by MILSIM » Thu Apr 26, 2012 3:15 pm
The Army is not switching to Multicam. It is issued on a SNAFU priority in Afghanistan only. It is not authorized in garrison, since the SMA is holed up in his man cave beating it with a couple of samples. There is yet ANOTHER camouflage pattern coming out to replace Multicam and ACU, though whether or not I will see this before I ETS in a year and a half is not definite.
ACU does work. I can't believe I said it, but it does work. It was designed to blend into an arid mountain environment. Our brigade just came back from Fort Carson in Colorado, where we were training in our ACUs up in the mountains. I couldn't believe how many times I lost my guys in the trees. I would emplace my 240 teams in one spot, my riflemen in another. I'd come back to check on them and I'd be at a loss to find them.
The main problem with people judging camo is that they typically can only get their hands on the chinese knockoffs. These use cheap synthetic dyes that contrast colors too much. A compounding issue is the use of garrison uniforms from surplus versus FRACs, which are printed on a darker, yellower and rougher weave of flame retardant fabric. Garrison-authorized ACUs are bright white/blue and gray. They fade quickly, rip easily and stick out like a sore thumb in Kentucky/Tennessee woods, yes. The FRACs fade to a darker yellow and gray after use. They retain red mudstains and darken as you wash them. In country the rough material picks up the Afghan soil and darkens them to a lighter brown, which again stains as you wash them.
FRAC Multicam is amazing. The rougher, darker material, the proper dyes and proper pattern lets it work exceedingly well in most environments. I'm talking woods to desert to woods all in one day. Chinese multicam is made with those shiny synthetic dyes that don't let multicam work the way its supposed to. There's too much tan and brown, not the green and white that makes it work so well. That's why guys in faux multicam look awkwardly tan in the woods, and stick out in the open because of all the horizontal brown stripes. The green and white wash out too much.
If you're going to Colorado- get some FRACUs. If you're on a budget...M82 Woodland is your best bet. If you can afford it, KLMK is like Russian multicam: it just does...things that make it work. In a building, it looks like a crayola green engaged in mortal combat with a monotonous gray game of tetris, but once youre in the woods, you disappear.
You'd be surprised what you can hit when you aim.
GHK all the way.
Acu is a good urban camo but when put in woodland it sticks out like a sore thumb. Now when u compare it to us woodland, multicam, and especially spectre and jsdf your just dumb really dumb for real. Now US woodland is a pretty good camoflague even though many people downgrade it.