2008 Multicam contract piece?

Hi guys!

I have a 2009 contract set of Multicam and the evidence suggested it was one of the first, if not the first, production run of the uniform. The trials didn't take place until mid/late 2009 either. However, today I received an unissued jacket which has a 2008 contract date. It's made by American Apparel, has what looks to be a legitimate contract number, and is marked "authorized by the Program Executive Office Soldier".

Since this is well ahead of the 2009 law requiring the Army to evaluate a replacement for UCP, could it be this was made explicitly for Special Forces? AFAIK they were the only US forces wearing this stuff in 2008.

OR...

Is this an example of an existing contract, awarded for UCP, being switched over to Multicam? To me this seems the more logical explanation.

Thoughts?

Steve

I know that Crye Multicam uniforms were in the trials in the early 2000s (2003/2004) when we decided on the digital pattern (UCP). Was told that Crye was not selected because they didn't want to sell the copyright to the Army. OCP (Multicam) has been around for a little while now. (Possible that it's USAF SOCOM issued as I think they've used it longer than the Army.) I know there are still SF units that still don't have OCP issued.

I currently only have three sets of OCP uniforms and none have a date of manufacture in them. Manufactures include Proper (Lot P04/P17), American Apperal (Lot ?-17), Bluewater Defense (no lot number), and Puerto Rico Apparel Manufacturing (Lot PR03).

The unit I came to had OCP issued in 2009 already.

Yeah, the "Skorpian" pattern (that was what the US Army called Multicam) is clearly marked as a CCU (Close Combat Uniform) with typical CCU features. These were made in 2003 only.

I'd be surprised if the jacket I am wondering bout was really made in 2008. If it was I'd expect it to have some sort of experimental designation somewhere on the tag. I'm not sure how common it is for a manufacturer to use old tags or existing contract numbers for new manufacture, but that is my guess. Specifically, they switched over production and continued to use existing stocks of tags previously intended for UCP uniforms.

Steve

I did some more research. The NSN is the same one used for current issue stuff. It resolves correctly when doing a NSN database check.

On the other hand, the NSN on my 2009 dated set is identical to the one found on UCP-D. And if you try looking that one up in the NSN database you get a "not found" result because the NSN has a letter in it, which is non-standard.

To me this says the 2008 marked jacket uses, as I previously guessed, a pre-Mulitcam contract number. Which means it was not produced in 2008.

BTW, the jacket in question has "Perimeter Insect Guard" protection, my 2009 example does not. Instead that one has special tags for "Defender" (fire resistant).

Steve

Mine have both Insect Guard and Fire Resistant tags.

First curiosity which NSN database you were using?

Second curiosity. You said the NSN had a letter in it. Was that on a printed tag? I know we use a letter for non-standard items but I've never seen it used on an item that was, for lack of a better word, being used officially by the Army. Usually it's for COTS (commerical off the shelf) items that we need but aren't in the supply system normally.