Last week the French Army announced that it is adopting a new camouflage pattern beginning in 2024.
The new Multi-environmental Bariolage (BME) will replace the currently used Central Europe and Desert patterns with a single pattern. According to research, it takes an observer 25% more time to detect a Soldier wearing BME than the older patterns.
Although BME appears similar to patterns worn by the US, UK, and other countries using MultiCam derivatives, the French explain it is inspired by the “Brun terre de France” color used for French military vehicles (seen below) and triangular motifs reminiscent of the camouflage of Scorpion program vehicles which will roll out simultaneous with the new camouflage.
Designed by the Technical Section of the Army, BME combat clothing was developed by the Army Commissariat Service. The French have budgeted 200 million euros and will begin issue in 2024. The uniform cut is the new Fighter 2020 F3 uniform developed under the FELIN program which is FR.
I wonder how long until other countries make multicam variants the standard NATO camouflage?
I think officially a third of NATO including the US and UK derivatives are issued it. That’s 10 countries. Germany has a variety of Flectarn available commercially but it’s not issued officially. Italy has a Vegita pattern with the same colors. Poland has a straight clone.
Generally it’s common in SF units.
I just don’t get the insistence in this day and age with black weapons, along with Israel and Australia (which didn’t with the older versions of the AUG)
It negates good camo heavily and is insane
Soldiers: can we have multicam?
Mom: we have multicam at home
Multicam at home: BME
It could easily be mistaken for multicam if you’re not paying attention so color me skeptical if they say it wasn’t inspired by it. After all, aren’t all of the universal patterns technically inspired by it since it was the one that got everyone’s attention nearly 20 years ago?
It does look like it’s effective but it is interesting when the examples they show of it performing well are against patterns that are sort of ineffective or clearly not the best in their specific environment as it is, and they still used those in environments they weren’t specifically designed for. You could almost say the mixed plains and grassy areas or rocky terrain are the actual environments the universal stuff was designed for and those areas have a lot of similarities no matter if it’s in Africa, Europe or Afghanistan so it does well universally.
Russians using multicam,terorrists using multicam,nato using multicam,chinese using multicam.
China not using multicam, … just stealing it for laters…