astro
October 16, 2005, 6:55pm
1
Canadians assisted the US military by giving them development info on their licensed CADPAT camo, and later the US Military claims it just happened to create an extremely similar pattern from the ground up. It seems like the Marines might possibly have pulled a fast one.
Digital Camouflage History - Who did it first; Canada or the US?
Confirmation through the CADPAT Project Manager; MARPAT is indeed a direct derivative of CADPAT. The USMC apparently expressed considerable interest throughout the latter stages of CADPAT development. This interest peaked when scientific findings regarding the pattern’s efficacy indicated its superiority over every other temperate pattern currently fielded. The USMC was looking for a “distinctive” Corps uniform, and the CADPAT fit the bill perfectly. At the USMC’s request, the Canadian government “shared” CADPAT with the Corps under a bilateral military “Exchange Agreement”. Minor tweaking of the pattern (colours and shapes) apparently allowed the USMC to avoid paying the licensing fees associated with any use of the copy-righted Canadian pattern. This was done with full Canadian concurrence.
MARPAT - (short for MARine PATtern),
CADPAT, or Canadian disruptive pattern
The concept of using miniature swatches of color as opposed to large splotches is not a new concept; in World War II, German troops used various patterns similar to the current German Flecktarn, which involved similar small dabs of color on a uniform to provide camouflage. It is currently debated whether the MARPAT uniform was partially inspired by the Canadian Armed Forces CADPAT, also a digital camouflage pattern; it is believed by some that MARPAT is based on CADPAT, but the developers of MARPAT claim that they developed it independently of CADPAT.
If it was done “with full Canadian concurrence,” as your first link says, I hardly see how it can be considered “stealing.”
Of course we “borrowed” it from the Canadians. That is obvious. It was done with the full concurrence of the Canadian Government. The Marines who are claiming credit are just being disingenious. All was done to avoid paying fees, as the OP states. No huhu.
They are nice designs, though.