SIG SAUER - Never Settle

Posts Tagged ‘OCP’

Who Scored a Set of New OCP ACUs?

Monday, July 6th, 2015

Over the weekend we saw a few photos of Soldiers proudly wearing their new OCP ACUs. Who braved the lines and purchased a set? How many are wearing OEF-OCP (MultiCam) FR ACUs from an RFI issue or went out and purchased some commercial ACUs in MultiCam?

  

Although Scorpion name tapes, rank and skill badges aren’t available yet, many had sewn on MultiCam versions and you couldn’t tell the difference. As for unit patches, many stateside units don’t have MultiCam variants so the yellow sharpie trick seems to be working so far. What did you do?

US Army Issues Implementation Details For OCP Transition

Monday, June 1st, 2015


Today, the Army officially announced that OCP uniforms would be available in US Army clothing sale stores 1 July, 2015. They also released these slides which detail how the uniforms are to be worn. The information is in line with the draft ALARACT we recently spoke about except they’ve relented on headgear for the OCP variants which can now be worn with the MultiCam or Scorpion versions. You really need to go back and read the draft ALARACT story if you want to get in the weeds on this.

These slides are from the SMA’s OCP transition pocket guide.

UCP ACU

1

OEF-CP ACU

2

OCP ACU

3

OCP ACU Design Changes

4

ACU Summary of Changes

5

For more information, read the US Army published article found at www.army.mil.

OCP Rollout

Tuesday, May 5th, 2015

OCP ACU

The above image is a summary of the changes made to the OCP ACU. Additionally, the US Army will field the new OCP Ensemble in 3 waves to AMCSS beginning July 1st.

Boom: That Just Happened

Thursday, August 21st, 2014

IMG_7084.JPG

Something Cool Just Showed Up At SSD. Details soon!

Army Combat Pants Are Go?

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

Natick has released a Request for Information from industry seeking for production of a Flame Resistant Improved Army Combat Uniform Trouser (Army Combat Pant). We wrote about the “FR ACU Trouser Product Improvement Program” in 2009 but not much information has been released since then. Ultimately, Crye Precision was given the contract to produce the test articles which were evaluated in Afghanistan last year by elements of the 101st.


This is a photo of a prototype.

This RFI signals the beginning of what may well be the introduction of an entirely new piece of combat apparel for issue. While many will argue that this is just an improvement of the current FR ACU trousers, that would only be true so long as the old style is no longer produced. The current FR ACU is an almost stitch for stitch copy of the current ACU worn in garrison as well as permissive field environments. Additionally, the Army issues the Army Combat Shirt which has been optimized for wear with body armor. The new so-called Army Combat Pants are optimized for combat use. This new combat oriented combination would make the FR ACU redundant as it has not been optimized for combat use. Will the Army retain the FR ACU? Most likely. There are plenty of reasons to issue an FR fatigue type of uniform.

Another interesting issue introduced in this RFI is that the ACP will be produced in both OCP as well as UCP. That’s right, despite the adoption of MultiCam as OCP for troops deployed to Afghanistan and a comprehensive camouflage development effort in the form of the Army Camouflage Improvement Effort, a full replacement for the ill-performing UCP can’t come soon enough. Until the Army can decide on a path ahead for signature management it will be forced to continue to invest in a camouflage pattern that does not work in but the most improbable circumstances.