Dutch early 90's DPM (NL Woodland) trial items

And now I've finally found another vest, but actually with the original belt, and not missing any parts.
I think t's the first one I've seen with actual series markings.

Also came with 2 trial maintenance kit pouches, a trial shovel pouch, and 2 nontrial pouches for the FAL and maintenance kit.

BTW if anyone's into this stuff I have an extra FAL magpouch, small utility pouch and a shovelpouch

Finally found an actual trial uniform piece.
This is like a version inbetween the normal combat jacket and a parka, it still has the chestpockets of the normal "Basis Jas" type, but also the lower type pockets of the parka, and unlike the singlelayer Basis Jas this jacket actually has a thin lining and some pockets in there.

Finally managed to find something again, inclusing probably the biggest piece of trial fieldgear made at the time.

First an A-series trial rig, part of the set the body armor and backpack shown on page 1 with the same nylon gear-attachment strips.
And also a holster, which interestingly has a series marking, this is almost never seen on pouches, and the green webbing strip at the back is of thinner more synthetic material than
the other pouches I have, which might identify some other pouches I have as part of the C-series of trialgear. (I'll post pics of these further below)







And then the big one, a trial backpack that apparently was only for issue to commando's.
It has a sort of emergency release system, not sure how it works or what detaches exactly, but I don't really know if I can just put it back together afterwards.
On the front of the shoulderstraps are also 2 pouches, as well as on the waistbelt, the latter ones seem to be about the size for a C7 magazine.

Ah I almost forgot to post the pics of the Uzi pouches entirely. Here they are though, not sure if they actually are trial C-series, or trial at all though,
but the very specific material at the back is too much of a coincidence in my opinion.

Ok so it isn't camo like the thread title mentiona, but it's still from the family of A-series trial armors. Whether it's an actual trial item or something meant for a specific issue since this actually has an NSN inside, I don't
know, but the NSN code seems to be created in 1989 so that does place it in the correct timeperiod.

Another C-series armor cover, almost the same as the other, but on the previous the strips to attach pouches to the front and back have been removed, as well as the straps at the shoulders to attach a rotota cargobag, leaving just the snapbuttons at the back.
This one never had any of that altogether.

Not camo, but still part of the same trial. Some B-series pouches, 2 FAL magazinepouches and a pouch for eye protection

Foundsome more stuff:

Toiletry pouch, ballistic goggles pouch, WZI pouch (for a canister of water purifying tablets) and a cutlery pouch.




I also found a small type beretbadge that was trialled in the same years. There were only a few badges tested that were versions used by Airmobile Brigade units.
It's about half the size of normal ones.
The other badges are not trial items but all old 50's stuff tha came in on the same day.




And I also found this layout photo of the old trial equipment with what's meant to go in them and have now configured my set in the same way but with the FAL magpouches attached instead of the UZI ones.

Aaaaand yet more armor variants.

First an A-series vest cover.






And then a C-series vest cover.

Found something of the poopbrown rubber equipment again, the rotota bag, it has different clips than the camo versions.

All amazing stuff, I'm surprised there's so much still to be found. The rucksack and rigs/harnesses are particularly interesting.

Yeah this stuff appears every now and then, plus it's not even very expensive either.
Now I still really want to find the harness type with D-rings at the front of the shoulders which attach to this bag

So were the brown rubber components all limited trials items?

As far as I know there are only trial items with this material yes, unless I'm forgetting about something

Very striking colour! I have never come across any of that stuff.

I'm not surprised, it is quite rare here too, it appears way less than the camo stuff, mostly just magazinepouches of this set come up for sale, this is the first Rotota I've seen

Since you found the Rotota, it stands to reason that the full range of components were manufactured in brown rubber.

Yeah well at least magpouches, the small square (cleaningkit) pouch, gogglepouch, rotota and backpack, I don't think I've seen anything else yet, though theoretically here could be more to make it a set like the camo stuff, like a shovelpouch, canteenpouch, pouch for water purifying kit, uzi pouch, maybe even a gasmaskbag, who knows what else was there, I've yet to see any documentation on the brown stuff.
I mean there also was a camo set in this (or similar) material but the only things I've seen were from a museum collection, here are their pics:





Oh and they also have a backpack in green, so maybe there's more pouches in green too, maybe they meant to make a full set around the already issued green rubbery stuff.

Neat pieces. I am sure that more are hiding in warehouse crates somewhere waiting to be discovered.

I sure hope so, I still need stuff to go with this brown gear, and I'd like some more very early A-series stuff for on my harness

Adding this one since I apparently never did before, eventhough it has the same NSN as the green vest from post 31 this is actually in Jigsaw camo in actual Belgian colors, unlike the early 80's rainsuit as used in Lebanon or the Marine Corps M83 pattern.
This NSN seems to have been added to databases in 1989, but it could actually have been made later.

That's interesting! It has an NSN, so that rules out non-military police units.

I wonder if the reason for using this cloth is because they were testing the cloth itself and so the camouflage pattern was not relevant?

I don't know when the Belgians started experimenting with ripstop cloth, but the first production items were 1997 from what I remember. Because the item was experimental it was probably easier to keep the existing NSN and just have the cloth changed out.

Steve

Found something again, a C-series backpack, in cut it's basically the same as the B-series brown pack.