Camouflage

[DontBurnMyFlag]

Hey everyone,

I have been browsing Army/Navy Stores and gun shows for years in search of the best camouflage. So far my favorites are the German Flecktarn (SP?) and German patterns of WWII. So, in your opinion, what is the best camouflage? What is the worst? I feel this has a place in S&T because there may be a time in which camo is neccessary. Hunting, military use, training, camping, paintball etc.

Flecktarn

German World War II

 

[cosine]

You really can't ask what is the one best camouflage pattern because different camo will be needed in different environments and in different uses.

 

[1911Ron]

The best camo pattern is the one that match's your area, look around at the colors and light patterns and decide from there. A desert camo won't work in the green woods and vice-versa.

 

[Thin Black Line]

The new ACU is a good all purpose pattern, but the uniforms are a bit less
durable than in the past.

I have both the ger fleck and old ww2 pattern and both are for very specific
environments, most suitable for pine forests in Bavaria. The ww2 pattern
also works well in in midwestern scrubby areas and marshes from late Fall
thru early Spring before things get green.

 

[ArmedBear]

These guys have tried to come up with versatile camouflage patterns. I think they work pretty well in the far Southwest, which is a pretty challenging place for camo. My county alone has examples of 13 of the 17 different ecosystem types in the world, and I have literally hiked from a forest with snow descending on evergreens into a true desert with the sun shining down on it, in a couple hundred yards. The variety of microclimates, soil and vegitation makes camoflage like MOBU go from highly effective to worse than useless in a very short distance.

http://www.naturalgear.com/

Their marketing spiel does give some good insight into the problems and thinking behind camo, whether or not you agree with their solutions.

http://www.naturalgear.com/science.asp?Section=Science

 

[DontBurnMyFlag]

Sorry, I forgot to add that part. Of course there are hundreds of different camo patterns for different environments. To Elaborate, what is the best winter camo? All white, or white with black, or white black gray etc?

Is US Woodland BDU better than the Marine DigiCam? etc

Sorry, I should have elaborated.

Also, the ACU, from what Ive heard is inneffective and was rushed into the lines too quickly. All my friends say that if the color doesnt give you away, the velcro straps all over the uniform will! Ive played paintball in Eastern US forest environments with people who were using ACU pattern camo, they stuck out like sore thumbs. My one friend who is a Major, I think, stood up to demonstrate the ability ACU has to blend in with almost any surroundings etc, he did a few motions etc, it was really weird to see. But needless to say, he doesnt like it much either.

 

[ArmedBear]

Take a look at the site I posted. They have a good Winter camo. Judge for yourself from the pictures.

Wintertime deciduous forests (more vertical dark lines against white) look WAY different from evergreen forests (green, brown, black, and white blotches).

I don't think that military camo is necessarily the best place to start, for Winter in the Northeast.

 

[gremlin_bros]

best cammo in my openion is make a gillie suit you can change it is you need and it works anyplace

 

[ezypikns]

Natural Gear is Great......

but then when deer hunting you have to put on hunter orange. Deer are color blind anyway. The important thing is just to break up your outline. The orange I usually wear is the break-up variety.

 

[sacp81170a]

Elements of visual camouflage in rough order of importance: movement, shine, shape, sillhouette, color, shadow, spacing. As long as movement is careful, it don't shine, you break up the shape and don't sillhouette yourself on the horizon, color comes way down the list in things that draw the eye as long as it's not completely out of place. Using natural vegetation from the area that you're in is one of the the best ways to camouflage yourself. If the color of your clothing doesn't stand out too much, creative and effective use of vegetation and terrain are far more important than what pattern of camouflage clothing you're wearing.

Old deer hunter's trick: stand up and back into a medium sized cedar tree and you will virtually disappear, even if you're wearing blaze orange. You'll still be able to see out. You've covered movement, shine, shape, sillhouette color and shadow in one fell swoop.

Old duck hunter's trick: stand very close to a tree and you will be almost invisible to the ducks while still having a fairly wide field of fire. You've covered movement, shape, and sillhouette with the tree, shine and color with your camouflage clothing and equipment.

Just my two cent's worth.

Definitions:

Movement - self explanatory. Movement draws the eye very quickly.
Shine - anything can shine, including skin, eyeglasses, and rifle scopes, as well as any worn metal parts. Flashlights and cigarettes fall in this category, too.
Shape - the human torso, head, or the nice straight line of a rifle barrel all stand out.
Silhouette - allowing yourself to be highlighted against the sky. Also known as the military crest of a hill.
Color - self explanatory. As long as it ain't chartreuse or blaze orange, most dull colors look remarkably the same at all but short distances.
Shadow - if you're standing behind something but I can still see your shadow, I know somebody or something is there.
Spacing - less obvious, but humans often do things in nice, even patterns. If it ain't random, it ain't natural. An example would be a line of well camouflaged fighting positions spaced evenly across the terrain. Even if you can't tell exactly what they are, the even spacing is a giveaway that they're not natural.

Haven't talked about noise discipline or smells at all yet.

 

[sasKuach]

What about just plain olive drab? I have a pair of sweatpants that are this dirty, almost unidentifiable color and they blend very well into the undergrowth with dried leaves, dried grass, sticks, anything. I'm wondering if this is really the case (if this color is known to work well) or if it's just an illusion I get when looking down at them.

Rob

 

[Duramaximum]

Diggies

I have a friend in the Marines who watched a simple demonstration of digital camo. He said the Sergant layed on the ground in the bushes and although he knew he was right there, he couldn't see him. It was kind of mind boggling, I guess. The are ugly but they work.

 

[MrTwigg]

I prefer ...

My cloak of invisibility.

Ok seriously, others have said it so match your terrain, and watch your movement, shine, shape, sillhouette, color, shadow and don't eat burritos for breakfast (Noise & smells. )

make a gillie suit

What he said.

We had Marines as OpFor when we went on tatical exercises when I was in the service. It's scary how close they can get without being noticed.

I'm 6'7" and 300 lb. That's too big to be sneaky so I just sit and hide.

 

[doc jake]

At about 25 yds most camouflage cloths blob into one base colour anyway. That aside, i do like the post war brown / green stuff issued to the british marines.

 

[Gun_nut]

id say the new marine digital camo ( MARPAT ) is splendid for all forest types and woodland types enviorments take a look on google for MARPAT

 

[Mannlicher]

Blue jeans and a plaid shirt, or a Carhart jacket seem to work well for me. I have never been convinced that the deer care much one way or the other.

 

[ball3006]

Most camo on the market today...

is too dark. Take a shirt and hang it on some brush and step back about 20 yards or so and look at it. The idea is to break up your silouette. The new army digital camo looks great. The marine digital is too dark.....chris3

Edit to add: I always felt that if you took the so called urban camo, the white, lt grey, dk grey, pattern and replaced the white with a tan, you would have a good camo.....chris3

 

[mp510]

Every pattern has it's ultimate enviroment. Obviously, choclate chip or 3 color desert would be of little use in a dark-colored high vegetation area, and woodland would not help with concealment much in a light colored enviroment.
I like flexas well, and it seems as though there is a lot of similarities between that and the new digital woodland. I also have a thing for tigerstripe and British DPM.

I found Jeff Cooper's perspectivevery interesting. He believes that you don't really need any special pattern (just use OD), since if your enemies are close enough to see the pattern, they are close enough to see and kill you. He is also opposed to camoflauging ones skin as well.

 

['Card]

Generally speaking, anywhere east of the Mississippi, the more brown and grey that your camo pattern has in it, the better it will be.

Depending on the season, trees change color, and bushes change color, but the underlying forest floor is always a bed of leaves with spots of bare earth. Even in winter, there are very few areas that keep a solid snow cover for the majority of the time, and even when there's snow on the ground, there are almost always bare spots of brown, and the grey of tree trunks that are visible.

Green can be bad or good depending on the types of trees and the season. Black isn't too bad, but there are very few things in the forest that are truly black. White is good when there's snow on the ground, but disastrous when there's no snow. Browns and greys are virtually always present, and minor differences in shades will be OK because tree trunks and a bed of leaves differ in shade as well.

Military camo is OK, but even the military has acknowledged that most civilian hunting-based patterns are generally better. The reason the military doesn't adopt them is financial. If you ever get a chance to look at the specs for military camo, you'll see that one of the limitations is that they will only accept a four-color printing/dyeing process, because when you get more than 4 colors involved, it's gets much more expensive. That's a restriction that doesn't appy to civilian camo, which is why it generally works better with more shading and depth.

Personally, I've found that Realtree Hardwoods® and Realtree Advantage Classic® work very well in a wide variety of environments, but my personal favorite for 4-season hunting is Mossy Oak Break-Up®.

 

[perpster]

sacp81170a said:

"Old deer hunter's trick: stand up and back into a medium sized cedar tree and you will virtually disappear, even if you're wearing blaze orange. You'll still be able to see out. You've covered movement, shine, shape, sillhouette color and shadow in one fell swoop.

Old duck hunter's trick: stand very close to a tree and you will be almost invisible to the ducks while still having a fairly wide field of fire. You've covered movement, shape, and sillhouette with the tree, shine and color with your camouflage clothing and equipment."

Not to mention giving yourself nearly 180 degrees of ballistic cover.

 

[El Tejon]

Coat and tie and a clean car. I haven't been pulled over in years.

 

[ArmedBear]

Personally, I've found that Realtree Hardwoods® and Realtree Advantage Classic® work very well in a wide variety of environments, but my personal favorite for 4-season hunting is Mossy Oak Break-Up®.

In much of the West, MOBU might as well be chartreuse, or at least black. I have an upland belt/pouch set in the stuff. I'm not sure why they made it MOBU when a nice plain khaki would be classier looking and better camo in 99% of upland situations. It's a good belt otherwise with lots of cool storage, which is why I got it.

Blue jeans and a plaid shirt

AFAIK plaid was originally designed to be camo, woven rather than printed. Since the Scots didn't starve to death, it probably works.

 

[NMshooter]

Khaki/tan works wonderfully in a wide variety of environments.

Even in the forest.

Probably why deer are light brown.

Old sun faded woodland camo works pretty well too.

Movement and shape are easier to spot than any particular color or pattern.

 

[mp510]

That could be part of the logic behind the new ACU camo that has been introduced. I heard that it's supposed to be all purpose, right?

 

[remington79]

camo

I like Advantage Timber myself. I have even used to with great success in pine forests despite the fact that the pattern is geared more towards hardwoods.