The Opposite of Camouflage...

[Craig]

A 5 BILLION dollar mistake? From 2004? I'm shocked!



The military has a major pixelation problem, and it doesn't involve computers. New reports suggest that the U.S. Army's pixelated camo uniform, introduced in 2004, is actually a monumental $5 billion blunder. Industry insiders are calling this a "fiasco," and many are enraged that the Army took eight years to address the issue....

...Not only are the pixelated camouflage uniforms highly visible in their own right, but because the U.S. was bogged down fighting two wars, supply lines dragged, and many Army soldiers had the new pixelated gray-green fatigues, but old-school gear. So "soldiers were running around with desert-colored clothing, but their backpacks, vests, and body-armor would be colored differently with black or green,"....

http://theweek.com/article/index/229924/how-pixelated-uniforms-turned-soldiers-into-walking-targets

 

[GordonGecko]

If it was 1/100ths of that on some domestic program, the "fiscal conservatives" would be going ape-s**t and demanding massive cuts in non-defense spending because of it.

 

[Craig]

If it was 1/100ths of that on some domestic program, the "fiscal conservatives" would be going ape-s**t and demanding massive cuts in non-defense spending because of it.

That Rummy...he sure did help us out during his tenure of war god...

 

[trapdoor]

Since the 1970s, the Army has redesigned the combat uniform about every 10 years. That's about how long the current pixilated uniform has been in use. The goal was to design a multi-environment uniform so that the DA could avoid the expense of issuing different uniforms for different environments -- for example, Woodland Camouflage for wooded or jungle environments, and desert camouflage for sandy ones, as was done in the 1980s. The current pixilated uniform is at best OK for achieving this goal, and it is a legitimate criticism that a lot of what soldiers call "web gear" (the harnesses and belts that carry a soldier's equipment in combat) took some time to catch up. Now most combat troops are equipped with the LBV (Load Bearing Vest) that matches the camouflage, and it is apt to match fairly well with the next-generation camouflage, which will also feature some sort of pixilation (but will probably be higher in contrast to help break up the soldier's profile.) There was an interesting article about this not long ago in Slate magazine.