The perfect camo?

[Spacemonkey]

Well, before I could afford fancy OG kit from SASS, I relied on DPM surplus stuff for outdoor use (tough, hardwearing and cheap) and i was amazed by the amount of times I could just sit a couple of metres off the beaten trail and keep still as other people walked past, totally oblivious to me sitting there chilling out, or getting a brew on. Sometimes it's nice to avoid the inevitable converstions when you just want to be alone, and in the heavily populated south, it's handy to be able to hide from other people. Oh, and like Rap, I LIKE collecting various cammos... I have tons of stuff, even 'civvy' clothes in my wardrobes that I'd never dream of wearing, but just like to have.

 

[Adi]

I have found that Advantage wetland is very good in most environments and seasons. The straw colours blend well with the field and shrub layers in hedge rows, Heathland, Deciduous wood, Lowland, Moorland, all wet habitats and even Coniferous woodland.

I always seamed to be silhouetted by a light brown, tan back ground when i was out shooting whilst wearing darker camouflage gear. So i moved to Wetland camo which seemed to work really well but it is a compromise because you can stand out a little more whilst walking around.

But, most animals see in black and white so the colour is not to important, and most animals eyes are attracted to movement so being still is very important as is shape and silhouetted when it comes to animals.

 

[RAPPLEBY2000]

Heres an interesting link to camouflage designs.
Camouflage uniforms of the world
i used to think i had seen everything but theres loads here!
click on the camo and you get info on it!

 

[Labrat]

As someone who has spent a lot of years deerstalking, along with wildlife watching and photography, the best advice on camoflague I can offer is:

1) Stay still as much as possible

2) Brit army DPM works really well in Uk countryside terrain - its very much underated, but blobs out into a dark lump at long distance.

Animals and humans are tuned into looking for a rectangular profile roughly twice as tall as it is wide (ie. human profile) the simple and easy way to combat this is to wear half and half - DPM on either the upper or lower half, and olive green, stone grey or tan brown on the other half.

this gives a far superior effect at distance - it removes the blobbing effect and breaks down the "recognisable shape" somewhat better.

my own experience is that when spending time in conifer woodland/grass & heather woodland edge, dpm jacket with lighter trousers works best - whereas in broadleaf woodland DPM trousers with lighter top half works better.



Most of the expensive and trendy camo's are very terrain specific and highly overated. suprisingly underated in UK terrain is deseet camo, particuarly in the half and half combination described above.

Also remember that most animals have monochromatic vision - things that catch our attention are often different to them.

 

[RAPPLEBY2000]

that rings a bell! it sounds very simular to army camo advice for winter conditions, i.e. wear DPM combo with white trousers or white top!

Top advice! :You_Rock_
i usually wear greenish greyish trousers and a sandy brown top, or my Auscam jacket! i'll remember that gem!

 

[RAPPLEBY2000]

Hey I just realised i'm a native!

i broke the 1000 post mark!

 

[Ogri the trog]

Happy Native Rappleby,

ATB

Ogri the trog

 

[malcolmc]

I’m not keen on any of the military camo gear (if nothing else there are some foreign parts where it’s not advisable to use it and I don’t want to buy two sets of kit). In the UK I’ve found picking your place, (to break up your outline), being quiet and still whilst wearing plain black seems to work for wild life.

Mind you it does drive me up the wall when I see a perfect bit of kit and it’s only available in DPM (the PLCE standard yoke for instance)!

Hope that helps.

 

[wingstoo]

Malcolm,


Have you tried these guys for OG PLCE YOKE...

http://www.surplusandoutdoors.com/ishop/877/shopscr655.html seventh item down...£8.99

LS

 

[Graham_S]

while i am generally not fan of cammo (i'm in the forces so i don't like wearing it when i'm not working)

the new usmc digicam looks pretty good.

 

[Spacemonkey]

As does the Danish pattern...

Malcom, if you want green PLCE kit (pouches etc) then Silvermans do them at reasonable prices. Makes a change that.....

 

[malcolmc]

Thanks for info on non DPM surplus kit. I didn't know of Surplus & Outdoors and they seem to have keen prices. I've had a fair amount of kit from Silvermans and always had good service from them (I'm not connected to them in any way etc.).

I've bough plain green kit as a last resort because it's not available in black. Problem is when you have just a few items in a plain colour they will stand out from your outline. Black seems to have the property that if the shape is not what the observer expects they don't appear to be able make sence of what they are actually seeing. In my experience this applies to wildlife as well as people. This is just what I've found myself, dare say someone somewhere has reseached the subject in depth.

The recent nylon service kit is probally very good if you need to decontaminate it in a war situation but I doubt you could dye it with ease. I'm still in the market for plain black kit.

 

[Spacemonkey]

Ok then, try Soldier of Fortune for black ALICE (improved) kit or black MOLLE webbing kit. The MOLLE is compatible with any decent belt etc. And cheap too. Viper also do black pouches and i use a large belt pouch on my fishing basket belt to carry lunch in. Very good and cheap too.

 

[leon-1]

Hey I just realised i'm a native!

i broke the 1000 post mark!

Congratulations Rich

The Dansktarn was the other one that I had been thinking of, the advice to do with different colours is a good one and you are quite right they do do exactly that with Arctic warfare. The british issued snow whites (I don't know about current stuff, but the older stuff that I used) are slightly see through so some of the pattern from your windproofs actually shows through very faintly anyway.

To be honest generally any Neutral colour will work, at night you can get away with allsorts from blues, reds, oranges just because they are of a neutral tone. The old tropical stuff was pretty good as well, I still have some of it and it blends better in a deciduous wood than the normal temperate pattern.

People tend to have this strange image of ghillie suites being the best, it's not neccesarilly true, a lot of time goes into making one including the selection of the jacket and trousers that you are going to attach your hessian to.

Hessian is attached to some parts of the jacket / trousers and not others, different shades / colours of hessian are used along with the elastics which are stitched. Some parts of the suite have shorter lengths of hessian than others and you still tend to use a veil over your face.

Ghillie suites have to be shredded and then weathered, generally they smell quite foul and are not something that you want in the house.

RAPPLEBY2000 one of the best things that you can carry is a face veil (if you find a place that sells it by the meter you are laughing), that used in conjunction with natural shadow and foliage (not attached to the veil itself) is one of the best peices of cammouflage kit you could ever carry.

 

[Labrat]

Although I pointed out above that deer etc lave a more limited vision band than us, not seeing the same colour range - its worth remembering that their range also encompasses a number of wavelengths that we cannot see - basic consideration for most wild mammals is that their vision is similar to a human with red green colourblindness, but with greater expansion into the blues/ultraviolet

similar considerations apply to humans wearing NVG if you ever come up against them in your outdoor pastimes.

Remember that genuine MOD clothing has been treated to encompass IR spectrum protection (NVG) and UV luminosity.

Also bear in mind what you wash your clothes in for bushcraft - a lot of the modern washing powders, non bios especially have strong UV enhancers (to make your whites brighter!)

all my outdoor gear gets washed in soap flakes and water - nothing else. plus it keeps the water repellent cleanings going better.

 

[BOD]

Heres an interesting link to camouflage designs.
Camouflage uniforms of the world
i used to think i had seen everything but theres loads here!
click on the camo and you get info on it!

Amazed that the Northern Alliance had their own pattern! One would have thought that they would be far to busy with the Taliban and more focused on weaponry than uniforms.

Didn't they want to blend in and look like ordinary folk?

 

[Labrador]

To get a look at most of the US sporting camo's try

www.cabelas.com

 

[Stuart]

And the award for the most amusing camoflage patten to ever be issued to an armed forces goes to................. Libya's Africa Corps

little leopard skin maps of Africa on a green background...... inspired

 

[Spikey DaPikey]

How about this camo then, its called Hamoflarge !!

 

[Spacemonkey]

And the award for the most amusing camoflage patten to ever be issued to an armed forces goes to................. Libya's Africa Corps



little leopard skin maps of Africa on a green background...... inspired

That's what I thought! You got to hand it to them, they've got a wicked sense of humour... Wonder how well it works? Probably suprisingly well...