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Recents uniforms viewed with NV


hawkdriver
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I was asked to get some pictures of the different current uniforms using a night vision device. So, I drug half my collection outside on a cold night (somebody owes me) and took these pictures. Here is the set up. %100 illum, cloudless sky.

The uniforms used are: Woodland, Night Desert, Six Color Deserts, Three Color Deserts, FRACU's. In almost every picture, they are lined up that way, except the one picture in the shadows, the top uniform above the line is the FRACU's.

The first picture was hanging on a fence, with pampass grass behind, but the moon also ended up behind, so they are backlit. The second was laying in the green grass flat, with the full moon light shining down on them. The third picture is in the shadow of trees, and finally, the last picture was in my gravel driveway (best I could do to simulate desert, go figure).

 

 

This first picture, the Woodland uniform, the black stands out more than any of the other colors. This is the prime reason black was gotten rid of out of uniforms. The Night desert isn't bad in this picture and matches the color of the shadow, but stand out the worst in this environment, a testement to shading. The six color desert is next, the name tapes stand out the worst, this uniform actually does better than the three color desert in this scenario. The funniest of all this is that the FRACU's actually do the best of all the uniforms.

23kq4ah.jpg

 

 

Here, now that the uniforms are getting the direct moon light, the woodlands and night desert now do better, while the lighter color six, three, and ACU's begin reflecting to much moon light and stand out to much to be effective camoflage in this environment.

2akl1yo.jpg

 

 

Here, if it wasn't for the black in the woodlands, they would work very well, the night desert almost disappears, but the six, three, and ACU's still reflect to much light and do not camoflage well.

2q3aes3.jpg

 

 

Finally, in the gravel drive, which is more tan than grey, none of them work very well. The three color is so bright, the camera kept focusing on it. If I had to pick a uniform that worked best here, I would have to say that the woodlands did best, which is funny because the standing joke with the ACU's is that the only place they are effective camoflage is a gravel parking lot, well, just not under NV.

o94wug.jpg

 

My appologies that I forgot the civilian clothing, but it's to late now, I am in my warm house and Im not going back outside tonight. :w00t:

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Misanthropic_Gods

THANKS STEVE! You are right, I do owe you one!

 

I heard so often that the Night desert was made obsolete when we got past gen2 Night vision...but this just proves all of the people that just regurgitate the facts wrong. Im very excited about this...thanks for taking the time to do this test!

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My pleasure. Now I have to go back and put my collection back together :thumbsup: If I can find a new battery for my Russian NV, I may try this again. The issue is the reflectance of the materail. The woodlands would actually do quite well if the black is removed, which is why the Marine Marpats don't quite fit the bill as they still have losts of black in them.

 

 

Leather: Yes, I used a 14 to take these pictures.

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Please send a copy of this link to Natuck Labs as soon as possible.

 

Actually, I always thought that would be a great job.. doing just this kind of testing on uniform designs.

 

I wonder how these would stand up to a thermal sight?

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I agree that there seems to be very little attention paid to uniforms and camouflage under night vision conditions. By coincidence a fortnight ago I was involved in an OpFor exercise .. and when you get Gen III+ NVG and a bored uniform collector this is what results ...

 

100_5648.jpg

 

Uniforms from left to right (from memory): a.) unknown b.) USMC Woodlands c.) Australian Desert Auscam d.) Commercial Desert Tigerstripe (China mfg.)

 

Conditions: Taken under a wet weather shelter with the NVG internal IR light switched on

 

The irony is, of all the uniforms sampled here the Desert Tigerstripe performs the best by far under these conditions.

 

As per hawkdriver's pics the black fingers of the woodland uniform stands out. This is not necessarily a bad thing as it can still break up a stationary figure's outline in the bushes at night.

As far back as WWII the Nazis were aware of camouflage under IR conditions - the late war 'Leibermuster' also had a similar effect to the Woodlands, with the black portions of the pattern absorbing light most effectively. Some years ago the British magazine 'Military Illustrated' featured a two-part article on camouflage under IR conditions with a number of pics illustrating different patterns under IR.

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Misanthropic_Gods
I agree that there seems to be very little attention paid to uniforms and camouflage under night vision conditions. By coincidence a fortnight ago I was involved in an OpFor exercise .. and when you get Gen III+ NVG and a bored uniform collector this is what results ...

 

 

 

Uniforms from left to right (from memory): a.) unknown b.) USMC Woodlands c.) Australian Desert Auscam d.) Commercial Desert Tigerstripe (China mfg.)

 

Conditions: Taken under a wet weather shelter with the NVG internal IR light switched on

 

The irony is, of all the uniforms sampled here the Desert Tigerstripe performs the best by far under these conditions.

 

As per hawkdriver's pics the black fingers of the woodland uniform stands out. This is not necessarily a bad thing as it can still break up a stationary figure's outline in the bushes at night.

As far back as WWII the Nazis were aware of camouflage under IR conditions - the late war 'Leibermuster' also had a similar effect to the Woodlands, with the black portions of the pattern absorbing light most effectively. Some years ago the British magazine 'Military Illustrated' featured a two-part article on camouflage under IR conditions with a number of pics illustrating different patterns under IR.

 

 

 

VERY cool..what a coincidence. I have always had an interest in how things appear in the IR spectrum...but it has always been a bit hampered by lack of IR optics.

 

 

here is your picture rotated and cropped

 

post-6548-1289880968.jpg

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Please send a copy of this link to Natuck Labs as soon as possible.

 

Actually, I always thought that would be a great job.. doing just this kind of testing on uniform designs.

 

I wonder how these would stand up to a thermal sight?

 

Actually, Natick has a building with rooms that simulate tropical, woodland, and desert environments to do just what we are doing here. They test with live people and use actual items from the environment, such as actual Iraqi desert dirt.

 

As for thermal, I am working that angle :)

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Brian Dentino

An interesting study/comparrison on these different patterns. Thanks for taking the time to do this and sharing the results with us......I would say......back to the drawing board. :think:

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With Thermal, your body heat glow overpowers the pattern.

 

The MARPAT black is 1/2 as bad as the woodlands in NVD's because it's 1/2 the amount of black as the woodlands.

 

And yes, the ACU works best in NVD's partly because it was designed to hide the best under those conditions, then you add in the M-4, black in color, and the NVD helmet mount, black in color, the rhino horn, black in color, and the PVS-14, black in color, and the ACU becomes not so good again.

 

Wash any of these suits in detergent with UV brightners and watch the glow get brighter. Get them dirty where you can see the dirt sheen on your clothes with naked eye and the dirt imbedded in the cloth reflects the light almost like a UV brightner.

 

The name tags in the original pics were never treated for IR, so they glow very brightly. This is a problem with getting nametags and patches from those shops right outside the post gate, or having something embroidered in country with thread that is not IR treated.

 

The best suit we found for night use is the Marpat DESERT suit. But you have to camo the black stuff mentioned above.

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Bombe_Atomique

I'm not an expert.

There was something about night vision on militarymorons.

It's been a long time since I've read that and saw the pictures.

But if I remember correctly a black thing under normal vision can look dark under night vision, but can also look brighter. I think it depends on the treatment or color pigments or whatever.

I guess that goes with every colour.

 

And NVGs do not only detect the waves in the NIR spectrum, but also the visual spectrum and I think some UV.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Thanks for the photos.

Has someone viewed the older stuff (tigers, ERDL,...) with some NVGs?

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NV doesn't see color, it sees light reflectance. If you have a gloss black paint that does reflect light, NV will see it. If you look at the Woodland pattern, if you could take the black out, try to figure out the difference between the green, tan, and brown; you can't. If you take a look at the red cross on a white field on the nose of our aircraft with NV, you can't see the cross, you see a solid white box, why? the light reflectance of the red is similar to the white and thus, one "color"

If you will sent me a pair of authentic Golden Tiger tiger stripes, I will be more than glad to take pictures of it :thumbsup:

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Bombe_Atomique

if I would have one.

just got a reproduction :)

 

you're right with the green and brown on the woodland shirt. But the tan is lighter. and I guess it should be technical possible to get the black lighter.

It doesn't see color, but it detects a broad spectrum of wave lengths. That's what I was told. That's why I'm wondering why one can often read about NIR compliancy or something similar.

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if I would have one.

just got a reproduction :)

 

you're right with the green and brown on the woodland shirt. But the tan is lighter. and I guess it should be technical possible to get the black lighter.

It doesn't see color, but it detects a broad spectrum of wave lengths. That's what I was told. That's why I'm wondering why one can often read about NIR compliancy or something similar.

 

You can't get black lighter, you can only add a coating that reflects light over it. If the black fades, then the lighter color material underneat will show through and reflect light.

Newer generation of NV actually sees a very narrow spectrum of light wavelength. This is why current NV does not see blues and greens very well and why our NV compatible lighting is in the blue-green spectrum. Most NV sees very well in the red into the near IR spectrum.

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