I thought it was odd when the Air Force switched to the same camoflauge uniforms as the Army, but thought it was just the DOD simplifying its procurement. But then the Air Force came out with their own camoflauge pattern.
Now the Navy is considering its camoflauge uniform, to replace the blue dungarees. The article llinked said it’s not to conceal the sailors, but rather the stains that he or she aquires.
I find this dubious for two reasons:
Regardless of what uniform you wear, its going to get trashed during sea duty. The time-honored procedure is to keep a nice one in your locker for inspections, and use the rest for bilge crawling.
An advantage of camoflauge pattern is that it breaks up the body’s clear outline, so that even if you’re not standing among bushes you make a harder target to zero in on in an open area. Navy corpsmen who go into combat areas wear the same cammies as the Marines they accompany for this reason. With the war on terrorism it only makes sense to make sailors and airmen less of a sniper’s target.
It just seems disingenuous. There’s a sad day in almost every serviceman’s enlistment, regardless of his branch, when he realizes that his purpose might be to be killed, and not for love of country but rather because of the fact that somebody, somewhere really fucked up bigtime. So why not just tell him that’s the reason he’s being put in camoflauge, and not to conceal stains and wrinkles?
Huh. I would never have thought that Navy crews on board ship would have any use for camouflage uniforms—I figured their only point was to conceal people among shadowy bushes and such.
I see your point, though, that they might also be useful in blurring body outlines even against other types of background. But are you sure that that’s what the brass were thinking when they instituted them? Militaries have always had this dual aim of practicality and lookin’ sharp when it comes to uniforms, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that the management had in fact decided that sailors should wear camouflage just because it shows the dirt less.
We did? AFAIK, we’ve been wearing the standard BDU pattern since the 80s. True, there’s talk that Gen. Jumper is changing the “new” pattern from those horrid blue ‘tiger stripes’ to a digital pattern, but it’ll be based off the USMC and AUS digital patterning–which seems to me that all we’re doing is just changing the colors of the pixels.
You lost me here, and this seems more like a political statement than a legitimate complaint. We all know that if someone fucks up, it could kill people, and that’s what gives us all the “team concept”. Granted, our orders and strategic objectives are directed by politicians and may not make sense, but by God, we’ll get it done.
Your link still doens’t work for me, so I can’t see what your new threads look like, but I will agree with the one statement you made that it will “hide the stains he or she acquires”. Hell, if that fuckin’ hydraulic fluid stains my otherwise decent uniform, I’m out $60 for a new set of BDUs.
If the Air Force or Navy wants to save me $60, by all means, I’d let 'em do it. And I’d let them make a few practical upgrades to the uniforms while they’re at it.
Yep. The enlisted guys and gals get an allowance every year. Officers don’t.
Uniforms cost around $60 for a blouse and trousers. That doesn’t include your rank, nametapes, underwear, socks, or boots (although, in most of the units I’ve seen, the boots have been issued–steel toed boots). So, on any given day, you’re wearing about $100 worth clothes.
And yeah, if you get a nasty stain, rip, tear, or otherwise present an unprofessional image, you gotta buy a new set ‘o’ threads.
Tripler
But at least they give me squadron patches.
As far as I know the Air Force and Navy uniforms are still in the test phase. The new Army uniform is going to be fielded next year and the Marines already have theirs.
I have know idea where this is coming from. The new Air Force BDUs are supposed to be blue. To camoflauge them from what? When they get catapulted into the sky? The AF and USN are doing it for a sense of branch identity. Seems like a stupid idea to me. The Navy does need new uniforms but a blue camo is idiotic. The Navy has too many types of uniforms so simplifying their uniforms will save a lot of money for the sailors just not this way.
I hope to hell the Navy gets rid of the dungarees. The all-cotton ones we were issued in boot camp lost their crispness and faded pretty quickly; the synthetic ones we could buy on our own got trashed pretty easily and were hot and uncomfortable.
I agree. I hated the dungaree uniform when I was in, and I don’t think it’s changed since then, so that definitely needs to change. Some kind of a BDU-style uniform would be fine, but WTF does the Navy need camo for?
They are using both. Coveralls for ship and dengarees for shore (I think its a little different than the old dungaree uniform). Some also get Army style BDUs for Joint duty. So yes its a mess. Too many uniforms to maintain and buy.