testing the new multi-terrain camouflage

This article from a government website explains the rationale behind the choice of new camouflage for the Ministry of Defence:

** EDIT ** Updated December 22nd with new images from the final DSTL press release

Defence Science and Technology Laboratory – 21 Dec 2009 12:10

TESTING THE NEW MULTI-TERRAIN CAMOUFLAGE

The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), the Ministry of Defence civilian scientists, working with the MOD Defence Clothing Project Team, has tested and trialled new multi-terrain camouflage clothing that has been proven to improve mission effectiveness across a range of different backgrounds.It is the first time in 40 years the Armed Forces have changed the camouflage pattern. George Philpott, Land Battlespace Systems, Dstl, says: “Dstl scientists researched and tested whether a mixed multi-terrain camouflage pattern would improve mission success and basically keep soldiers hidden for longer during ambush operations or when on patrol. It is not just a question of colours; we looked at texture and tone of patterns, how the light reflects and how well it disguises the wearer when observed both close up and at a distance.

“Dstl‟s work is all about creating battle-winning technology for UK armed forces on current operations, and we‟re proud we were able to cram all the work in to just six months, with extra people working a lot of extra hours to get this research and testing complete.”

Troops in Helmand, Afghanistan, operate in a mixed landscape: desert, woodland, mountainous, urban etc. Dstl assessed whether a multi-terrain camouflage was better than the standard army woodland camouflage disruptive pattern material (DPM) or the desert DPM and if so what is the best pattern, or balance of colours. The two current camouflage schemes were tested alongside an existing off-the-shelf multi-terrain camouflage to see which performed best across various backgrounds that soldiers are likely to encounter across the landscape in Afghanistan.

Computer modelling was carried out across representations of the green zone, desert and transition backgrounds. Soldiers operated in various scenarios in a simulated set of environments to test how the different camouflages performed in situations where staying undetected was important.

Overall the multi-terrain performed best, supporting the theory that a multi-terrain camouflage offers improvements when soldiers move between different places and backgrounds. Dstl also conducted interviews and subjective testing with service men and women to understand and evaluate whether they would actually be happy to wear the new camouflage and whether the concept of a multi-terrain camouflage was desirable and effective.

As a result of this work, it was determined that a multi-terrain camouflage could improve mission success so Dstl set about testing available multi-terrain patterns and creating new ones for testing.

Christopher Jones, Air & Weapons Systems, Dstl, adds: “In addition to existing aerial photography, Dstl sent cameras to Helmand for soldiers to take specific scientific photographs of the various backgrounds and landscapes they operate in.”

Dstl teams in the UK, at Fort Halstead, near Sevenoaks in Kent and at Portsdown West, near Portsmouth in Hampshire, measured the colour properties for each image and identified seven major background types. These colours were then used for Dstl‟s camouflage optimisation and testing programme.

Christopher Jones continues: “The colours and backgrounds in Helmand are similar to those found in parts of the UK, so we used the colour data from Afghanistan and used it to identify places where there was a good colour match, to allow us to run large scientific trials.”

The Afghanistan background colours were used to generate new multi-terrain type camouflage based partly on the shapes and patterns of the existing UK woodland DPM. These were tested against the current army woodland and desert uniforms, to act as a baseline, and a commercially available pattern from Crye Precision.

Ten camouflage suits were trialled in five tests to assess overall performance with pilot trials held before the final main testing. The trial team developed experimental techniques, which were initially established through collaborative research with other NATO countries.

Lt Col Toby Evans, military advisor, Dstl, adds: “The detailed tests and trials looked at everything from how easy is it to spot these camouflages in different terrains and backgrounds to simply asking the soldiers who helped on the trial, which one do you like best and would feel happy wearing?

The tests

Observer assessment – a live trial with military personnel asked to judge the performance of each suit at 50m, 100m and 150m. The trial was carried out at Stanford Training Area, Norfolk and at RAF Donna Nook, Lincolnshire as they contained areas with similar colours and backgrounds to Helmand. Additional testing was also carried out at night to test low light performance.

Statistical assessment – using a computer model of how camouflaged objects are detected, each suit was tested for its match to the seven identified different backgrounds.

The following three trials took place at Catterick Garrison and included a large number of army personnel:

Order rank – soldiers ranked how well close-up images of the suits performed against the seven backgrounds.

Time to detect – Dstl measured the time it took soldiers to detect the 10 different camouflage patterns in the seven backgrounds using a computer-based assessment.

Personal preference – soldiers were asked which their favourite three patterns were based purely on appearance and any patterns they wouldn‟t like to wear.

The results

The results showed the Crye Precision Multicam performed the best, on average, across all the trials. The final camouflage has a pattern that is similar to the current woodland DPM as it allows for easy identification between soldiers and this type of pattern consistency proved popular during the research.

Dstl is currently looking at future research into army camouflage clothing, optimising the camouflage to perform well in a variety of landscapes and backgrounds around the world to support wider operations. If this is successful the outcome could become the standard camouflage for all UK armed forces.

more on brit army’s new mtp…

http://strikehold.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/more-about-the-uks-new-mtp-camo-uniforms/

http://soldiersystems.net/2009/12/20/more-on-new-brit-camo/

MTP close up

multi terrain pattern camouflage for british armed forces

In the last few days some military news sites, blogs and forums, and now the BBC and the Daily Telegraph, have been reporting on a surprising announcement from the British Ministry of Defence: A new camouflage pattern has been developed, to address the problem of operating in areas that include both arid or desert terrain and cultivated ground, such as that found in Afghanistan’s ‘green zone’ astride the Helmand River.

Why is this a surprise? Well, apart from the fact that Britain has used the iconic disruptive pattern (DPM), with minor changes, since the end of the 1960’s, and has always professed itself quite happy with it -  and the auxiliary desert DPM -  there is the suddenness of it! Even though the camouflage is being introduced to troops as an Urgent Operational Requirement (UOR), as an example of bureaucratic camouflage (what the Russians call maskirovka), the development and trialling of this pattern has been textbook.

At the beginning of this year I was made aware that our special forces (UKSF) were looking for a multi-terrain pattern to use for their issued uniforms. They specifically wanted Crye Precision’s MultiCam® (which I understand they are permitted to wear and purchase  themselves from the manufacturer), but there was a barrier to domestic production presented by US restriction on the use of the licence. Other patterns, including Hyde Definition’s homegrown PenCott camouflage, were considered, but the colours and tonal gradations that characterise MultiCam® were what the UKSF valued above all in a design.

Crye's MultiCam® pattern

All seemed to go quiet, and UK Special Forces personnel continued to be seen in assorted uniforms and camo patterns, including MultiCam®. But while all this was going on, much fanfare and spectacle was created by the Personal Equipment and Common Operational Clothing (PECOC)  program, which, as this blog reported, looked all set to introduce a family of far less radical DPM derivatives in to service. The colours of temperate DPM would be changed slightly, the desert pattern would acquire a sparse overprint in a third, darker brown, and  new ‘intermediate’ multi-terrain DPM (with a four colour palette of 3 browns and a green that was vaguely similar to MultiCam®’s colours) would be introduced for use on personal load bearing equipment and helmet covers. Or so we all thought.

Hybrid PECOC intermediate camouflage pattern

Evidently, a satisfactory solution to the UKSF’s needs was quietly found by having Crye secretly create a bespoke pattern for the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD). Quite when it widened from UKSF to became an all-forces affair is unclear, as throughout the development and trials process there was no inkling of the new Crye Multi Terrain Pattern (MTP), outside of those with a need to know. Any mentions of a new digitally designed pattern or a DPM with MultiCam® colours were thought to refer to the PECOC program, which was running along a confusingly (conveniently?)  similar parallel track. Trials were conducted in the UK, Cyprus, Kenya, and Afghanistan, but were kept secret with confidentiality agreements (even the Official Secrets Act can be employed without too much creative thinking), intellectual property protection, and MoD royalty rights. Of course, we all sign the OSA when we join the military, but rumours of new developments always bubble to the surface before long. That little to nothing leaked out is testament to the stringency with which the rules were enforced, and the effectiveness of the MoD’s maskirovka campaign. I don’t know which units were involved in the trials, but it’s certainly easier to do this kind of thing with elite special operations troops who understand and value security. If they should be accidentally spotted wearing a new multi-terrain pattern while trialling it in the course of their normal duties, it can easily be explained away as MultiCam®, which no-one would think to question (at more than a few feet away it’s pretty hard to tell the difference between the two Crye designs anyhow).

Crye Multi-Terrain Pattern

The pattern itself looks exactly like you might imagine a hybrid between DPM and MultiCam® would. The unique Crye blends between colours are there, as well as their signature ‘bird-dropping’ blobs and streaks of very dark brown and extremely light grey. The shapes within the pattern, however, are very much more reminiscent of temperate DPM than the laterally-elongated woodland camouflage forms of classic MultiCam®. It’s a very pleasing design aesthetically, and promises to blend in various environments just as well as its American progenitor. And just like MultiCam®, it suffers when it comes to long-range disruption, as there just isn’t enough contrast in the pattern. Hopefully, that failing will be of minor significance in the tactical environment in which it will be used, besides which, it is generally becoming acknowledged (at long last) that 21st Century armies are not often going to be fighting from and within bits of dense woodland or across trackless desert plains, but will spend the majority of their time approaching, entering, attacking and defending rural or suburban areas, with their characteristically close engagement ranges. Any camo design that addresses the new paradigm gets my support.

The MT Pattern, on standard No.8 combat uniforms, body armour and personal load carrying equipment (PLCE), is due to be issued to troops rotating through Afghanistan next year with a wider roll-out to the rest of the military beginning the following year.

This wiki article on the British Army Rumour Service website explains the thinking behind multi-terrain patterns like MultiCam®. Contains language unsuitable for minors.

a new significance

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?

school for snipers

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

Sniper wearing PenCott multi environment camouflage pattern in open farmland

PECOC’s colours displayed

Our colleagues at Soldiers Systems continue to scour teh interwebs to bring you tantalising glimpses of the British Ministry of Defence project PECOC, which aims to enhance soldier efficiency and effectiveness throughout all infantry-based equipment. They’ve found fresh pictures of the temperate and arid regions kit being trialled, including the new ‘multi-environment’ colourway that is to be used on webbing, load bearing vests, pouches and body armour covers.

See the pictures here

PECOC update

A couple of months back I ran a piece from the Mail Online about the British Army’s Personal Equipment Common Operational Clothing (PECOC) project. Seems a little more info has surfaced on the web, and the guys at Soldier Systems were there first again. Read more here.

British Army unveils new equipment for infantrymen

From the Mail Online

By Matthew Hickley

Last updated at 2:29 AM on 19th September 2008

Equipment of the future: The British Army has unveiled the new kit which will go into service in months

He’s deadlier, lighter, more streamlined and better protected – and he’s wearing the latest stylish four-colour camouflage pattern with matching two-tone Union Jack insignia and coral sunglasses.

The British Army has unveiled its latest state-of-the-art equipment for combat infantrymen, which will enter service with troops fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq within months.

Out goes the familiar and distinctive ‘pudding bowl’ shaped helmet worn by Britain’s soldiers for 20 years, and in comes a new shape more akin to today’s U.S. Army helmet, or the Second World War German design – offering improved neck movement and more space to fit a rifle sight to the eye.

The new colour scheme has nothing to do with fashion and everything to do with new high-tech fabric dyes which maintain camouflage properties when viewed through infra-red night sights, and combine traditional desert colours with pale green shades – suited to the semi-desert environments where many of today’s battles are fought.

Five years after the Daily Mail first exposed the Army’s notorious melting desert boots and shortages of basic equipment on the eve of the 2003 Iraq invasion, senior military commanders insist the situation has been transformed for the better.

The Treasury has spent £1billion a year on the ‘Urgent Operational Requirement’ programme – rushing new kit into service in Iraq and Afghanistan when existing equipment proves to be dangerously inadequate – delivering a range of new armoured vehicles, weapons and clothing.

While shortages remain, and commanders remain frustrated by the need for more protected vehicles and helicopters, frontline troops acknowledge the improvements in personal equipment.

The new infantryman’s kit is known as project PECOC – Personal Equipment Common Operating Clothing – and is in the final stages of assessment before being issued to troops deploying on combat operations.

Designers are struggling to save weight across the board, because of recent feedback from commanders in Afghanistan warning that today’s infanteer is being expected to carry too much weight, often approaching 150lb of weaponry, armour, ammunition, food and a host of gadgets – ‘like going to work carrying your wife on your back’ as one soldier described it.

In soaring summer temperatures of 50 degrees centigrade, foot patrols are having to be equipped with more quad bikes and trailers to take some of the burden, and to help evacuate wounded troops.

British Army gear through the ages: (Lto R) SA80 weapon and kit prior to 2003, the current attire and a soldier wearing a trial outfit

Major Richard Coomber of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, requirements manager for the PECOC programme, said: ‘We have scoured the world for the best materials.

There is no magic secret to saving weight. We have to get the integration of all the different items right, starting with body armour plates which are thinner but tougher, and better designed to fit with webbing, packs, and weapons.

‘We spent a lot of time talking to troops who are using the existing equipment on operations.

‘The result is a system designed to fit together, and to be as flexible as possible, so the soldier can adapt it to the job he’s doing.’

The new clothing features removable padding inserts at the knees and elbows, and new ‘coral-coloured’ ballistic eye protectors, which give better colour perception than existing sunglasses.

The distinctive black-and-green Union Flag insignia offers better camouflage in daylight, but is also clearly identifiable through night-vision goggles, helping troops recognise each other during night battles.

Weaponry is constantly being upgraded, and the SA-80A2 assault rifle – which appears finally to have shaken off its unreliable reputation – is now fitted with an underslung grenade launcher and improved sights.

At a facility to show off the new kit on Salisbury Plain today Major General Bill Moore, Director General Logistic Support and Equipment for Land Forces, told the Mail that speed was the key to the Urgent Operational Requirement system.

He said: ‘In peacetime you can afford to spend five or ten years getting the reliability of your new tank just right, but in wartime we take a bit more risk with getting new equipment into service fast.

‘I think the next big thing for us is reducing weight for infantrymen, to make them more agile.

‘If we can make electrical batteries smaller and lighter, we will make progress.

‘We want to give the guys more options as to how much heavy protection they wear, depending on the threat and the task.’