The Strike-Hold! blog brings you news of  the ANA (Afghan National Army) and their new digital camo. Apparently, they don’t want to be camouflaged effectively for arid regions: more important to them is to look unlike any of the multinational forces in the region.

Some readers may recognise the pattern as Hyperstealth’s Spec4ce Forest. Click to read more of Lawrence’s post at Strike-Hold! or the blurb from Guy Cramer at Hypersteal

88 years after its first use as a symbol of remembrance for the fallen, the poppy is again being associated with the  sacrifice and valour of the fighting man, amidst questions about our strategy and commitment in another conflict that has lasted far longer and achieved far less than most expected at its inception.

British soldier and Afghan poppy, Musa Qaleh (Getty Images)

The recent, inevitable, announcement of yet another tragic death in South East Asia and the debacle surrounding Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s communication with Jacqui “J’accuse” Janes, the mother of late Guardsman Jamie Janes,  draws further attention to the United Kingdom’s (and NATO’s) strategy in the region.

I believe we must render Afghanistan and Pakistan impotent as launch pads for another 9/11. We must make it too uncomfortable for extremists to exist amongst the population and influence them, let alone train and re-equip themselves. I don’t buy into the myth that Afghanistan has never been subdued and thus a war there is unwinnable. Nor do I believe that the military have all the answers, or that we should seek to remodel a medieval culture after a western, democratic ideal. The result is bound to be an unconvincing, pale  imitation that will tear itself asunder immediately.

In the short term, force and favour are what is needed. Carrot and stick. As Macchiavelli  famously wrote, when speaking of  rulers in war: Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved. It’s not very PC, but neither is war, and neither are the Pashtun, who we have to admit are the ‘enemy of enemies’ in Afghanistan.

In the past, force and favour brought a kind of stability to pre-industrial kingdoms and empires, including the region now known as Afghanistan. It was once itself even the centre of  the Greco-Bactrian kingdom, an empire that stretched – in the wake of Alexander the Great’s conquests – from the Indus River to the Caspian Sea, and whose legacy remains in the art and sculpture of the northern Indian sub-continent.

Force, through a military presence, with some demonstration of willingness to use overwhelming firepower, was coupled with favour: the giving of gifts to local grandees and the granting of concessions and power. Today we would call this bribery with menaces, and frown on it. In our democratic, industrialised modern world, this moral standpoint is all well and good, even necessary for the smooth functioning of society. But in Afghanistan political correctness earns no respect, whereas warlordism demands respect. So when in Rome (or Kabul) do as the Romans do: employ realpolitik.

In fact the Romans (or more accurately, Italians) did just this in Afghanistan recently, but neglected to mention their arrangement to the French who replaced them before they departed for home, with disastrous consequences, as the Times reports.

Money is being wasted at home on dead-end procurement projects, and troops and equipment are being committed to Afghanistan in half-measures. If the nettle were to be grasped, and local stability bought with Treasury gold, enforced with many more boots on the ground, tanks, MRAPs,  transport and attack helicopters and intel assets, the civil construction projects might have a chance to raise the local standards of living and bring some of the population to the kerb at the edge of  the long road to modernity.  Rather like an extortionate loan, our current strategy of more or less minimal commitment sees us paying a lot more, over a longer period, than if we acceptthat we are at war and modify our economy to reflect and support the paradigm.

No one can fault the leadership of the troops in theatre, but on the home front, are our lions being led by donkeys once again?

Interesting news from Canada this week – a sole-source tender has been announced for the development of an experimental urban camouflage (CUEPAT – Canadian Urban Environment Pattern) based on the metropolitan environments of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. The tender makes mention of CBR (chemical, biological and radiological protection) in one sentence, though there is no indication as to whether this prototype camouflage is being developed solely for use on CBR clothing.

Urban environments are notoriously difficult to design effective human personnel camouflage for, as not only is the vertically oriented, rounded, organic shape of a person out of place amongst the hard edges, flat planes and bulky volumes of the man-made environment, but there also is no such thing as a typical urban colour scheme. Any number of greys, browns, creams and greens will be found in the typical city, not to mention all the hues of the spectrum that appear on advertising space, doors, façades and shop fronts, cars, trucks and buses – you name it.

My prediction is that without some pretty clever thinking by the design team, the outcome of this program will be a FAIL for effective camouflage, but a WIN for Army fashionistas and the B.S. brigade, just like UCP (Universal Camouflage Pattern) was for the US Army.

The sole-source tender is effectively a no-bid offer to Guy Cramer and Tim O’Neill of  Hyperstealth Biotechnology Corporation,  stating as it does that  there are

no alternative sources of supply for this
requirement as no other Canadian source exists that has the
capability to design and develop digital, non-repeating
camouflage patterns using state-of-the-art fractal algorithms
and feed back loop technology, with concomitant IP protected
access to approximately 8,000 copyrighted patterns that can be
used in full support of meeting the requirement.

Although the terms of the tender allow competing companies to submit a bid, that bid must contain at least 80% goods and/or services of Canadian origin, and be submitted in writing before November 6th. Few, if any, of the other players in the digital camouflage industry are placed to take advantage of such a tightly constrained offer, meaning that however ineffective the design(s) submitted by Hyperstealth might be, the Canadian government will have no choice but to accept them.

There’s more on this story at Soldier Systems, and you can read the original tender as a pdf via this link.

The long and sorry saga of the US Army’s camouflage uniform woes in Afghanistan opened on a new chapter today. Readers will recall that the States’  Special Operations soldiers were dissatisfied with their current uniform, and are transitioning to new digital camouflage schemes. Then just 10 days ago my colleague at Strike-Hold! created a photo-shoot comparison of  some likely candidates. Now the Army Times reveals that a trial is under way to compare Crye’s MultiCam with a new colourway of the Army’s existing, and much-maligned, Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP), featuring Coyote Brown as a fourth colour. Coyote is currently a popular shade for plain coloured clothing and personal equipment; especially with those users who are employed in the Middle East or in South West Asia, and is also a component of the US Marines’ temperate MARPAT digital four colour camouflage.

The pattern apparently looks something like this (although I’m of the opinion that this particular image, which accompanied the Army Times article, has been faked using computer graphics software):

Is this the new U.S. Universal Camo?

According to the same Army Times piece, the pattern is called ‘UCP Delta’, and will be issued to a single battalion serving in Afghanistan in October, at the same time as another battalion there receives MultiCam. I don’t know how long the trial is expected to last, but I assume that the best performer will then go on to equip most Army units deployed in that theatre (although the recent history of US camo development shows that it is not always the case that the ‘winner’ officially wins).

But, surely, the whole point of issuing a universal camouflage is that you only need the one scheme? One scheme to rule them all! Whatever the outcome of this trial, with the Army on record as being satisfied with UCP in Iraq, and the Marines using their own Desert MARPAT, and now with SOCOM wearing variously MultiCam or their own take on MARPAT, is it still justifiable to even aspire to, let alone refer to, a universal camouflage pattern?

Over on Strike-Hold!, Lawrence has put together a bunch of photo’s showing how Bulldog’s Mirage camouflage compares to MultiCam and the US Army’s Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP). The States are re-evaluating their ground-troops’ camo uniform in the light of a less-than-satisfactory performance from their  grey* toned UCP in Afghanistan. It’s expected that Crye’s MultiCam will participate in the contest, and maybe some other recently developed patterns will be in the running too. Lawrence’s photo shoot gives some idea of how these likely contenders appear side-by-side in the same light and environmental conditions.

Mirage, MultiCam, UCP side by side

*UCP’s colours are officially Desert Sand, Urban Gray and Foliage Green. To all intents and purposes that’s cream, light steel grey and medium slate grey.

Those wacky bureaucrats at the Chinese Ministry of Defence! I don’t know,  not satisfied with hollowing out islands in the South China Sea to build secret Thunderbird naval bases, or reverse engineering several different jet plane technologies to make one cut-and-shut that doesn’t quite work, they’ve decided to stretch the remit of the PLA (Peoples Liberation Army) to encompass entertainment for bored dignitaries. The PLA have been training hard to perfect a number of choreographed song and dance routines, executed in colourful costumes. Here they are singing their version of The Weathermen’s It’s Raining Men, in a subtle little clouds-and-sky patterned camouflage. Sweet.

Chinese PLA soldiers wearing cloud-patterned camouflage

So, what would you do with two and a quarter million troops, a growing defence budget and no enemies? Party, of course!

Thanks to T. Zeng and ICUS for the tip.

For now, the invisibility cloak remains a thing of science fiction

From BBC News, Thursday 20th August 2009

A physicist has said he hopes to make major advances in the field of invisibility in the next two years.

Professor Ulf Leonhardt at St Andrews University is working on a blueprint for a cloaking device that could also be used to shield coast lines.

The researcher, who cites the Invisible Woman and Harry Potter as inspiration, has been working on the concept of invisibility since 2006.

The project will focus on a connection between light and curved space.

Prof Leonhardt, who describes his invisibility work as “geometry, light and a wee bit of magic”, hopes to manipulate modern metamaterials – or “designer atoms” to create an invisibility device using the laws of refraction.

He believes that in bending light, transparent materials like glass or water appear to distort the geometry of space, which is the cause of many optical illusions, including invisibility.

‘Extreme ideas’

Prof Leonhardt said: “The idea of invisibility has fascinated people for millennia, inspiring many myths, novels and films.

“In 2006, I began my involvement in turning invisibility from fiction into science, and, over the next two years, I plan to develop ideas that may turn invisibility from frontier science into applicable technology.”

Although the professor admitted it was difficult to predict possible applications, he suggested invisibility research could be used to improve visibility, leading to the development of the perfect retroreflectors (cats eyes), better microscopes and improved lenses.

He added: “I will most certainly find easier ways of cloaking, but it remains to be seen how practical they are.

“The important thing is to understand the foundations and come up with something new or take an existing idea to extremes; using technology and ideas to make things happen – technology we cannot imagine would ever exist.”

The project is being funded by the Royal Society’s Theo Murphy Blue Skies Award.

Two recent posts on the Strike-Hold! website resonate with me. The first concerns the International Special Training Centre (ISTC) Sniper Course at Grafenwoehr, Germany. The article itself is a worthwhile read, but most striking is this picture:

U.S. Army Master Sgt. Eric Ludan, an instructor for the International Special Training Centre's (ISTC) Sniper Course provides feedback to two Special Forces Soldiers following a live-fire exercise July 24 at the Grafenwoehr Training Area. The Sniper Course is an intense five-week course that teaches NATO Special Operations Forces (SOF) in basic sniper fundamentals. The students spent the night stalking and observing their targets during the evaluated exercise. The facilities at the Joint Multinational Training Command allow the SOF throughout NATO to train to standard. (U.S. Army Photo by Staff Sgt. Gina Vaile-Nelson, 133rd MPAD)

If ever a more succinct illustration were needed of the benefits of selecting your personal concealment with the terrain of your operational area in mind, surely this is it. See how the US Army’s ‘Universal’ Camouflage Pattern (UCP) stands out like a glowing grey ghost against the lightly wooded background, and even the khaki-looking Multicam worn by the spotter in the middle of the picture appears out of place. In a real operation, the spotter would no doubt have customised his garb with dirt, scrim and fresh foliage to render it less visible, or even worn a ghillie like the German sniper in the foreground, but I have reservations about the utility of such techniques when used to attempt to compensate for UCP’s ineffectiveness. A pig wearing lipstick is still a pig.

The other Strike-Hold! story that I found particularly interesting tells of how some British soldiers in Afghanistan’s Helmand province are dyeing their desert camouflaged under-armour combat shirts (UBACS) a curious greeny-blue. You can read it here. UK readers may have seen about this in the Daily Mail or the Sun (where a disengenuous, hysterical spin was put on the issue to make more of the story than meets the eye), but the original source of the pictures, and a hint as to the  explanation why, is found in Michael Yon’s excellent blog, penned from the frontline in Afghanistan.

Into the Green Zone

I can’t help wondering how something like this might work, out in the green zone…

PenCott multi-environment camouflage pattern

PenCott multi-environment camouflage pattern

A rumour came to my attention today. The rumour has it that James Cameron, director of classics such as The Terminator and Terminator 2, Aliens and the Abyss, as well as True Lies and Titanic, has been wearing my company’s PenCott digital fractal camouflage on the set of his latest film project: Avatar. The rumour appears to have grown from a photograph in the latest edition of Empire magazine, showing Cameron demonstrating how to man the door-gun of a troop transporter, wearing a pair of trousers in an unusual digital camouflage.

NOT gunning for PenCott. Copyright: Empire magazine

Much as I would love one of my movie idols to be wearing PenCott in association with a futuristic film, sadly he is not. His lower half seems to be clad in a commercial camo (note the bigger, more obvious pixels and the black areas). Should James Cameron like some genuine Hyde Definition trousers in our cutting-edge PenCott pattern, he is welcome to get in touch and I will happily furnish him with a pair or two, plus shirts and hats to boot. Someone pass the message to him, eh?

I thought this was someone’s idea of a joke when I first saw it. But, no – the demonstrator in the video below is deadly earnest (not Deadly Ernest, the comic pro-wrestler from Manchester, UK, but instead, a very, very serious company man ).

Cornershot camo

Now, the Israeli Cornershot system is a useful ‘force multiplier’ for dismounted urban operations, but I guess that to those being observed  through its barrel mounted video system it is still obvious that a gun barrel is pointing at them from round the edge of a wall. Until someone came up with this unconventional idea…

Link

Thanks to F Gruenert/ICUS for the tip.