Each
vendor had been asked to produce a "family of camouflage patterns,"
including one that would be suitable in a woodland environment, one that
would be suitable in a desert environment, and one that would work in
a "transitional" environment.
The Army will spend the next nine months testing the effectiveness of
those patterns.
"To really have confidence in being able to make a recommendation
to senior leaders, we need to do field trials," said Col. William
Cole, of Program Executive Office Soldier. "We are looking forward
to getting out into the woods, into the deserts, into the transitional
areas and having real Soldiers wear these uniforms and have real Soldiers
observe them."
Cole said the Army will use both real-world testing in varying terrains
and conditions, as well as more advanced computer testing to evaluate
the patterns.
"We're going to put them through the ringer," he said.
Due to the varying types of terrain Soldiers operate in, Cole said the
Army had found that "we can't really have one pattern that is as
effective as we'd like in every single terrain type."
Today, most Soldiers wear the Army Combat Uniform. The ACU bears the Universal
Camouflage Pattern, the familiar grey/blue "digital" pattern.
In Afghanistan, Soldiers also have the Operation Enduring Freedom Camouflage
Pattern, or OCP, available for wear.
The vendors each developed three patterns with the same geometry -- the
shapes on the fabric -- but with different color palettes. Additionally,
the vendors were to develop a fourth "coordinated" pattern,
or name one of the three already in their family of patterns, that would
work well with all three patterns. That fourth pattern is for use on organizational
clothing and individual equipment, or OCIE.
Cole said that OCIE, things like belts, protective vests, ruck sacks and
plate carriers, are more expensive than a Soldier's regular uniform. The
Army doesn't want to maintain OCIE in each of the three patterns, so instead
the Army will have it in one pattern that looks good with all three of
the uniform pattern variants.
Cole said other organizations have OCIE that is a solid color, but he
said "we were hoping we could do better than that," and the
Army asked industry to come up with an OCIE pattern to break up solid
color "and still look good on all three uniform patterns."
"We had seen some examples of grossly mismatched OCIE in uniforms
in the early part of Iraqi Freedom -- we didn't want to have any telltale
signs of where the OCIE, the vest and armor stopped and where the rest
of the body began," Cole said.
Many vendors have chosen their "transitional" pattern for use
on the OCIE, Cole said.
Each of the five vendors will now produce enough fabric to build 50 uniforms
out of each of their three submitted patterns -- for a total of 150 uniforms
from each company. In all, the Army will have 750 uniforms for use in
its testing.
Cole said by October, PEO Soldier will have completed testing of the patterns
and will be able to make recommendations to Army senior leadership about
the way ahead.
"There's a lot to do between now and October, but that's our plan,"
Cole said. "Complete the field trials and complete the more sensitive
computer simulations and come back to senior leaders in October and lay
out the results of what we found and have a recommendation."
The five vendors awarded contracts include:
-- Atlantic Diving Supply, Inc., Virginia Beach, Va.
-- Brookwood Companies Inc., New York, N.Y.
-- Crye Precision, LLC, Brooklyn, N.Y.
-- Kryptek Inc., Fairbanks, Alaska
-- U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center,
Natick, Mass
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