Curiouser and Curiouser. This morning the US Army Contracting Command removed both the Notice of Intent to negotiate a license contract with Crye Precision for Operation Enduring Freedom Camouflage Pattern as well as the associated redacted J&A published one week ago, from Federal Business Opportunities which serves to notify the public of Government procurement information.
Below is a copy of the justification and approval that was removed. A J&A is a legal review of a justification to purchase a product or service from a sole source without open competition. Unfortunately, we do not have screenshots of either FBO notices but if any readers have copies we will post them as updates to this story.
There could be several reasons that one or the other of these public record notices might be removed, but both? Within 30 minutes of one another? It is rare that entire postings are removed. Generally, they are updated or cancelled outright but not removed altogether. We have determined that the notices were not removed by the office of the POC listed on the Notices but rather somewhere else and they were unable to explain the disappearance. All-in-all, this is odd. We are trying to determine what is going on.
UPDATE – I guess the old adage “You Can’t Run From The Internet” still rings true. Below are cached versions of the notices that were removed FedBizOpps.
So you’re saying there’s a chance?
Seriously? Let’s get this uniform mess over with.
I say the Protests have been filed and/or the Attorneys have gotten involved. Don you UCP and get back to work. You can have a functioning Camo pattern years from now when everyone has been paid off and the lawyers say it is OK.
This is turning into a soap-opera of camouflage confusion. You could write a novel or make a movie out of it!
They did, it’s called The Pentagon Wars
The government has money again!
Phase IV winner for everybody!
Am I the only one that heard Oprah’s voice when reading this post?
You, sir, have brought a smile to my face. Bravo.
One can only hope for common sense to come out the winner.
Otherwise, it’s all a conspiracy. By a global ruling cabal of elite lizard people and aliens.
https://www.google.com/search?q=aliens+meme&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=915hUr3aN7Wp4AOQ44GICg&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1286&bih=860&dpr=1#imgdii=_
THEY LIVE!
Hmm what could this mean for Kryptek?
Will dressing like “them” be seen as tribute or slight?
And when you think this situation cant get any dumber…
LMAO!!! (at myself)
Totally predictable! I should have seen this coming and maybe SSD should have also.
I did not see this one. It’s a freaking camouflage pattern for goodness sake. This is the kind of stuff you see for tanks and planes and ships.
Whatever, I just want to say that this is the only place on the internet where the comments are worth reading. But hey, at least SSD is doing good by keeping us up to date.
This whole camo rodeo makes me want to start cutting myself again.
Hilarious.
I’m reasonably sure I predicted this two weeks ago.
Predicted that the Army would try to erase all evidence that it intended to license MultiCam from Crye Precision?
Hahaha. It gets funnier every time.
Predicted that “The Final Word” on this was not the final word…
The erasing of evidence of “The Final Word” is a bonus bit of fun that I would have added to my prediction but I don’t want people thinking I have a tin foil hat under my snazzy Brit made narrow brimmed Multicam boonie…
When does the Army try to scrub UCP from our memory?
I think the erasure of the OCP licensing agreement is a direct result of Guy Cramer’s blog post on the superiority of US4CES in the NIR spectrum.
US4CES will be named as the hands down winner based on scientific review of the CIE trial and evaluation program.
Highly unlikely. The U.S. Army would rely on their own NIR/SWIR testing.
The gaye… I mean REALLY.
So any real indication as to why it may have been taken down yet? Is that they may possibly not care for SSD that much? Are they afraid the info trumps some one else’s announcement and thusly hurts their ego since SSD published it.
I can’t see what Army has to be perturbed with SSD about.
Except possibly using open-source information to point a picture of wasted energy and money on UCP, compounded by what was looking to be wasted energy and money on (not) choosing its replacement. Truly good money after bad.
SSD held the winner in confidence for MONTHS, and merely corroborated what SMA Chandler “leaked.”
I believe there is an acronym which accurately sums up the situation….
FUBAR!
I think BOHICA is more applicable.
Or maybe: PIROMA
I could be the Chinese hacked it…
Someone call ABC; I think SSD found a new soap opera for them.
Update http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/10/18/wait-continues-for-armys-new-camo-decision.html?comp=1198882887570&rank=1
Where?
Least he could have done was cite SSD.
I’m really surprised at that article. Matt is a much better reporter than that. It is fraught with inaccuracies.
Very true. When was the Army promoting OCP for a year? Anyway, SSD = Wikileaker of Army Camo/Phase IV lol
Can someone give me the BLUF about this? Does this mean yes, no, or no idea about Multicam taking over from that shitshow that is UCP?
No official announcement has been made by the Army on either a Phase IV finalist or cancellation of Phase IV and Multicam (OCP) as a solution. Given the documentation on FBO, it would indicate that may be the direction the Army is moving, however, with the documentation removal, they may be reconsidering the Phase IV winner again, which according to the Army was known early this year. So to answer your question, until an official announcement is made, UCP continues to remain the U.S. Army pattern except for Afghanistan where Multicam (OCP) is used instead of UCP.
I’d laugh my ass off if SSD’s coverage of this forced them to reconsider phase IV.
I am rooting for Guy.
SSD for the win.
“Sir, the private believes that any answer he gives will be wrong! And the Senior Drill Instructor will beat him harder if he reverses himself, sir”
There’s the right way, the wrong way and then there’s the…..
I didn’t think it possible at this point for Big Army to lose even more credibility, but just when I think they’ve reached a new low, they totally…confirm my worst fears.
You just put into words what all of us are thinking (…only, without all the curse words).
Gentlemen, the Army could actually do something much worse than scrubbing Phase IV and that is to stick with UCP. Keep that in mind.
Stoppit, SSD. You’re scaring me.
Good article related to SSD’s comment http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-hero-project/articles/2013/10/14/the-army-s-5-billion-new-uniform-already-being-replaced.html
That article is a total piece of shit.
Yeah, if they aren’t careful, they might trigger enough backlash to force the Army to keep UCP by bandying about that stupid $5 billion dollar figure.
The “wasted money” line makes it sound like soldiers have been walking around in their skivvies for eight years.
The problem is that all those types of websites want is a catchy headline in order to garner page views. They could care less about the Soldier or what he wears.
I herd UCP will be fully phased out by 2018. So keeping it until then can’t be any worse than it was when it was first phased in. If that where to happen, wouldn’t it be better to wait and have more time to get all the services on board by then, and actually shoot for a chance to truly have a functional Joint camouflage for everyone?
I think i see the overlooked mistake big army made here.
They tried to do what the Corps did, but at a better level. But it just happen to be at the worse time possible. Could that had been the case?
IIRC if the Army announced a decision before October 1, they wouldn’t have had anything to worry about.
This is just big Army fucking up (like usual).
All those articles about the Army wasting 5 billion dollars on UCP are ridiculous. They make it sound like all these uniforms and gear were never used. Think about it, the Army (active, guard, reserve) is over a million members. We have been wearing UCP since 2005. Think how many millions of Soldiers that represents over that nine year period. These uniforms and gear were used in Iraq from 2005-2011, and in Afghanistan from 2005-2009. Anyone who has deployed knows how hard that environment is on this type of gear. And no matter what comes next the transition will last for years. Don’t forget, the BDU field jackets were still authorized for wear in 2010. So chances are that some UCP items will still be in use in 2018.
All that stuff for all those troops for over a decade for five billion does not sound that bad. Compare that to all the money spent on failed weapon systems over the same period of time.
Make no mistake, UCP is awful. It was a bad decision. But I think the U.S. taxpayer got its money’s worth. I did not hear all this crying when we switched form the BDU to the ACU. No one ever asks what happened to all that BDU gear.
In the 2002-2004 Army test two other patterns beat Multicam for the all-in-one camouflage, but they pushed UCP onto the Army and it was not even in the test. http://www.hyperstealth.com/camo-improvement/index.html
In all honesty, it seems the possibilities are endless here. We won’t know one way or another until there’s an official announcement. So, until then stay frosty, stay positive, and hope for the best. We all know how likely that is to happen, but it never hurts to hope. As far as BDUs were concerned, I saw lots of it sold off to the USAF and other services, some possibly overseas. IMO, that was a mistake as UCP was such a dismal failure; we could have just gone back to the BDUs, re-sewn the pockets IOT fit the ACU design, spray paint the UCP plate carriers, and roll out like normal. IMO it would’ve made loads more sense and wouldn’t have had the tactical issues associated with Velcro/Hook-&-Loop.