It has come to our attention that the US Army has not contacted any of the contenders for the US Army’s replacement for the so-called, current issue Universal Camouflage Pattern to inform them whether or not they were selected.
They’d better hurry up. Word is that the Secretary of the Army will offer a very welcome birthday gift on 14 June in the form of an announcement for a new camouflage pattern. But, if they cut it too close, any possible protests by non-selects could come after the announcement. This could result in some egg on the face of the Army leadership if it delays or even overturns the selection of the announced winner. Conversely, if they notify the companies too early, there is concern that one or more will announce their status in order to capitalize on deals for their patterns that they have held at arms length awaiting the Army’s decision. There’s lots of money on the line whether these patterns are selected or not. It’s time for the Army to come clean with the companies that made it this far.
Your last paragraph is very interesting, SSD. Are we to believe that their is more than one winner here? Ala, U.S. Army surf and turf pattern?
Why would they notify vendors? They might as well make the announcement then.
I have a feeling that the massive amount of time of time the Army has waited and deliberated on this decision indicates that they are not concerned with any bad press related to this issue. Outside of places like this website, very few people even know the Army is getting a new pattern, so it would be a relatively small number of people upset with any further delays. Personally, I think that the showmanship aspect of releasing it on the Army’s birthday is ignorant, as more and more gear in UCP is being bought every day. They should announce ASAP, I can think of many better things for the army to spend money on than soon to be useless gear.
I assume many people “in the know” are making sure their stock options are in order, gotta rake in the money when a million privates have to re buy all their cool guy pouches in a new camo pattern.
Stock.options? You have a very distorted view of this industry.
So MilSpec Monkey has the most to gain from this, then.
I have no idea what this means but it’s funny.
HA HA!! I rolled on floor, laughed out loud, and all that!
What stock options might those be?
None of the companies are publicly traded. (I checked already)
Maybe EVERYBODY is a winner? Perhaps a four-tier camo system for a variety of locales! Yeah, just kidding.
What is your expectation about the new pattern and its compatibility with multicam/OCP? Do you think this will be a wholesale buy-in, as with UCP, with every piece of kit in the new pattern? Or do you think the OCP will remain viable as an accompaniment? If not, stand-by for a rush of multicam clearance sales!
Perhaps some of this delay is to make sure their decision is protest/lawsuit proof?
This tells me that even SSD may not really know who was selected.
Yes, you are quite prescient.
Trollers gonna troll…
The winning company, or designer, is not going to become a billionaire (or even millionaire) off of the government contract that they win.*
BUT there are certainly plenty of fabric mills, garment makers and gear manufacturers who are going to be hurting real bad real soon if the Army DOESN’T adopt a new family of patterns and make all the stuff in it that is needed.
* The winning company should probably do quite nicely off of commercial sales of their pattern though…
This is more of a question, rather than a comment for SSD. Is there an office or anyone within DoD advocating for all services going to a single cammo uniform (or perhaps two based on region0. Such consolidation of uniforms would save each service, DoD, and ultimately the US Taxpayer millions if not billions of dollars?
x2
I remember seeing an article in AF times some months ago about setting a standard for a common uniform.
I hope they do go back to one uniform for all branches. We did it with BDUs and still got the mission done.
Read the archives. The answer you seek is there.
Dude, stop making sense. Why would the DoD do that? :-/
A Service Secretary can speak on anything he wants.
It’s ultimately the responsibility of their staffs to ensure that s/he has full legal authority to do so–under penalty of resignation and a period in the wilderness for anyone who didn’t dot the i’s and cross the t’s on exposure.
Protests are a sadly frequent contingency cost-recovery measure…
ADS is claiming victory on their website right now.
http://www.adsinc.com/company/solutions/camo-solutions
Did you look at their site when it was launched well over a year ago? Sorry, it’s been the same. You didn’t discover anything.
It says “a” winner, not “the” winner. And like SSD says, it’s been that way for a long time.
http://www.troll.me/images/futurama-fry/hmmm-cant-tell-if-trolling-or-really-stupid.jpg
I love it!
This is like Grenada all over again…
WONDER IF THE AIRFORCE WILL CHANGE THERE UNIFORM TOO, MY OPINON IS THAT THEY COULD TAKE THE ARMY’S UCP CAUSE IF SOME ONE FALLS IN A HANGER OR RUNWAY NO ONE WOULD BE ABLE TO SEE THEN.JUST LIKE THE NAVYS BLUE COMMO UNIFORM IN WATER. SERIOUSLY WHO EVER WIN MAYBE NOW LESS SOLDIERS WILL STICK OUT LIKE SOAR THUMBS .
Just hurry up already what is new pattern…