Desert Camo Question?

[Bank Vault]

I saw one in BHD, even though it is just a movie, maybe it's true on the camo part?

[sigma9r]

 

 

Love the name tapes! One of those never-got-around-to things!!

 

I remember many of the non-military contractors wore these uniforms in 2006 and 2007 as well as the FOBBITS (not REMFS :w00t: ) wearing them on Casual Fridays!!

 

Wiley

[mvmhm]

I was issued my first sets on the Iraqi border in July 1991.....but some units had begun receivng theirs right about the time of the cease fire.....

 

 

Mark sends

[USMCRECON]

I would have to say '91 for earliest issue of 3-color desert. I have an attributed shirt worn by a Reserve BG during Desert Storm -- on the other hand, he was in logistics and may have had some choice in what he wore.

 

It seems to me that at the time I read that the old 6-color "chocolate chip" was tested in Arizona and Egypt, but that it proved poor camo for the Arabian Desert, thus the change after they made hundreds of thousands. I suspect this is one reason GI's were allowed to bring a set home in '91 -- to get rid of them!

 

G

I think Gil's assessment of 1991 is about right. The chocolate chips worked pretty well in the Egyptian desert which was rockier but were found to be less suitable in the sandier desert terrain of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Somalia, etc.

 

Each time I left the desert, I was able to take home every set that was issued to me. Being at CENTAF at the time, it was considered a duty uniform and they kept giving us more and more of them but when I left for the Pentagon in 1995, they never took any of them back. I now have an A-bag full of both choc's and coffee's in th storage locker. Same with the boots. Even though I arrived in theaster wearing a pair, they always issued me another pair (occasionally 2 pairs). I still have several pairs of them, still unworn and in the issue boxes.

 

During the Gulf War, most desert utility (DCUs, if you like) were in the old chocolate chip pattern. However, in about December of 1990, SOCCENT issued us new Gore-Tex parkas that had the 3-color coffee stain pattern on the outside. The first pair of coffee stains that I was issued was in 1992 when I deployed to Saudi Arabia to establish Operation Southern Watch. These were of the earlier heavy cotton blend, same as the issue variety of chocolate chips, but without some of the reinforcements.

 

During another deployment to the theater in early 1993, I was issued my first set of coffee stains in the (then) new rip-stop material. When I went back as CENTAF liaison to the DATT at AMEMBASSY Riyadh and to the RSAF that summer, I was issued two more sets of the rip-stop coffee stains (and another pair of boots) so I would guess that by that time, the rip-stop material coffee stain pattern DCUs were well into the supply pipeline.

[mpguy80/08]

I was with the 1st Cav Div during the 92-94 time frame... I deployed twice, back to back in late 92 and again in early 93 and both times we had the chocolate chip pattern DCUs. We saw lots of three color DCUs then, but it was postly the Permanent party people and the Spec ops guys. I didn't see the DCUs again until 2001, and by then it was ALL the three color pattern.

 

Wayne