It appears that the House of Representatives aren’t the only ones who want to hold the US military’s feet to the fire regarding their myriad camouflage patterns. The Senate version contains the following language which, while not exactly like the House’s Enyart Amendment, it is definitely in the same vein. Naturally, if it makes it through the remainder of the legislative process, any differences such as the Senate’s stipulation that an individual service (ie the Marines) can’t restrict their pattern’s use by the other services. At any rate, this ought to wake the Army up and get them to announce their camouflage decision before one is foistered upon them.
Subtitle F—Other Matters
Revised policy on ground combat and camouflage utility uniforms (sec. 351)
Section 352 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (P.L. 111–84) required the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review the performance, interoperability, costs, logistics, and patents involved in the services’ combat camouflage and utility uniforms. In April 2010, the GAO reported that since 2002, the services continued to develop unique combat and utility uniforms. The committee notes that prior to 2002, the services wore the same pattern and family of combat camouflage and utility uniforms. The GAO found no performance standards for specific combat environments, no criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of camouflage patterns, and no requirements for the services to test interoperability between their uniforms and other tactical gear, despite the DOD establishing a Joint Clothing and Textiles Governance Board in 2008.
The committee remains concerned that until this year, the Department of the Navy chose to equip its sailors and marines with different types of combat uniforms, providing significantly different levels of protection in combat environments. The GAO recently identified that the DOD’s fragmented approach to developing and acquiring combat uniforms could be more efficient, better protect service members, and result in up to $82.0 million in development and acquisition cost savings through increased collaboration among the military services.
The committee continues to strongly urge the secretaries of the military departments to explore additional methods for sharing uniform technology across the services as they develop their combat and utility uniforms. The committee continues to believe that combat and utility uniforms should incorporate the most advanced levels of protection and should be available to all men and women in uniform, regardless of the military service in which they serve. Accordingly, the committee recommends a provision that would direct the Secretary of Defense to reduce the separate development and fielding of service-specific combat and camouflage utility uniforms in order to collectively adopt and field the same combat and camouflage utility uniforms for use by all members of the armed forces. The committee notes that the recommended provision would also restrict any military service from preventing another military service from authorizing the use of any combat or camouflage utility uniform. Additionally, after the date of enactment of this Act, each military service would be prohibited from adopting new designs for combat and camouflage utility uniforms, including uniforms reflecting changes to the fabric and camouflage patterns used in current combat and camouflage utility uniforms, unless the services adopt a uniform currently in use, all services adopt the same combat or camouflage utility uniform, or the Secretary of Defense determines that unique circumstances or requirements justify an exception to the policy.
While we would all like big green to get off their $%^ and announce something, but these efforts by our ever so ill effective polaticains who wish to gain notoritity by jumping on the pband wagon…
the fact is there are gains in a common uniform and even common cammo.
there is also the realisation that each service may have its own particular needs and requirements for those same uniforms in order to effectively do the tasks they perform.
I do not believe there is a one size fits all solusion…
No, but you can’t argue how ridiculous the Camo Circus Show has become over the last decade for the all the services. Marines come up with a good one and lock it down, the Army comes out with UCP with no testing, the Air Force comes out with the garbage pattern and cut of their ABUs, the Navy ups the ante with DIGITAL BLUE CAMO! The the Navy comes out with really good camo, but only for use by the SEALs. Oh yeah, don’t forget about Multicam, but only for Afghanistan for the Army (and others attached to the Army). It’s sheer madness.
IMHO, Kryptek for all services, period. As an added benefit, Kryptek already has developed highly effective snow, urban, and night patterns in addition to the desert, transitional, and woodland patterns. This mitigates the need and associated costs in developing such patterns in the future.
There can be only one!
How about whatever pattern performed the best rather than personal favorites?
Yeah their “urban” and “night” patterns remind me of that old adage abouts being designed to catch fishermen….
that should say “about lures being designed to catch fishermen”
Blah, Blah, Blah… another day dealing with DC, and the Services..
I agree with SteveB, Kryptec patterns for all with the style of cut on the uniform layout and hats left up to each service.
“At any rate, this ought to wake the Army up and get them to announce their camouflage decision before one is foistered upon them.”
I hope someone with the juice to make something happens sees this and starts working some spin.
Each service should just adopt their personal uniform cut in the transitional pattern that wins the Army competition. Whenever a unit deploys they are issued the particular camo best for that theater. This way each branch can keep their “unique” uniform but save the taxpayers the BS of each branch having their own camo.
It’s not rocket science, they just need a strong leader to make it happen.
The problem with any form of unique is it still creates an unnecessarily logistical and contracting mess
Forget Kryptec (keep it on Krypton), US4CES for all 😉
US4CES is also a good choice.
i think the afghanies use it …..
I think it’s called Spec4ce.
let’s just get something going, anything better than UCP will do
If I understand this and if it becomes law. The Army if they want to use what won the camo competition they need to start using it prior to the legislation becoming in effect law. If not then the only camo changes they can make would be a joint service effort or adopt a pattern already in use.
If they can adopt a pattern already in use then I wonder if the Army can get away with claiming who won the camo competition was already in use if they fail to announce it before this legislation becomes law.
How about adopt the winning family, let each service pick their garrison uniform pattern. I.e Army gets transitional Navy wears woodland and USMC wears desert in Garrison. When we go to war, we all wear the appropriate camo.
The abortion of UCP needs to be addressed immediately. We never know what is on the horizon. Leadership in and out of the Army needs to do something now and quit playing politics. Who knows what we may wake up to tomorrow and where soldiers may need to deploy. UCP endangers lives period the end.
The Navy can easily mandate that all of it’s members wear the same combat uniform. Did they forget there is no Department of the Marine Corps?
The funny thing is that the Army can stop this. The longer they wait, the more the politico’s on the hill become more impatient. Just announce it already, and STOP worrying about what the Pinko’s will think! I mean seriously here! Congress and the media wont be any more pissed at you by picking fuctional camouflages, then when they were when you picked UCP or Multicam!
Just let us wear whatever we want, like in Russia.
We’ll all just wear our PT belts so you know who is a good guy.
For cost and logistics, all services need to wear same camo patterns and cut of uniform.
“At any rate, this ought to wake the Army up and get them to announce their camouflage decision before one is foistered upon them. ”
This isn’t going to happen.
The Army is only concerned with PR and as big of a debacle as UCP has been, the Army is concerned they would look worse if they started funding a new camouflage pattern knowing that it could potentially be trumped by this proposed legislation.
If this proposed legislation gets killed in Congress, the Army will announce their winner and start implementing it. They’ll give themselves a huge pat on the back and go on about how the Army took their time with the testing and that the winner truly is the most effective camouflage pattern available.
If this legislation becomes law, the Army will keep their lips sealed about who won and I would not be surprised if we see another round of camouflage testing – this time DoD wide.
The Army is not concerned about the money its losing keeping UCP in service, it’s not concerned about soldier safety, and it’s certainly not concerned about the loss in morale due to keeping soldiers guessing about camo. They are solely concerned about Congress and unless someone truly exposes how irresponsible continuing on with UCP is, the Army will wait until Congress figures out what they want to do before they make their move.
Why announce a winner, when you can make points in DC by having another multi-year camo competition?
Politicians make points, contractors make money, bureaucrats get to justify their positions. Everybody wins! Except you, military personnel.. We don’t count anymore.
Public is tired of waving the flag, time to change the channel and watch the Kardashians.
There’s a simple solution, really. If anyone remembers how Multicam began getting fielded in the first place, it was: A) all of the studies that showed UCP as ineffective; B) soldiers complaining to their congress representatives that UCP was an epic fail. Congress then went and directed the Army to do something about it and BAM, Multicam.
Multicam has been effective enough for USA and USAF use in Afghanistan and it has done a fine job. Yes it may not be an end all be all solution, but it’s close enough. It’s close enough to quit wasting more taxpayer dollars, and it’s close enough (if someone with cohones will put a finger in the USMC’s chest) to be THE multi-service solution. THAT is what Congress wants anyway, one solution for all.
The Army has done itself, and really all the other services, a disservice by saying all along that Multicam was not an option for long-term use. We could have had this whipped already.