracts to produce what is currently available are very lucrative... and there is a lot of politicking involved.

But that multicam stuff looks pretty drek hot.

*snort* Another complaint about ACUs - what, in the hell, do they blend with? The digital pattern is supposed to defeat electronic sensors, but the projected hostiles for the near future aren't going to be using that kind of technology for a while.

As you say, too much politics and not enough honest assessment and implementation.

-Siege

I thought that website looked familiar - I posted the same one on page 2.

-Siege

From what I've seen, with people caring about actually camouflage and concealment besides building and the like, is that the ACUs can blend into just about everything from desert to arctic under the right conditions. The break up of the colors lends itself fairly well to breaking up a human outline, especially when combined with other camouflage techniques, and can assist in hiding soldiers just fine. Keep in mind that this stuff is designed for 300+ yard ranges, not just down the block a few shop doorways.
As for the other bit, you can buy a set of early 3rd-gen mil-spec NVGs from Russia for about $200-300. Yes, our enemies, for the moment, don't use these at all but if you were to ask if we were going to eventually invade Afghanistan in 1996 and/or Iraq in 1998, you'd have gotten laughed at.

http://peosoldier.army.mil/faqs.asp#Q38

That is the official party line as well - wearing the things daily, I don't know that I particularly agree with the idea, but I will differ to the same experts who thought a 9mm was a good choice.



And herein lies another basic gripe of mine - since we did and we are currently conducting combat operations in these theaters of operation, perhaps we should consider adjusting fire to meet our current needs? It's really nice that we all look uniform and spiffy, but as noted on another thread, "looking spiffy should be a concern of REMFs in garrison."

I will have to beg your indulgence - I am disgruntled about the Army in general and a few key things in particular which only serves to heighten my discontent overall.

-Siege

Edit: http://www.armytimes.com/legacy/new/0-ARMYPAPER-1439290.php

Edit: I'm still looking for a specific article about inflexibility of command while deployed - I know I read the damn thing on Anaconda, but I don't remember the time frame.

Yeah, 9mm Parabellum, bad choice. Should have stayed with the .45 ACP.

As for Cammo, the Canadian Armed Forces sold all our Desert Cammo to the USA, and deployed troops to desert and mountain terrain in Forest Cammo.

They were given "Improvised Cammo", which consisted of something similar to a Burlap Sack to cover yourself with.

Lots of Canucks were not impressed.

Also, this is good for a laugh, while watching CNN, they were talking about how US Forces had done such great things in Afganistan (This was *JUST* before Iraq), when they showed a clip of troops in the desert wearing Green.

Sorry folks, those weren't US Soldiers, but Canadians in the badly-issued cammo!

ghille suits can be made from strips of burlap that are tied in to a uniform. But that's a lot of work... and as previously mentioned not very effective when you have to be moving constantly.

And they catch on fire. A lot.

Actually, the .45ACP is a pretty lousy military round. It doesn't penetrate even light body armor or light barriers well. It's big and bulky for both magazine capacity and logistics. It goes quite a bit slower, making shooting a moving target more difficult. The .45ACP also recoils more for reduced combat accuracy and is just large enough that people with small hands have a hard time using even single-stack magazines.
The one bonus .45ACP has over 9mm is that it has better per-shot knockdown power. Whoopie. The military handgun is last-ditch defensive weapon and you're not going to get a 100% round from a rifle anyway, let alone something with 1/3 the muzzle energy like a pistol.

Opinions differ wildly.

-Siege

Besides, with modern ammunition like .45GAP you get the confirmed terminal performance of a .45ACP in a smaller package that fits into frames that fit the 9mm Parabellum. The Full-size Glock 37 has 2 more shots than a newer 8-shot 1911 (the old mil-spec models only had 7-rounds magazines), is much lighter, recoils light, and has a grip size that gun writers have yet to find a lady with hands that can't get around it comfortably. 230-grain .45 projectiles in a package that almost anyone can use? Sounds like a winner to me.

And don't forget the military's profound interest in the newer EFMJ projectiles, as well. The ol' military 9mm is about to get quite the boost in that regard considering how hot mil-spec 9mm para is compared to civilian loadings (mil-spec is +P+ in SAAMI-speak). You shouldn't have to worry about "Nothing but ball, soldier!" for too much longer.

Add to this that .40S&W and .357 Magnum (with .357Sig not far behind) still have the best firefight one-shot-stop ratios in the realm of military/police issue calibers and the ol' .45ACP is slow, not as effective, bigger than it has to be to get the job done, etc when compared to more modern loadings.

That said, I love my .45ACP 1911 for the great trigger, natural pointing, and the just plain ol' joy to shoot aspects of it. I just feel that there are lighter, easier to maintain, higher capacity, more people can use them firearms, and calibers, out there when you get past the nostalgia and look at the real-life numbers.

YMMV

Which is why Canada has come up with the great company named "Para-Ordinance".

But, anyhow, back to Cammo. It doesn't make much sense for Shadowrunners to wear Cammo except in neighbourhoods where it'll blend in with the crowd, not the street scenes.

On the rare occasion where they hit the desert or forest, however, it's a good idea. (Who wants to take a trip to the Tir? Anyone? Other than the single Elf in the group?).