Experimental slant pocket BDU

A few months ago I bought this interesting piece. The badging on it appears to be 100% original to the uniform, though the original unit badge on the left arm was 2 ID. Anybody know anything about it?

Steve

Nice!

Never seen it before but due to the labels I'd date it early 80s. Maybe a pre-BDU shirt...

That is my working assumption. I am thinking this MIGHT have been a trials inbetween "Transitional ERDL" (aka RDF) and M81 BDU. I forgot to mention that it has the waist adjustment tabs on it, so it is definitely earlier than... what... 1984 or so? I can't remember when the tabs were dropped from BDUs.

Steve

CollectinSteve wrote:I forgot to mention that it has the waist adjustment tabs on it, so it is definitely earlier than... what... 1984 or so? I can't remember when the tabs were dropped from BDUs.

Steve

Original contract (elvis collar) M81 BDUs didn't have waist tabs. They were added in the mid '80s along with a narrower collar. The waist tabs were dropped sometime after 1992 (but the elvis collars have not returned).

Not too sure what to make of the pockets, bu have to say the tags look fake. Stitching is horrible, as well as the ink stamping which is of such crappy quality. While I am no expert, I've not seen these types of labels in use by any of the USG entities. No contract number, no NSN, etc.. And the "Director(ate) of Manufacturing"? Whose "Directorate"? The "BDU,S" is another flag. Along with the comma rather than an apostrophe. While the uniform might have been altered at one point by the soldier wearing it, me thinks the tags were added later to make it seem more rare and exotic.

Thanks for the follow ups.

This could be early 1980s. Though when exactly did "Dir. of MFG." cease to be? Was it in 1992 when the ARL was created to consolidate research?

If Directorate of Manufacturing existed until 1992 then the most likely case is this jacket was made in the mid 1980s, after the introduction of waist tabs. Considering that the jacket looks like a standard production jacket with the otherwise minor modification of having the pockets tilted, it makes sense that this didn't take place before mid 1980s. My guess is someone suggested the move to horizontal pockets was a mistake and they wanted to play around with reverting to a slant style.

Mid production tests are fairly common. I have a 3 color DCU with no lower pockets and pockets on the arms instead. IIRC it was 1997. DoD contract numbers and I got it from someone who got them directly from the factory. I have a Woodland one as well.

Hovie,

The pocket configuration is 100% factory done, not post issue modification. Even if someone took a brand new, unissued, jacket and moved the pockets it would be easy to see signs of that.

The tags look legit to me, both in terms of style and information on them. Numbers are only assigned when the items get out of initial testing, so it would actually bother me if they were present "Dir. of MFG." is commonly seen on items from the 1960s and 1970s, so there's no problem there.

From what I can see the tag info is saying this is Experimental Coat type BDU subtype S. Standard Military love of the comma "S" could stand for "Slant" or "Special" or something else.

The red pen mark on the label is most likely for some internal tracking purpose. Perhaps marking items returned for a particular phase of evaluation, for example.

Steve

The patch on the left sleeve is the 194th AR BDE (current designation, may have been TF 194th before), formerly a unit out of FT Knox, KY. 194th, from what I remember, was an oddball unit. I believe they fell under TRADOC but were set up like a FORSCOM task force or cavalry squadron. Combination of Abrams, Bradleys, Paladin, and all supporting elements in one unit. Disbanded, I think, in the mid-90s.

194th later replaced the 1st Armored Training Brigade which transitioned to FT Benning, GA with the BRAC move in 2011.

As for the coat itself, not sure there. Tags are unlike anything I've seen but I'm not into experimental or trial run uniforms. I have seen similar experimental tags from the late 90s/early 2000s on equipment out of Natick (Soldier Shade Screens). From the time period shouldn't it have had the split upper pockets?

Real.

Tags are of the same standard found in the last small issue run of the reversible BDU's on operation urban warrior.

Experimental garments and tags mean nothing when you get down to very very small run items. I have items from Natick with only size tags, tags with no NATO or NSN or stock numbers.

More good info. Note I made a boo-boo in my post and accidentally typed "1990s" instead of "1980s". I fixed that.

The 194th sounds just like the type of unit that would receive an experimental uniform. In fact, they were created specifically to test out experimental stuff. The timeframe seems right too. Here's a detailing of what the 194th went through in it's time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/194th_Armored_Brigade_(United_States)

The tags look very good to me for a small test run. Larger runs usually got at least one or more standard tags, even if the information wasn't correct.

The head of clothing research probably called up one of the existing manufacturers, said "hey, can we have 200 jackets made with the pockets slanted only, no other differences?" The manufacturer said "sure, but we have to get specialized pins and retool our sewing machines to sew on the diagonal. $1,000,000 should cover it and we can have it done in 1 year". In the end it cost $2,000,000 and they were delivered 4 years late, at which point they was no need for them. Instead of embarrassing the General who ordered the uniforms made, when he was a Colonel, the uniforms were issued with instructions to "wear them out as fast as possible, then burn them".

Howz that for a theory

Getting back to being serious...

The fact these don't have split pockets, and use standard M81 Woodland cloth, clearly indicates it was made after 1981. Since the waist tabs weren't a feature right away, it was probably made sometime in the late 1980s. Could be as early as mid 1980s or as late as early 1990s.

I'm glad I picked this up!

Steve

I didn't think you ever left serious... I can actually see your theory running that way. Remember the warehouse full of black berets when we first went to them because of who they made by?

I'm not positive (getting old in my young age) but I think I had slit pocket BDUs issued to me in 89/90 when I first came in. I know I had Elvis collars and definately had waiste tabs. But I specifically remember ironing my pockets and hating the slit. But, that could have been in my former life also.

Interesting tidbits guys. I love learning something new, and quite frankly would have wrote off those tags, as I did, as an attempt to fake something up!

Is it me or the photo, the US ARMY and name tags look Asian made too ?

I've had a think on the date of this. It's not early 80's or even late 70's as the pocket bellow would be Nam/RDF style, like early desert cammies. The cloth seems to be later 80's as early stuff nearly always shows blacks as purples like Nam tiger stripes do. So I would put this mid to late 80's.

bravo_2_zero wrote:Is it me or the photo, the US ARMY and name tags look Asian made too ?

1st SF Group based in Japan.

downboy wrote:

bravo_2_zero wrote:Is it me or the photo, the US ARMY and name tags look Asian made too ?

1st SF Group based in Japan.

If there was a 2ID SSI on the left sleeve, then it is more likely the tapes were done in Korea. Then again, they could have been done in any tailor/laundry shop outside base stateside too. In which they are mostly ran by Koreans. Now that I think about it, I can't recall any in my years that were run by non-asians. Many of my tapes I had made off post looked just like this.

I'll ask some of my buddies who were in the "$1.94", "Dollar 94" in the early 80's if they remember being issued trial patterns of the BDU like this.

Good eyeballs on the tapes. Yeah, they look done overseas somewhere. The theory of ROK makes a lot of sense. Fits all the pieces at least.

Tenewel, if you were issued split pocket BDUs in the late 1980s you were issued some old stuff. Split pockets were played around with from 1976 to 1980 or 1981 (I forget). Were you deployed to a warm climate? That would make some sense.

One thing is sure. This example came from a VERY limited batch. I think if they made these in larger numbers we would know about it (and they would have different tags).

Steve

Like I said, my pea brain might be remembering wrong about the split pockets. Only reason it sticks out in my mind is I remember ironing them and getting pissy because they never seemed to iron out evenly. I always thought they looked lopsidded when I was done.

I went to OSUT at FT Benning in JUN 89. I do have one reasonable explanation. In JAN 92 I went to SFAS. I was issued four sets of "training" BDUs which happened to be in better condition than the four sets I took there. I know I switched out a couple of the sets to update mine. 100% sure one of the jackets was an Elvis collar.

Not sure if that's where they came from or not. I'll have to dig through the duffles the next time I'm back in Iowa to see if I still have them.

Other explanation is I've finally hit old enough (or blown up enough) to begin having false memories. Damn I'm too young for that crap.

Interesting piece.Too bad jump wing badge missing.

I'll have to haul it out, but I don't think there were any jump wings or other tidbits on it. Which is odd, come to think of it. There should be some thing/s for a guy of this rank and occupation. Maybe with all those stripes he felt he didn't need to impress anybody further?

Steve