PECOC Desert UBAC

I have some other PECOC and Trial pieces to add, I will try get these on tomorrow night. Happy to answer questions or if anybody wants any specific pics....let me know !

Managed to obtain a couple more. One UBAC is the same as above but I would class grade 2 and the other is identical in style but feels like FR material. The colour is a deeper yellow, apologies on the pics but it resembles the old DDPM FR material used on Aircrew Smocks, shirts etc...

Neat!  Are you saying that the fabric is different between these two even though they are both labeled "Type B"?  Isn't it a bit odd to vary something that major without having be called a different type?  Do you have an example of Type A or know if there's more types than the two?

Steve

It's a very fair point. Type B seems to have 3 variants so far as the top UBAC has brown Velcro, the one below, same material, same style has black Velcro?! I would presume there is a Type A but have not seen any of these..

That is odd. Maybe they used the velcro to determine which one is which? Or perhaps they tracked things on paper. "PFC Jones, you got the one with the fire retardant cloth. So what did you think of it?".

It might be that there was no Type A put in production. When doing this sort of thing there's two administrative choices... make the designations at the time of specs or make the designations at the time of production. Our exploration of the PECOC program seems to indicate the method was at the time of specs.

The difference here is that on paper there was a Type A and perhaps Type C or greater, but they chose only Type B for production. Once production started the items were assigned Type B even though they were, effectively, the only one to go into production on any scale that mattered.

Other countries, such as the US, seem to do the designation at the time of production. There could be a dozen types considered on paper, but once production started the final candidates were given designations related to the options selected. For example the program to improve ACU/UCP involved two uniforms designated TEST A and TEST B. There were probably a lot more than that considered, but were not assigned the same nomenclature as the ultimate production run.

A hybrid possibility also exists. It could be that the UK produced 10 Test A, 10 Test B, and 10 Test C examples, then selected Test B for large scale trials while rejecting the other two. Therefore, technically there is a Test A and a Test C, but in reality none of them got outside of the lab (so to speak). Again, the US seems to be prone to renaming the successful design while it could be that the Brits just kept on with what they originally assigned it.

Speculation of course, but it's important to remember that things might not be as they seem

Steve

Interesting point Steve. Makes a lot of sense!

Another PECOC UBAC acquired, interestingly this has a label on.