WWII camouflage

WWII camouflage

Ah! That is a very nice condition British gas cape. I know very little about it, but I do have one myself.

Steve

Hello
For that I have understand, this garment was built as camouflage for using in Libya desert
Gilles

Very nice and unusual item,is there any makers marks or dates in the garment,what's it made off,and finally sorry for all the questions ,but I'm finding this garment very interesting

Hello
I have not see marking
Very light material
Gilles

vonstuck wrote:Hello
I have not see marking
Very light material
Gilles

ok thanks,the material does look very thin ,cool item and thanks again

I don't know where mine is, but I don't think it has any markings. As Gilles said, it is extremely light weight cotton. I have always heard this referred to as a "gas cape", but I don't see how it could be. It's not rubberized and has not designed to enclose the soldier in any meaningful way.

Steve

CollectinSteve wrote:I don't know where mine is, but I don't think it has any markings. As Gilles said, it is extremely light weight cotton. I have always heard this referred to as a "gas cape", but I don't see how it could be. It's not rubberized and has not designed to enclose the soldier in any meaningful way.

Steve

Thanks Steve, good point,sounds like another case of weird British catergorising of kit to me

vonstuck wrote:

Wow,where on earth did you manage to pick this up....super rare..absolutely amazing!!!!!!!!!

Korea war

Nice Korean War picture of Windproof being worn.


Heres the story on the "Desert"

1980s England a dealer - collector got hold of a whole batch of the gas capes in mint condition.
They were then boiled clean of the coating , then they were bleached.

Then they were sold at various military fairs as a never seen before desert LLDG camouflage cape.

Every one I have seen is always the same , the popers are very fragile .......the fabric delicate.

A VERY advanced British Dennison collector spilled the beans on this story to me about 5 years ago.
He witnessed the first showing of these by the maker in the 80s.

They look great though but a modern fake using vintage capes.


owen

Well, that's not very nice!

Gilles' cape (and mine), however, show a printed pattern on them. Bleaching wouldn't do that.

Anybody have a pic of the standard anti-gas cape? Especially one spread open like in Gilles' pictures?

Steve

Steve ,
with all due respect , thats the story on them , I know its hard news as one wants to believe , but like the tooth fairy its an item that was messed with to fool .


owen

Easy Gee wrote:

vonstuck wrote:

Wow,where on earth did you manage to pick this up....super rare..absolutely amazing!!!!!!!!!

Very very jealous of that!!!!

Trs very common and can be bought reasonably priced,smocks on the other hand do pop up(not uber rare) but go for stupid money on Ebay(like most stuff these days).

I traded a used smock and a pair of unissued trs a good few years back when prices werent stupid and regret it now

kammo-man wrote:Nice Korean War picture of Windproof being worn.


Heres the story on the "Desert"

1980s England a dealer - collector got hold of a whole batch of the gas capes in mint condition.
They were then boiled clean of the coating , then they were bleached.

Then they were sold at various military fairs as a never seen before desert LLDG camouflage cape.

Every one I have seen is always the same , the popers are very fragile .......the fabric delicate.

A VERY advanced British Dennison collector spilled the beans on this story to me about 5 years ago.
He witnessed the first showing of these by the maker in the 80s.

They look great though but a modern fake using vintage capes.


owen

So they were originally camo for woods/greenside terrain then this collector decided to bleach them to become a "rare" desert pattern?!

kammo-man wrote:Steve ,
with all due respect , thats the story on them , I know its hard news as one wants to believe , but like the tooth fairy its an item that was messed with to fool .


owen

Hello
I have never see this garment with other colors than pink except the one of Santiago: http://perso.wanadoo.es/camouniforms/uk.htm
But it is over dyed and paint!
Gilles

kammo-man wrote:Steve ,
with all due respect , thats the story on them , I know its hard news as one wants to believe , but like the tooth fairy its an item that was messed with to fool .


owen

You missed my point. I don't doubt the story you recounted here. It's entirely plausible and I have no reason to doubt someone would do something like that. What I'm doing is asking some specific questions. First, how would someone make a camouflage pattern on the cloth itself? Boiling and bleaching can not do that. It's physically impossible. So what is the explanation for the clear camouflage pattern, original to the cloth, that is seen in Gilles' pictures?

Second, I am unfamiliar with the capes that were boiled and bleached. What would be quite useful to do is compare the design of the standard cape with the one in Gilles' pictures. If there are any significant differences in the construction that too would need to be explained.

In short, these two things need to be explained before the capes Gilles and I have can be dismissed as fakes based on hearsay alone.

Steve

Its a WW2 gas cape that was messed with .

Its NOT hearsay ....its direct from the horses mouth .

Go to the WAF and look up the old thread .

Its a shame really as they really have the Look .


owen

I believe what Owen is trying to say is , these gas capes came from the factory camouflaged , tanish base with Russet brown patches , some jackass in the 70's or 80's got a stock of them , bleached them and came up with the whole special Afrika version story to make some bucks , from what I have seen these "special capes" were not even known about before this guy started selling them, Kinda like the myth of the Waffen SS Afrika Zeltbahn that is actually post war Egyptian.
They are real faded/Bleached Camouflage anti gas capes made by the British during WWII.

So they were originally camo for woods/greenside terrain then this collector decided to bleach them to become a "rare" desert pattern?!

In a nutshell YES !

If he would have left them alone they would now be worth more!!!

greed is a beast .

kammo-man wrote:Its a WW2 gas cape that was messed with .

That does appear to be the case (I checked out the WAF thread now that you've cited it). Thanks for the clarification.

I wonder why there is so little information about the unaltered ones? Surely there must be a bunch lying around somewhere.

Its NOT hearsay ....its direct from the horses mouth .

Unless there's something else you haven't cited, that WAF thread doesn't contain anything "direct from the horse's mouth". All that is there is a story from a guy who knew a guy who got duped by some guy in Belgium. It fits the definition of "hearsay" because the guy on WAF is recounting a story about actions he wasn't directly involved in. Whether the story is true or not is not the issue.

Even if the story is true (and I do believe it is), let's not forget that one guy knowing a guy that had something happen to him doesn't necessarily mean it's an open and shut case. For example:

"I know a guy who took a thousand or so surplussed 3 color DCUs from Ft. Hood and had some cheap company in Mexico modify them to have pockets on the arms SOF style. Because of this pretty much all DCUs you see that are modified are faked."

Sound plausible? Definitely. True? Could very well be, even though I just made it up But does that mean that all modified uniforms out on the market now are faked? Certainly not. So even if the facts are true in general, it doesn't mean that x item in y person's collection is covered by the story. Which is why facts are needed to back up a story. Or at least enough information that it looks "most likely" to be true. And that's how I look at this gas cape story. The evidence isn't very strong, but it's certainly stronger than the evidence that such a desert cape exists for real.

Its a shame really as they really have the Look .

Yes, definitely a shame. Fortunately I didn't pay hardly anything for mine so I'm not broken up about it

Personally, I don't have any problem with something in my collection turning out to be not what it should be. But I don't toss things out until I know for (near) absolute sure. Why? Because I can not count how many times someone insists that something is or isn't "real" and it turns out they are wrong about a particular item (even if they are correct in a general sense). The absence of proof is always tough to reconcile, but if someone makes a tangible claim then there should be some proof or a lack of counter evidence. This is the case with the gas cape... there's more info about them being faked than being real, so faked seems to be the most likely case.

Anybody want to buy mine?

Steve

Steve ,
when Guy emailed me the back story ........the one which names names and directly fingers the original fakes things can get real angry real quick.
We both know its almost open warfare on the WAF.
Guy is beyond covering his ass ....in a positive way.
Politics go WAY beyond a simple little gas cape in the world of advanced British camouflage collecting.
I know you will understand this.
owen