by Camo_fiend Wed Dec 15, 2010 6:38 pm
We had a "family of patterns" in the BDUs and later MARPAT... why can't the Army just swallow their pride and admit that the Marines got the "next-gen" camouflage idea right the first time? The only new thing they'd have to research and develop is the so-called "transitional" pattern. But overall, they'd save crap-tons of money by using an existing series of patterns with gear they already have.
They could combine aspects from both woodland and desert MARPAT to come up with the solution for the "transitional" pattern, and instead of using a whole other pattern for gear and webbing,etc. etc., they could stick to the coyote brown -- brown is found everywhere in nature, regardless of environment.
I think that the MARPAT (or a derivative thereof) needs to be standardised for US military personnel... if the Marines want to keep their pattern with the EGA insignia, so be it; just bring on a generalised version for everyone else (AOR2 or something comparable).
The Canadians debuted CADPAT some years ago with no problems, the Brits chose MTP and haven't looked back, and many other countries have made the leap into new patterns with no significant problems; has anyone else noticed we're the only country that seems to be having so much trouble with our "next generation" camouflage uniforms?