In response to allegations in the Office of Special Projects of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction report issued in June and entitled, “Afghan National Army: DOD may have spent up to 28 million more than needed to procure camouflage uniforms that may be inappropriate for the Afghan environment”, Afghan National Army camouflage developer Hyperstealth Biotechnology Corp has issued a white paper. The SIGAR report itself is available for download here and my critique of the contents of the SIGAR report can be found here.
Author Guy Cramer provides quite a bit of information to put into perspective the primary talking point in the SIGAR Report that Afghanistan is only 2% Forest. Get your copy of the Hyperstealth white paper here.
Tags: Afghan National Army, Camo Wars, Hyperstealth Biotechnology Corp
Correct links!
Second. Please fix links. Interesting topic
Say what you want about Guy Cramer, but he’s right about this. That SIGAR report was B.S.
Amen
been waiting for this response for a while.
From Cramer’s document: “In Afghanistan, the ANA (well respected by the general population) is distinguishable from the foreign coalition troops. While the argument is made by SIGAR that lives may have been lost because of an ineffective camouflage, the counterpoint can be made that ANA troops were spared attack by the enemy as they were identified as Afghanistan citizens and not as foreigners.”
OK. For those of us who were there during the green-on-blue spike, I would also suggest that lives were saved because US/coalition troops could easily identify ANA soldiers as “not coalition” and could maintain a higher state of alertness against attack by ANA soldiers. I was happy their uniforms weren’t the same as mine.
I think more than 50% of soldiers would have preferred the ANA pattern.
The ANA got camo that is effective in some areas and for IFF all the time.
UCP was none of the former and all of the latter.
I could be wrong…. But everything I have ever read that Guy Cramer has written always seems to have some jab at the US Army for not choosing his US4CES pattern in their last camo trials. I would really love to talk to some camo experts and ask them which pattern(s) are actually better.
A wee bit wonky
When dealing with hyperbole and sensationalism, it is best to counter with sledgehammer simple bullet points, not nuanced explanations.
for example
“SIGAR report is full of shit. Here’s why:
– while Afghanistan might not be heaily forested, it still has considerable green areas where the Spec4ce pattern is appropriate. Most the population is
situated around agricultural areas i.e. green terrain
-90% of the cost associated with NIR and IRR the ANA uniforms are in the sewing pattern and style, not the camouflage pattern
-Spec4ce pattern is superior to any of current or past US uniforms in the NIR and IRR spectrums
-Spec4ce licensing costs are cheaper than the US Army’s own Scorpion pattern’s.
In conclusion, the SIGAR report is poorly researched rubbish and is angling for reasons to cast blame for mismanagement of Afghan funds.”