The $5 Billion Camo Snafu (Army retiring ACU)

The Daily ^ | June 24, 2012 | Erik German

[cva66snipe]

I’m trying to remember the basics in my sea bag {only one was issued} Three pairs of Dungarees {you had two styles either light blue jeans type or dark blue work pants}, three work shirts, Chief type dress blues, P-Coat, dern itchy wool sweater, dress shoes, Boondockers, belt, and a work and dress uniform cover. The blues were nearly impossible to stow on ship as they didn’t fit the lockers. You couldn’t wear them around LOX operations either. I remember a warning coming out about that on some ship someone stowed their blues in there and they went up like a torch while he was wearing them. It wasn’t scuttlebutt it was an offical warning.

[Timber Rattler]

However, the Marine Corp wanted a unique design that set them apart from the Army, so they patented it and refused to share.

I guess the USMC didn't get the memo that government organizations and institutions, including the military, can't patent items bought and paid for with taxpayer funds. It's all public domain, including unit names and logos.

[lentulusgracchus]

A lot of guys on ship wore coveralls when working anyway.

I saw those in use aboard a nuclear fast-attack that I rode for two or three days in 1970, that had just come back from the Barents and was ordered to AUTEC Andros (Tongue of the Ocean) for torpedo tests. The officers and enlisted all wore an ultramarine-blue one-piece coverall with iirc canvas shoes of the same color, with white-trimmed gum soles. Scary-smart guys, they got a Presidential Unit Citation on that cruise, and on another back to the Barents the next year. Great people.

[lentulusgracchus]

Only downside is that the USMC pretty much looks from a distance like a dead ringer for the Waffen SS when fully geared up in it. That's not cool.

Perhaps all that means, is that the German camouflage experts really knew what they were doing, and gravitated toward patterns that worked for them for the same reasons MARPAT works for the USMC.

[matginzac]

Couldn’t agree more...
We are retired and I saw the Navy for the first time way after it was adopted.
I thought they were Belgian Navy personnel...sheesh.
Another bone-headed decision by the “new” leadership...up there with repealing DADT.

[Chode]

yup, with the new helmets we'd look damn close...

[matginzac]

When I was in, the Os were switched to a God-awful combo of trop white shirts and black slacks (or skirt) for the women. I think Chiefs had that option, too.
We all looked like airline pilots...stupid.
My favorite female O uniform was the seer-sucker, light blue two-piece left over from WWII...
Fit so well that, for me, the under “layer” was optional in hot weather...
It was a loooooooong time ago....

[Renderofveils]

I guess the USMC didn't get the memo that government organizations and institutions, including the military, can't patent items bought and paid for with taxpayer funds. It's all public domain, including unit names and logos.

The US government operates under Executive Order 10096 in terms of patent rights, and has done so (in augmented form) since 1950. Section 1 has been unchanged in that time;

1. The following basic policy is established for all Government agencies with respect to inventions hereafter made by any Government employee: (a) The Government shall obtain the entire right, title and interest in and to all inventions made by any Government employee (1) during working hours, or (2) with a contribution by the Government of facilities, equipment, materials, funds, or information, or of time or services of other Government employees on official duty, or (3) which bear a direct relation to or are made in consequence of the official duties of the inventor.

[Timber Rattler]

Another damned Executive Order-—it wouldn’t hold up in court under current patent, trademark, and copyright law if anyone ever bothered to challenge it.

[Renderofveils]

Another damned Executive Order-—it wouldn’t hold up in court under current patent, trademark, and copyright law if anyone ever bothered to challenge it.

It has been challenged. Repeatedly. If you want to know how that works (and be a little sick to your stomach...) here you go.

[momincombatboots]

That is awesome girl-o-flage! If I were still clubbin, I would want to know where to buy it. I made fun of my young daughter’s baby blue girl-o-flage.

[Eye of Unk]

I cannot but think that there will be more usage of the latest adaptive concealment technology. An outerwear that mimics the surroundings by the use of imbedded micro circuitry, LEDs and fiber optics.

For urban areas just wear what a motorcyclist wears, nobody sees a biker.

[Lazamataz]

And so I cry somethimes when I'm lying in bed
Just to get it all out what's in my head
And I'm, I am feeling a little peculiar
So I wake in the morning and I step outside
And I take deep breath and I get real high
And I scream from the top of my lungs
What's goin' on
And I say hey....
And I say hey what's goin' on
And I say hey....
I said hey what's goin' on
Oooh....
Oooh....
And I try, oh my God do I try
I try all the time
In this institution
And I pray, oh my God do I pray
I pray every single day
For a revolution

Don't cry out loud. Learn to keep it all inside, learn to hide your feelings.

[military cop]

You comments made me laugh my a$$ off.

The only place you can hide in an ACU is against a backdrop of ACU material....

RLTW.

[Timber Rattler]

Gag.

Thanks for updating my information on the subject. I did not know about this case, which is indeed sickening. I despise Executive Orders on principle. If Congress did its job, the various Presidents, especially Obama, would not get away with them.

[JerseyanExile]

[Sirius Lee]

No one admits it or knows it.

Along with Paperclip, a lot of unrepentant Nazis were brought over after the war and found employment in the U.S. in the defense industry and in what would later become the CIA.

The 3rd Reich is dead, but a lot of the culture and agenda remains.

[military cop]

exACTLY!

Now: if Afghanistan were covered in that pattern, we’d be defecating in the tall cotton.

RLTW.

[PeterPrinciple]

The problem, the researchers said, was an oddly named branch of the Army in charge of equipping soldiers with gear — Program Executive Office Soldier — had suddenly ordered Natick’s camouflage team to pick a pattern long before trials were finished.

“They jumped the gun,”

---

I might have done the same, TWO YEARS to test camouflage?

[Covenantor]

I think I found the problem.

Program Executive Office Soldier

Worked very well at the Pentagon. In the field not so much.