The Army’s $5 billion New Uniform Already Being Replaced

The Daily Beast ^ | 10-14-2013 | Caitlin Dickson

[Spunky]

LOL! It took me awhile before I saw the boots.

[ryan71]

It works great in domestic warfare.

[Albion Wilde]

UCP (left); Multicam (right):

.....

[FlingWingFlyer]

ROTFL! Thanks. You just gave this old dogface one heck of a laugh.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

I guess the guy in the PINK CAMOS is stationed in San Francisco.

[PJ-Comix]

I think, Holmes, you have hit upon the answer.

Speaking of Holmes, he was great at camouflage:

[USNBandit]

I want to know what idiots came up with a two piece flight suit where the pockets have Velcro flaps over zippers. And what's with the Army helicopter helmets that are so huge.

Totally concur with the Navy camouflage. There isn't any time in the Navy where you want to blend in with the water, unless you are a SEAL, and you won't catch those guys wearing those. Then with all the individual augmentation orders to send sailors out to do Army jobs the first thing you have to do is issue sailors a bunch of new uniforms.

[sean327]

There are many time where the contractor is to blame for cost over runs and shoddy equipment, but the Govt is to blame for the majority of these problems. I have seen the havoc the Govt causes contractors. Here is a couple of examples.

I worked for a Defense company on the JLTV(Joint Light Tactical Vehicle)Program and the NLOS Cannon Program.
In the case of JLTV the Govt goes to the contractors with a specific set of requirements and asks for an RFP(Request for Proposal). The contractors then go through the Govt requirements and come up with a dollar number and time frame to build and test prototypes.
The Govt then selects 2-4 competitors and the Technology Demonstration phase begins. While the prototypes are being built the Govt will come down with even more requirements. Usually some set of bells and whistles that some idiot desk commander in the Pentagon thinks would be nice. This in turn causes the contractors to go back and re-engineer complete systems, or layouts. Costing them more money and time.
This crap happen all the time. I am not excusing the contractors for stuff that is their fault, but the Govt needs to stick to it’s initial requirements and the RSPs they accepted from the contractors.
A large part the failure belongs to DCMA(Defense Contract Management Activity) offices. These clowns rarely know anything about the program they are charged with overseeing. Many of them fail to keep their audit schedules, they tend to wait until the equipment is ready for delivery to the Govt. Their initial acceptance inspections are a joke. Many are not written for the equipment they are inspecting. It is not all on the contractor.

[Flick Lives]

Looks like that pattern will work perfectly if the Army invades a discount furniture outlet.

[Lancey Howard]

Five billion, huh? There’s obviously a lot of money in the military uniform business. Even during my six years in the Marines we got three changes of cammies. Somebody well-connected is scooping a whole lot of cash out of this scam.

[exDemMom]

Yes.

I’ve had this mental image of being caught alone behind enemy lines, hungry, with a Power Bar in my pocket. What do I do?

Actually, my newest uniform has buttoned cargo pockets and sleeves. So it is not quite as noisy.

[Born to Conserve]

I think they were trying to make the uniforms so un-cool that no one would steal them. It was working.

[huldah1776]

They have to buy their own now. Boots too. They keep one for inspection and the other for the field.

[dagogo redux]

Your points are well taken. Thanks for that info, and for all the crap you have put up with.

Where do you think the fault lies with this camouflage fiasco? Not saying you know for sure, but yours may be a better informed opinion than the rest of us can come up with.

[Born to Conserve]

“...this may sound silly...”

Yes, it does sound silly. Here in Pennsylvania, if you are not moving, the deer don’t see you. It does not matter what you are wearing. If you blink, they see that and they’re gone.

[lowflyn]

Ah aviation
Were high school drop outs fix the mistakes of college graduates.
Though most of the mechs I work with do have a degree or two, but they have their heads on straight.

[sean327]

I’m not sure where the blame lies with that one. I do know the process the Marine Corps used to come up with the MARPAT utility uniform. I was a SSgt at the time. The Marine Corps came up with 5 versions for both the woodland and desert utility uniform. They then went out and us the Marines which design and pattern we wanted. The rest is history. The MARPAT utility uniform is very well designed and Marines love it.

[cll]

The Army trained me for three months to fix these and I never saw the one being used anywhere:

[Joe 6-pack]

Multicam is very good, and was designed with consideration of lot of optical physics and naturally occurring animal camouflage.

I think another viable option would be the ATACS and ATACS-FG:

[pfflier]

Right on the mark. Too many people point the finger at contractors without realizing idiots in the government ineptly oversee the projects.

One group I would add to you group of government idiots is DCAA (formerly DCAS).

We were delivering shelters painted with mil spec paint supplied by the government and they squawked that it wasn't the right lustre. They refused to sign the DD 250 until we stripped and repainted the shelters with a different batch number of the same paint.

They insisted we pay for the rework under threat of a "Method C" which would have implied that we had serious systemic QA problems.

Years later we finally were awarded consideration because an arbitrator declared their action was a constructive change to the contract. The dufuses that perpatrated this went on to higher positions because of their "diligence".

Guess who paid the bill? The taxpayer of course.