Digital vs Conventional Camouflage

[lobbie111]

I am not asking which one is the best as this is Dependant on the environment that it is in. What I am asking is why are armies adopting digital camouflage and what are the advantages and differences of the two styles...

Does it depend on the individuals environment for digital camouflage or is it simply a budgetary matter. What's more expensive?

 

[weasel1962]

Re:

Deleted

 

[lobbie111]

yeah but why switch...because they can what?

 

[Waylander]

Because it looks so cool...and tactical...and maybe you can even put some kind of buzzword like "networked" or "transformational" onto it.

Seriously IMHO there is no big difference between digital and classic camo. At least not in operational terms.

What I am sceptical of is the US Army digi camo.
It seems there are much more environments were it doesn't fit than vice versa.

Nevertheless I like the USMC digi camo.

 

[lobbie111]

It is not a mil;military camouflage in that, it is not designed for the military but rather designed for paint ball which is a form of wargames so it has its roots in tactical use. It would be a good overall camouflage for any environment.

 

[Chino]

Yes I do think the US Army's new uniform is a a bit off.

The USMC uniform seems more effective.

 

[mysterious]

You have me confused Chino. The two pictures you have attached to your post show two different uniforms for two different/distinct environments.

The one on the left is what the U.S. is using in Iraq & Afghanistan these days if I'm not mistaken & it goes perfectly well with the desert environment. The one on the right is suitable only for 'greener' areas with abundant vegetation.

 

[DavidDCM]

The left photo shows the ACU worn by the Army, the right one is MARPAT worn by the USMC.

But whereas the Marines indeed have different schemes for different environments (the greenish one for more vegetative areas, and the brownish one they wear in Iraq and Afghanistan) , the Army doesn't. They wear ACU in that greyish tone everywhere around the world, e.g. Korea where you'll hardly find any deserts (or even in the photo above, see the guy (Lt.-Gen.?) with the old rifle and the blue shooting-jacket, he wears ACU underneath). Last winter I saw a couple of them guys on a training area in Germany, where my company was exercising, too. They all wore ACU and let's just say that it was not very hard to spot them, although they stood in the woods. The German soldiers who were with them were far more difficult to see (I guess I would not have even noticed them if those "greyish figures" hadn't caught my attention).

 

[Waylander]

That's it.
Why an Army with the budget of the US Army decides to wear a "multi"-camo is beyoind my imagination.

This camo is not even that well suited for desert/urban environments like we see in Iraq when we compare it to other specially designed camos.

I can hardly imagine one environment, besides relatively naked mountains and urban cities (Not the brown Iraqi ones), where it works better than something else.

 

[eckherl]

Because it looks so cool...and tactical...and maybe you can even put some kind of buzzword like "networked" or "transformational" onto it.

Seriously IMHO there is no big difference between digital and classic camo. At least not in operational terms.

What I am sceptical of is the US Army digi camo.
It seems there are much more environments were it doesn't fit than vice versa.

Nevertheless I like the USMC digi camo.

Yep - because it looks really cool and modern, the biggest benefit for this uniform and it could of been done to any camoflage pattern was taking out the black color which does stand out more versus other colors.

 

[Waylander]

Maybe it really helps on the recruitment front...

It is right that removing the black was a good move but they still look like blue blobs in an environment with even a little bit of normal green/brown nature.

 

[eckherl]

Maybe it really helps on the recruitment front...

It is right that removing the black was a good move but they still look like blue blobs in an environment with even a little bit of normal green/brown nature.

Yep - after a hundred meters the uniform looks like the same color with the naked eye. But yes, everyone is thinking how cool and modern it looks.

 

[lobbie111]

I heard it took a year to develop the mathematical program to get it so no uniform is the same.

 

[kato]

Sidenote:

I just drove by two soldiers in ACU and - seriously, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Even that uniform of some NATO country that uses large orange patches in a Flecktarn pattern sticks out less (who was that? Belgium? Czech Republic?).

Oh, and does the US Army make it mandatory to salute staff officers outside barracks now? Or was that girl just a bit... mislead when she went into attention stance?
(ok, across the street from LANDCENT could seem as "inside" to newbies - but it's not)

 

[Chino]

You have me confused Chino. The two pictures you have attached to your post show two different uniforms for two different/distinct environments.

The one on the left is what the U.S. is using in Iraq & Afghanistan these days if I'm not mistaken & it goes perfectly well with the desert environment. The one on the right is suitable only for 'greener' areas with abundant vegetation.

Sorry.

In the original post: Left pic is US Army. Right pic is USMC.

I'm not saying the US Army camo doesn't work at all. But maybe not everywhere.

 

[Chino]

is this the same US army new camo? Looks darker...

 

[Chino]

So is this USMC or US Army etc? Confused now..

 

[lobbie111]

Top is Army bottom is marines

 

[Chino]

Top is Army bottom is marines

Even after I made the contrast between the 2 pics more or less the same, they both still look like different uniforms... Are they different versions after all? Or simply fading...

 

[DavidDCM]

As Walyander said, ACU works perfectly on bare rocks. But bare rocks is not really the kind of terrain that most soldiers work in.

ACU in perfection. There are 6 soldiers in the pic, you find them all?

And then there is this stupid sofa-picture.

€dit/ @chino: They're both the same, it's just different light, different camera mode, different grade of being washed down or covered by sand etc. that makes them look different.