Not always a bad thing.
U.S. Army 1st Lt. Patrick Higgins surveys a village from a cliff while Spc. Aaron Trapley, Sgt. Gary Fordyce and Sgt. Nicholas Gauthier provide sniper overwatch and security during a foot patrol near Forward Operating Base Mizan, Afghanistan, Feb. 23, 2009. The soldiers are assigned to 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Christopher S. Barnhart
I think the old woodland pattern woulda stood out against those rocks.
Have a great weekend!
Grumpy
Never mind the "Hunting Orange," who's watching the back door?
You can see the original here.
Funny thing is, in the full picture you see... woodland pattern camouflage on the guy guarding the back door, who apparently is armed with an RPK.
And doing crunches.
Or not.
Grey pixels work well in grey pixilated rocks.
In beige terrain, *not* well. Come to think of it, in *any* terrain that's not grey, *not* well.
Scary, isn't it?
Next thing you know, I'll be identifying fiddly bits in John's gun pron "whazzit" pictures....
I just saw on Yahoo! that the Kiowa crash that killed four soldiers last month (including one from the KC area) was caused by enemy fire - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090227/ap_on_re_us/soldiers_killed_helicopters_3
Thank you Steve, for that breaking news report.
AFSis... izzat a challenge?
Then again, if it were a real situation, and someone was undisciplined enough to be taking a photo from that angle, you would be hard pressed to see the carefully dispersed and camouflaged indivduals.
cheers
beth:
"It would be cool if they could make uniforms that would change color tone with the surroundings..."
That's what mud and dust are for. A grunt aint camouflaged proper until he's dirted up with the local color.
Correct on both counts, beth.
We made an "invisible" OH-6 in the '70s and Land Warrior 21 featured a uniform that functioned pretty much like the alien's suit in Predator.
The "invisible" LOH had electrical problems and the Land Warrior uniform just had problems -- not the least of which were that it was too fragile to be worn in the field and it was battery-powered, so it was *heavy*.
Then you guys won't clash with the drapes.
Or need to roll around in the mud for the same effect.
The difference between us and the boys and girls who wear some form of blue, is that we green/grey clad types see that as a feature... not a bug.
Please remember, this is the US military we're talking about. You know, the same folk who can manage to deliver stockpiles of jungle boots to troops stationed in the arctic and cargo plane loads of compressed sponges to troops that are in need of winter sleeping bags and such like.
Gotta keep it simple. Real simple.
John of Argghhh!:
Yep. I do remember when in the field, if the pattern on our cammies could still be seen, "you ain't doin' it right". And a good way to earn a cauliflower ear from an NCO was to do that fancy boy face paint. The shiny stuff, mixed with bug juice, that sparkled so nicely in the dark, and tended to get applied in all manner of pretty stripes and such, from just above the eyebrows and down the side-burn line and along the jaw line.
I remember one young Marine getting squared away on face/head cammie by a Sgt who said "If I can see any piece of your skin anywhere above your shoulders or collar bones, I'm gonna stick my bayonet in it."
In February of 1970, we got a Conex delivery of parkas, winter-weight wool overpants, insulated boots, and skis.
We were in the Mekong Delta.
This is *combat*! You're *supposed* to clash!
We were in the Mekong Delta."
-BillT
Someone up in logistics probably thought y'all might need to redeploy toward Vladivostok or some such. If you dug around enough, you'd probably find a grunt unit in your AO got a delivery of military issue Spanish to English dictionary for the same reason lol.
Or, maybe it was a IG inspection inbound to a log unit and they needed to get rid of stuff that wasn't supposed to be in their warehouse.
As I understand it, that's exactly what some hunters do, since they know precisely when and where they will be hunting, whereas military camouflage is designed the way it is purely so that they can get away with only a few different patterns/color schemes to cover most of the world.
[BillT]In February of 1970, we got a Conex delivery of parkas, winter-weight wool overpants, insulated boots, and skis.
We were in the Mekong Delta.
You were supposed to go waterskiing, duh!
Yah think all that camo is defeated with ol' red glowing like that?
There was a Green Beanie High Ranker who did exactly that on the Vi Thanh canal. Every Sunday, at about 1500.
Until the command-detonated 155mm went off...
We opined that some outfit at Ft. Wainwright was trying to figure why they got a Conex full of jungle boots, bug spray, lightweight ponchos and collapsible 2-quart canteens.
Yes photographer Mancini's photos may seem less posed, but this photo isnt posed at all.
Thank you very much.
Did he bark at somebody, "CHARLIE DON'T WATERSKI!" before doing so?
I kid, I kid...