SureFire

US Army Camo Update – Still No Announcement

A little over a month ago we published this story. Like a bad internet meme the PPT in question continues to snake its way through the Army’s email system. As we understand it, the Chief of Staff of the Army was briefed on the 5th of December and there will be another briefing this week. As to when the Army will announce? They know but their aren’t telling. Impending Sequestration is probably a little more important than new camouflage right now, so we wouldn’t be surprised if there’s no announcement until January. But, you never know. The CSA and SMA just might be giving the Army a welcome Christmas present this year.

About a month ago (Late September), a deployed reader informed us that he had heard that the US Army had selected a new camouflage pattern. He sent us a simple, two page PPT that he has received via email and showed the pattern as well as a few made up dates for issue. Overall, it was a sophomoric attempt but he asked us to confirm his suspicions that it was untrue. After looking at it I had my doubts but in the offhand that it might have been a local distillation of an official announcement I sent it to the PAO at PEO Soldier. Their reply? It was an interesting fake. Remember, idle hands do the devil’s work. I’d say someone was bored and decided to pull a prank. It seems to have gotten out of hand. I’m not going to post the PPT or the alleged winner because the finalist was just as surprised to see it as PEO Soldier was. Since the initial incident I’ve had to field queries from the field numerous times, so I’m using this bully pulpit to help stem the flow of misinformation.

You may see this PPT floating around email, especially if deployed. Alternatively, it may have been printed out and posted on a unit bulletin board. Regardless of where you see it, it is untrue. If your chain of command sends it to you, politely request that they check with PEO Soldier.

The easiest way to tell it’s a fake? When have you ever seen a Power Point presentation that was only 2 slides? And consider this, have you ever seen a PPT without the issuing unit’s logo all over it?

Please remember, the US Army Camouflage Improvement Effort has downselected to four families of patterns from:

-ADS Inc as Prime, partnered with Guy Cramer
-Brookwood Companies
-Crye Precision
-Kryptek

As they continue to conduct research, I wouldn’t expect any word on a selection for a month at least. Don’t worry, if we hear anything tangible, we’ll they you know. Until then, Keep Calm and Reload (the page).

11 Responses to “US Army Camo Update – Still No Announcement”

  1. Camofleur says:

    Fake announcement on US Army Camouflage Program. Fake Camouflage example in news on CNN from Guy Cramer/HyperStealth. (it was a photo-shopped mockup)…

    The only real information is that we need another approach to site-specific camouflage from a technology perspective. The most interesting aspect of the US Army Camouflage Program is that it is being based on Picture In Picture Tests to demonstrate effectiveness. Photography of the environment as a base line test for effectiveness and camouflage that takes that into account, are the future of Effective Camouflage !
    Thanks for keeping everyone level-headed on all the rumors Soldier Systems.

  2. Guy Cramer says:

    Camofleur – why hide behind a pseudo name? You are obviously in the same business and trashing me and our company on this forum is at best defamation. Your criticism of the Army testing indicates you are not one of the finalists where field trials of the four finalists will in large part determine the winner.

    That fake PowerPoint was sent out before Army field trials were even conducted, anyone familiar with the Army process knows that the PowerPoint is a fake.

    We contacted CNN prior to their release and asked them to mark the photos of the Quantum Stealth (Light Bending material) as mock-ups or tell the audience this (they did not). I have never stated to any news media that these were real photos and our site marks each of these photos as mock-ups.

    William Jarvis, a recently retired 19 year Navy SEAL that accompanied me to 2 of the U.S. Military command meetings has come forward to confirm the claims on the Quantum Stealth technology as well as Colin Worth a recently retired 26 year RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) officer that accompanied me to Ottawa to show CANSOFCOM (Canadian Special Forces Command) and the RCMP Counter Terrorist Team. CANSOFCOM has confirmed meetings about this material.

    If you want the real story go here: http://www.hyperstealth.com/Quantum-Stealth/index.html

  3. Camofleur says:

    If you read my post, I clearly state that I am applauding both The Camouflage Improvement Program (for improving camouflage by using Picture In Picture Testing) and Soldier Systems (for correcting the many rumors surrounding camouflage these days).

    Has Guy Cramer asked that CNN or others retract, or correct the misinformation brought about by the fake mockups of the camouflage he provided to the media? Is he the “victim” for the media running with the fake camo mockups he provided to them?
    That is like blaming a pencil for writing the wrong answer.
    Is his website the only place to get “the real story”?
    That seems very ummm…convenient.

    • Guy Cramer says:

      Camofleur – CNN justifies this in that they didn’t say they were real either. By the time we knew that the Daily Mail ran an article with those photos on this without our input, but they did mark the photos as Mock-up, the story was 10 hours old and was already being picked up, and follow-on stories were not mentioning they were mockups. I started the process of correcting the reporters with the first reports I could find that did not mention this correctly such as http://www.businessinsider.com/cnn-new-camoflague-technology-makes-troops-invisible-2012-12 (these two reporters never did correct it after I asked them to)but the story went viral. There is no way for me to get 5,000 news sources to mark the images as mockups that didn’t even bother to interview me in the first place. I have not been dishonest about this, the reporters have.

      Still waiting for your real name?

  4. Lucky says:

    Dude, give it a rest. Guy is right here, you are wrong. Just deal with that fact.

  5. Bman says:

    Guy, you never fail to set the record as straight as it can be understood. I emailed you in the past regarding some uniforms with ion releasing device attached. If I recall, you said the sales were not high enough to justify the cost. Is that something you would attempt showing to the DoD since the big thing we hear about all of the time is the fatigue and stress soldiers face on missions?

  6. Guy Cramer says:

    Bman,
    We are still working on the Passive Negative Ion Generator and the Canadian Military is interested in testing it for increased alertness… but the U.S. military doesn’t seem that interested at this time. Let’s face it when you bring light bending material to military meetings – our passive negative ion generator goes way down on their list of priorities. Our Spec4ce uniforms have the devices integrated into the collar of the jackets and the Spec4ce ball caps also have them.

  7. CIA says:

    I wish ODG CAMO WAS SELECTED some of these reminds me of gi joe bad guys
    Cobra

  8. Ian P. says:

    Guy Cramer – Thank you for helping to protect US troops!

  9. UVRC says:

    Mr. Cramer, according to your website, the Quantam Stealth camouflage will show the viewer what is on the other side of the camouflage. Yet, you say that you can’t publicly demonstrate the camouflage because you don’t want people to see it and reverse engineer it. However, it is impossible to see the invisible camouflage – you will only see what is on the other side of it – so that is not a problem.

    Further, in your mockups, and at no time in the CNN interview did I hear you mention them as photoshopped, you have your camo showing not what was on the other side of the camo, since that was always a young woman, but something else altogether. Since you didn’t have the camo wrap around the subject, it couldn’t very well show what was behind her. If your camo shows what is on the other side of itself, then it serves as a pane of glass, which is not very useful from the perspective of camouflage.

    You write on your site: “This is mock-up of our “Quantum Stealth” (Light Bending) material with my assistant behind it. No cameras and no projectors are used. ” Yet it is a photograph; how were no cameras used?

    You said – “”It wasn’t big news back then, but I guess when you start showing images of how the technology functions … ” but you have never shown images of how the technology functions, you have shown mockups of something, but it is not functioning, it is simply a photoshopped image. The only thing that has ever been functioning with regard to Quantam Stealth has been a graphic artist behind the scenes…. or should we “ignore the man behind the curtain?”

    You said ” the invisibility cloak also conceals the ultra-violet and infra-red heat rays.” That is amazing! So, either it absorbs all radiation in the UV and thermal-IR – which would make a very eye-attracting black hole, or it converts the energy into another form, or perhaps into dark matter.