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US Army Camouflage Improvement Effort Update – But Wait, That’s Not All You Get

Word has it that not only will the Army unveil a new family of camouflage patterns in the coming weeks, but they’ll also make a very welcome announcement concerning another uniform combination.

61 Responses to “US Army Camouflage Improvement Effort Update – But Wait, That’s Not All You Get”

  1. K says:

    “In the coming weeks”

    You mean, like on June 14th? Or could the announcement be earlier?

    Does the other announcement pertain to the ASU? Is Army Green coming back? (I can always hope….)

  2. Bob says:

    That the PT belt is no longer required?

    • Chuck says:

      That’s what I was hoping for…banning PT belts with ACUs and/or whatever the replacement for the ACU is.

      Although I suspect it might be something stupid like adding sew on SSI (unit patches) to the ASU. Let’s take what was a great uniform (when it was just a dress uniform) specifically because it was so uncluttered and add yet more clutter to it.

    • M@ says:

      They’ll be integrating the PT belt into the new camo.

      SAFETY FIRST!

  3. Steve says:

    They will announce both the new Camo and the new PT uniforms that we voted on.

  4. Sgt B says:

    Fingers crossed that the Air Force will follow in the steps of our big brother, Army, in announcing a new… strike that… a functional combat uniform. Excited to see what the Army decides on.

    • AJ says:

      Here’s to hoping against hope. 🙂

    • Philip says:

      I hope so too… I hate wearing green boots. 🙂

      We wear the same uniform as the Army when we deploy anyway; Why not make it easy and put us all in the same thing Stateside as well?

      • Sgt B says:

        I agree. I think it’s a waste of funds to purchase all new uniforms for a deployment and then never use them again when you get back to home station. Might as well transition. At least I’d feel like my uniform is supposed to blend in to a real environment.

  5. Ryan says:

    I’m pretty sure its gonna be the PT uniform. If they make us sew patches on the Blues its gonna look atrocious. Tabs I could see but god no not patches.

  6. Ken says:

    What are they going to screw up now!

  7. Tim says:

    Think they are going away from Velcro

  8. Ipkiss says:

    No. It will be exactly the other way ’round: the whole uniform will be coverd in loop take so you can apply patches of the desired camouflage. Or a PT belt.
    But remeber, the Netherlands Army is already taking around 9 years now to introduce a new uniform..

  9. badjujuu says:

    Good stuff.
    As of right now I am dealing with Soldiers who still have Desert and Woodland gear on their OCIE records….years of shitty supply discipline from a previous supply nco. I cant wait to transition to another camo, then deal with turning in the OCP and ACU stuff. I have one E7 who has woodland gear from Ft. Polk, then desert stuff from Iraq, then he was issued ACUs and right after he was issued Multicam for OEF….good times……

    • Nick The Brit says:

      I have DCU, UCP, and OCP on my clothing record right now. I got my UCPs in 2005, and finally got all my woodland turned in in 2011.

    • C. Bristoe says:

      When I got out in 2012 I had a full Woodland issue, as well as fulls of Desert, 2 fulls of UCP, and 1 full multicam. That includes body armors, rucks, assault packs, kevlars, uniforms, the whole shebang. It wasn’t for lack of trying on my part to turn in OCIE and CIF Issue that was reason I held on to it, its that CIF never wanted to schedule me a turn in for gear I was never going to wear again, because I didn’t have PCS/ETS orders. So it all got stuck in 55 Gallon rubbermaid containers, shoved in my basement and forgotten about until I started packing all my stuff to clear and I kept opening tote after tote of gear.

  10. CamoReader says:

    Thanks for the updates SSD! These may just be hints but I am grateful for them.

  11. Adam says:

    Up here at JBLM there are units wearing the black and gold PT uniform for testing, so it’s my guess they make it official.

  12. Mike D says:

    Oh, I almost forgot about that survey several months back about the PT uniform. I think I may regret voting for the most hideous and brightly colored combination…

  13. Lucky says:

    Hopefully it’ll be the Pinks and Tans instead of the ASU…

  14. straps says:

    If a new PT uniform is introduced I don’t care either way about the look. Would be nice if it fit better. I like that t-shirt but the fabric is too thick–could never understand why Under Armour never did the reflective “ARMY” and “A” on their lightweight Loose Gear t-shirts. They could’ve made a freakin’ fortune on that.

    • Adam says:

      Tried that bro .. would have had to retail for $40 .. easier said than done! : )

  15. Joe Nobody says:

    I heard from a good source (trust me on this one) that black boots may be coming back.

    • Bob says:

      What purpose would that serve? The rough outs we have are more than sufficient combat boots. If it is true, it only serves to placate old soldiers who never boarded the hate train to war in the twenty-first century, and still think soldiering is about looking sharp and not about killing bad guys.

      • Philip says:

        In their defense, at least you can clean up (or at least polish over) a pair of jacked up black boots.

        I know boots are part of our work uniform and are meant to be used, but I hate seeing people running around with the sage-green boots that’ve been miscolored from dirt and grime, or even just normal wear & tear … even with a good hard-bristle brush you can’t rub all the dirt out. And “brown” boots with sage green soles just look stupid.

      • Rondale says:

        It’s not about looking sharp or killing bad guys…..its about discipline

        • Chuck says:

          Discipline doesn’t require time wasted on spit shining. Discipline means being smart enough to have uniforms and boots set aside for garrison wear. Even back in the black boot days, I did the same thing. Discipline means cleaning the mud/dust off your no-shine boots after you get back from the field and it means hanging your ACUs up damp so they will look sharp(er) than if they just sit balled up in the dryer for 8 hours before you get around to hanging them up. Discipline means taking pride in your uniform no matter what it is because you represent the Army when you put it on, even if it is history’s most hideous and ineffective camouflage pattern.

          As for going back to black boots and starched uniforms…all those hours and hours spent dying, edge dressing and spit shining black boots will not be added on to my life span. That’s time I’ll never get back. And don’t get me started on all the money I wasted getting my BDUs starched.

          • SSD says:

            Amen.

          • 10thmountainvet says:

            No matter what you do to a set of ACUs, they won’t look professional. Especially when they are made by prisoners that don’t care about the quality. The stitching in my newest set are horrible. We should re-think the design and adopt it across all of the services (minus the hats, t-shirts, ect).

    • CamoReader says:

      What if the Army decides on making the boots in the OICE pattern or average out the OICE pattern into 1 color and use that for the boots.

    • Jim says:

      That would be ironic…us Brits have just gone to brown boots because black stands out horrifically with MTP (Brit multicam )

  16. CPTP says:

    I heard they will announce the new pistol that replaces the 92.

  17. Strike-Hold! says:

    I hope it will be the new maternity uniform, or maybe new scrubs for Army veterinarians.

  18. This guy says:

    Time to learn how to shine boots for all you young ins.

  19. Adam says:

    Bring the flight suit back! These A2CU are garbage!

    • SSD says:

      Unless you were a fixed wing aviator, the ABDU proceeded the A2CU. And, one-piece flight suits aren’t all their cracked up to be.

      • Adam says:

        One piece are cheaper, look more professional, and are used by every service… I don’t need to look like a grunt

        • Jeremy says:

          Would love to have the once piece back. But the guys in charge don’t fly anymore, so I doubt that will happen.

        • SSD says:

          This is so laughable to me. Air Force crews are begging to get into two-piece flight suits.

          • Adam says:

            I’m positive that 9 out of 10 aviators would say they want the one piece.

          • SSD says:

            Trust me, 9 out of 10 people will want what they can’t have.

          • Chad says:

            It’s the A2CU that is the real problem not having a two-peice flight suit. Most of us that wore the one-peice flight suit prior to the A2CU uniform would rather take the one-peice back. Wearing a two-peice flight suit has its advantages of course but if we must wear one I’d definitely take the Drifire two-peice over the A2CU.

        • El Guapo says:

          Oh trust me, no one mistakes you or any of your buddies for grunts…

  20. 10thmountainvet says:

    It has to be the new camo for the ACU and the PT uniform that we submited the survey for.

    Due to financial constraints, nothing else makes sense.

    It would be a good idea to force a universal working uniform across the board (BDUs) to limit costs to both us the service members and the taxpayer. It should be the new Army camo pattern on the Marine’s uniform (it’s just a better combat design)… minus the hat, of course.

    • SSD says:

      The Army, Marine Corps, Air Force and SOCOM all have specialized combat uniforms that are separate from their garrison uniforms. Different communities in the Navy has also adopted various commercial and sister service combat uniforms.

      • Coastie305 says:

        Coast Guard DSF also wears Navy combat uniforms or Army multicam when deployed to theater.

        • 10thmountainvet says:

          I don’t mean the specialized uniforms for specific jobs (ie mechanics, tankers, ect.). However, the vast majority of U.S. Military personel use a “generic” variation of a “BDU” (ie most Soldiers wear the standard non-deployable ACU). A generic print(s) used across the board (all services)would save money. The Marines are making all of their uniforms deployable (fire and bug resistant). We should adopt the same strategy across all services. One standard uniform for field work. I would also add that we are disticitve through our dress uniforms, hats, T-shirts, socks, boots, pins, rank, haircuts, lingo…. and that if we work in an office we shouldn’t be wearing our *&% looking ACUs and boots in a professional environment. We’ll wait and see. However, the officers/ politicians incharge of this effort will surely take the common sense effort and wreck it much like they did with the Army’s PRT program!

  21. Shawn says:

    The Army is going to make the tan beret the daily headgear for all Soldiers?

    • CamoReader says:

      Breaking news, the Army will be adopting a black pt uniform. Due to that, the Rangers will now be transitioning to tan pt uniforms 😉

  22. Paralus says:

    Waistlines?

  23. Army Doc says:

    So when you say “coming weeks” do you mean the June 14th date that has been tossed out? Or something potentially before that?

    Also despite you telling us the winner has already been leaked I can’t find a darn thing, so apparently people are more tight lipped than you think 🙂

  24. sgt Garcia says:

    Oh wow black pt uniform still waiting on change on pt to the new version what the hell takes so long in making changes why should it take so long to make decisions on things dont we have experts in these areas maybe they are getting payed to much for nothing maybe they need to change up the personel …i sure wish they would hurry the fuck up and make a decision so we wont be walking arround in mis matched colors like before…. Thqt was ridicuolus…

  25. Jon says:

    I hope they completely revamp all the uniforms. good pt uniforms, an amazing combat uniform that overdoes the other branches combat uniforms, service uniforms that are like the old army greens or wwii khakis, and a dress uniform like maybe the new asu dress blues. make those dress uniforms instead of service uniforms. just my hopes and opinions though.

  26. sgt Garcia says:

    I really dont care what we wear its not the uniform that makes the soldier its the person inside the uniform bottom line if we had to wear all pink we would so stop the complaining and all that talk about stupid stuff about wasting money its not our money its he goverments money they really dont have to buy us shit they can just let us all die in combat so for all that just know how to complain at ease that shit and act like soldiers for once stop the complaining already you get what you get when you get. As far as the pt uniform goes for all you big belly guys just hope its not the tight suit that was shown because it wohld really look ridicuolouse..

  27. sgt Garcia says:

    Who cares what it is just hurry up and start the issue also the uniform doesnt make the soldier keep that in mind also instead of putting so much intrest in a new uniform they should focus on developing shit that will protect us out in the field and how to make us liter so we can move and react faster just like the enemy… Lighter is better less is more…

  28. sgt Garcia says:

    Just dont worry to much about uniforms you all worry about dumm stuff its not important trust me worry about gear better gear…