Project Sciurus

Has anybody heard of the above project? Looks to have been running in 2003?!

Managed to bag the attached smock. Interestingly it is the exact same material as the old cotton garberdine woodland smocks only with Canadian buttons.



Brand New and still sealed, I had to cut into it to get it out.



Only visual difference I can see are that the pockets are not angled and the use of Canadian style buttons.



Pocket on left shoulder. No field dressing pocket on right arm.



Inside is identical to the older smocks and the newer ones in MTP



No NSN number or Test wording just 'Modified'

I have noticed on E-bay that there a set on woodland trousers in the same packaging etc as above. Could it have been a review of the UK's Windproofs pre PECOC to bring them up to S95 standard? Thats just a guess ?

Not heard of this before, seems to have been kept pretty well under wraps.

One interesting thing to note that "sciurus" is a genus of squirrels. And since no one had heard of this effort, it was a "secret squirrel" project.



Witty, those project name planners...

Ha ha ha agree Ben. Very nice item to say the least, very well made. I can only presume this project encompassed Woodland DP as there is a set of windproof trousers on eBay for £100 which is steep to say the smock was less than half that!!! The chap selling the trousers also states he had never heard of the project or can't find any sort of info on it....

Very neat piece indeed. Looks to be a well-made smock. Also interesting to note there are no rank epaulets anywhere on the item, either.

Good shout that Ben, I totally missed it!!! Pre Tantalus????

Not sure... I'm not as up to snuff on British kit as I once was, prior to all this hi-speed cool guy gear coming out as of late. I've seen, but am not familiar with, any of the Tantalus kit.

Add into that all these PECOC variants and newly-discovered in-between prototype pieces, and it's gotten to be a right mess!

AH but it is not a mess, it is what makes up a collectors dream in 20 year's time. Limited availability, no documentation, stuff available in packets, Latin nomenclature. What more could you ask for? And, as a bonus, secret squirrel too!

Hmm interesting! Never heard of that, and very interesting not to have an NSN...

Agree George, very different to the Coneen Watts & Stone bags which we all recently received...this was vacume packed. Totally sealed.

I was thinking pre tantalus, also in 2003 we were in Afgan could this have been a sort of pre PECOC but then binned? I may be wrong here but in 2003 were the Royal Marines in Tora Bora/Mountains of Afgan? Interesting the only items I have seen are all windproof! Baffled with this one!!

very possible Lee! on second glance of the label there seems to be some form of nsn, although i cant for the life of me find any NATO Supply Classification Code (the first 4 numbers) that begin with zero. '99' is obviously British but everything else is guess work.

Thanks George, it may just have to be put down to one of those projects, nobody has heard of?! There are 3 smocks left all 190/112 on the site, £40 + p&p...

Woodland Smock to accompany the Desert DPM.