Long and tedious anecdote. Almost 20 years ago doing opfor for army veteran ncos association during their Patrol competition.
Several 2/3 man teams started in the morning on a small Island inside lake Trasimeno, infiltrate ashore by raft, do some recon tasks and in the dark do a reconnaissance and mock sabotage (evaluate by a EOD) on a fort situated on  a hill overlooking the lake several kilometers away.

Us opfor were divided into two man teams and placed in plain view around the streets of a couple small towns and around some likely avenues of approach, simulating checkpoints. If we spotted a team we would take their names and time and write It down so they got a penalty in the end. We were asked (and the teams instructed) to wear plain tan or desert camouflage.
I dug out a beautiful 6 color desert uniform, with matching boonie. I wore a basic alice set, a armband, binocular around the neck and hand held stop Sign.

At some point a team leader comes out from a Bush, waves and casualty trots toward me, asking "do you have further instructions?", to which i respond "no, i am opfor and going to write down your team for a penalty as you were instructed, don't see our Desert camo?", to which he responds by grabbing my untucked shirt and saying "aint that Vegetato (then newly issued italian army woodland camouflage that some teams were wearing)?"

Next year we were to "ambush" teams at a chokepoint, where the team would be then loaded in a truck then they would be interrogated (evaluated for sere techniques) and dropped off somewhere else. It didnt go well as every team reacted differently to the ambush, not everyone surrendered, a team split and ran in different direction, another engaged in hand to hand combat and a couple punches were thrown ....anyway, i was wearing a chinese type 84 reversible uniform. While escorting a team to the truck a guy pointed my uniform and asked "cadpat?"

While i agree with the rest of the things you said i have doubts that a quivis de populo, an everyman, will recognize different camouflages (or equipment, weapons and badges Fwiw) and associate them to a particular group/association/military or Police force.

We were having a good time, then you had to bring those up.

I'm convinced that whomever created those has not visited even a quarter of the biomes represented.

There's more, the official photographer was riding around in an ATV and came to our site just in time to take pictures of the team that decided to react and stills of the whole scuffle are still in their archive.

Including this One of me in "cadpat " happily escorting the LT to the truck after the fight. I even lost my headgear. I have to Say that chinese camo looked good (the cut and material was not good, it was like 20$ or less from RoyalTiger, which was and its still a nice source for weird chinesium)


A still from the fight

Practically , being quiet and still in muted colors is more than sufficient for 99% of camouflage needs.

That being said, multicam is my personal favorite

Yea, some of that Chinese camo is actually pretty decent.  I quite like a couple of their newer digital woodland patterns and would totally own some, but I'm not some kind of godless commie scum.

Multicam works fine for on the turkey hunt.

Turkey_FS_SBS 2024-04-21 by FredMan, on Flickr

Good lookin' bird.

Playing paintball as a kid, the leafy patterns like real tree and mossy oak etc. were the best.

Someone sitting still 15-20 feet away would be easy to miss.

Multicam, early fall

MC is deadly for spring and fall around these parts.

Attached File


Notice difference between MC and woodland before area greens up.

That's a fair comment about everybody not knowing CadPat from Alpenflage.

This is the internet.  You can't expect the "experts" to actually have any experience with the subject matter they're rattling on about!

Regarding that map, to be honest in many places you could walk a few paces and find a totally different landscape color.
That's why you may use reversible suits

Multicam is my standard.

It works well in Michigan for three of the four seasons and not that bad in winter months when the tall grass and brush is mostly tan and brown.  It has worked especially well these past few winters where we've had less snow cover than in years past.

One of the other reasons that I went with Multicam is that there is a good amount of surplus out there and nearly every gear manufacturer makes items in Multicam allowing me to have less clashing patterns on my person that I do think help break apart my sillhouette a bit better. This was really helpful when I procured via surplus my Seven Layer ECWCS system as the wind shirt, soft shells, and hard shells are all available in OCP/Multicam.  

Just as there is value in going with the AR15 for standardization and logistical reasons so to is there in wearing a camo pattern used by the largest infantry force (U.S. Army).  

For IFF concerns, the real issues that results in blue on blue from everything I've read over the years tends to be bad land navigation, bad command control, or poor communication that leads to two friendly groups in the same area without either being aware of it.  We saw that happen in 1991 with the Persian Gulf War where air assets thought they had grid squares clear of friendly forces when that wasn't the case and we've seen in the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine Russian units unintentionally straying off course into areas that other units were in.

The other value is in MILSIM events.  If you want force on force at a grand scale you can pretty much only find that at MILSIM events and the larger MILSIM companies all have uniform regs with all of them that I am aware of allowing Multicam for one of the LARP factions. If you haven't done any MILSIM you probably should, it's a good way to see what it's like to work with civilian of mixed backgrounds and experiences trying to quickly come together to perform simulated tactical actions, a good insight into some of the chaos that would take if a 2A event ever actually went down (Chinese airborne dropping over your neighborhood or whatever).  Although, the MILSIM guys are probably light years better than the fat neighbor down the street that you'll be stuck with, but still it's instructive.  Plus, kind of an ego boost if you're an older guy who is good shape to see how well you perform still against young guys in their early 20s that you can still outruck and endure more hardship then.

With few exceptions, one might think those "experts" would be ideally primed for politics.

Regarding "hunting" type camos like Real Tree, Mossy Oak, et al: those are pretty good if they very closely match the intended background AND one is stationary. Add any bit of movement- and I mean any- and they quickly lose concealing ability, which stands to reason given their application.

Oh yea, the ground looks like that around here basically year round, other than out in the fields.  Basically from the waist down, it's brown around here.  Above that, it's green half the year.  Or year around in the pine filled areas.

I actually do use multicam (or MTP) pants combined with some other top usually.  Because it's brown down low and on the ground.

This is another place I support using multicam - I think I've mentioned it before - is the technical garments.  The ECWCS and such.  I fully support getting your rain / cold weather gear surplus.  If you are careful shopping around, surplus technical clothing is THE best deal out there.  You can pick up actual quality rain and cold weather gear for a fraction of the cost you would spend elsewhere.  It's also better designed for what you'll be doing - most of the civilian stuff (unless you go super expensive) is either too ultralight or too heavy.  

Don't skimp on this stuff btw guys.  Or footwear and sock.  Footwear and socks are usually the first thing to wear out during hard times, and will be impossible to replace, as we have almost zero footwear industry in the USA.  We don't even have cobblers around in most places to repair the oldschool boots..............





100%.  They are also alot of fun.  Sure, they have limitations, alot of it is LARPy, but it's fun, good exercise, the good events you get to actually use your full kit for days and nights at a time - I'll put forth that some of these kids I know who do airsoft, and I'm talking about like 15 year old kids - have better kit and have had way more time actually using it in the field than alot of even active military guys (unless you are combat arms or similar).  I know a couple guys who do it every weekend all day at least one day, and go to big matches 2 or 3 times a year, and will be hitting up milsim events as soon as they are old enough.  It's interesting seeing their gear quickly change as they realize that it's worth doing certain things.  

There are serious limitations what you can achieve, mostly because airsoft guns suck.  But you get to test out all the rest of your gear.  And it's a really good way to get new people into this kind of stuff.  

The best part is that it's not expensive, especially once you get the basic gun setup.  BB's are super cheap.  And shooting your airsoft gun in the house is a great way 'fix that mouse problem' while greatly annoying the wife.

This Is very wise advice, as in a group of like minded people not everyone has the budget and most of all items in weird camouflage are usually a lower bang for your buck value and there isnt a Wide assortment of items.
The "chain of surplus" as we knew It (surplus dealers buying bales of surplus, selling basic items to workers and Hunters and rare items to collectors, then doing the whole circe again) has almost disappeared due to various reasons. In the early 90s in Italy every hunter, whitewasher, landscaper and Mason had flecktarn clothing, every student had the german olive parkas and shirts (including me and that caused a scuffle during a school trip to Barcelona ) which you could buy for nothing. Mid part of the 90s and woodland from balkans was everywhere. Later large stocks of British dpm were available, i Remember in 2008 i could buy new 2.50 shirts, 3.50 trousers, 4 to 5€ field jackets and smock, less than 15€ goretex. Mtp was dirt cheap a few years later, but brexit made It impossible to get It cheap. Today this Is no more. I have been both part and in contact with some groups of like minded people that need camouflage for various reasons and a couple of years ago while chatting with One of these guys he told me they wanted to review their camo choices, but they would probably continue to use dpm because "it's everywhere and cheap". No it's no more. I told that if i had to make a suggestion i would go with
-multicam because there's US surplus and civilian options ranging from airsoft copies to High end items ready available in a Wide variety of garments and most important a Wide variety of sizes
-woodland because there Is a Wide variety of options ranging from low priced hunting Gear to airsoft copies to High grade hunting and military items, readily available, lot of sizes.
-solid earth tone colors because there's a lot of options of all kinds, from work gear to tactical and military Gear, to fashion items.
A mix of the above.

Outfitting a single person does not pose those problems....well, maybe you dont want to shell 300$ for a far East made set because it's in some reprinted weird us camouflage and then freeze off because they only sell combat sets and maybe you were better suited with a heavier coat.

I think however you cant rely only in plundering surplus stores or getting lucky on eBay when ourfitting and organization.

Oh, don't get me started on all the times someone came up with the idea of  all the members wearing the same tactical gear

Yup, pretty much this.

Dammit Joe, we are looking for a discussion with no end, The constant metaphorical answer to the subjective.

As someone who is forced to wear XLarge/Long pants and shirt, the availability of proper size clothing means a great deal to me.  Likely others, as well.

Those lucky folks who fall in the statistically "average" size of garments (I.E., by far the most common items) have an advantage not shared by others.

It's often possible to wear garments that are a bit "too large", but seldom garments that are even a bit too small.

Agreed.  That fits with what I've seen with folks hunting, or when I played airsoft back in the day with folks who were wearing hunting patterns.  Movement, or the pattern being used even slightly out of its intended "window" (be it area/terrain, or even slightly out of season) defeats the whole point of the hyper detailed hunting patterns.

I'm not a hunter, although I have nothing against it; just not easy to do in my locale.  I think if I was to buy camo clothing suitable for game I was hunting, I would take a look at scientific evidence about how such "hunted" game eyes worked, and how such game visually saw the camo the hunter was wearing.  I'd also give a HUGE point to wearing such (effective) camo which deterred being shot by another hunter.

Let's set aside the hearing and sense of smell such game have; accommodating such things is perforce a primary goal of any successful hunter, as well as "stalking" skills.

Well this is really a good point lost on a lot of folks.  You take your average hunter, be it, deer, or turkey, and he is in a stationary position.  His clothing and insulation reflect this.  Your average grunt doing a woodland patrol is moving, so naturally his clothing and insulation will reflect this fact.  The key here is movement.  Watch a deer move through the forest.  It's a constant start/stop affair.  Seemingly at random.  But the key takeaway is the balancing of movement and stopping to look around and listen.  Sometimes even smell.  For each situation you have to balance how fast you can move with how much time you have to stop, look, and listen.  The deer is issued one primary color, yet he uses it to the best of his ability, in all sorts of terrain.  That's what needs to be said in all these camo threads; it's not the camo pattern that will give you away; it's usually movement.

But carry on.  I love bullshitting about camo as much as the next guy.  

Pshhh... the deer herd that basically live in my back field just ignore me and keep eating and moving, lol.  

It's funny when my chicken flock gets up underfoot with them and they hang out together eating.

I could wear MC Hammer's parachute pants and a giant foam cowboy hat and still be able to walk within thirty feet of the pronghorn around here.

So speaking of interesting camos, Fireforce Ventures is coming out with a line of modern uniforms in the old 32 bn Commando camo pattern.   Below is an example of the camo (not the new uniforms, this is an old one)

It looks like it'd be pretty effective in alot of environments.

Wait, are you saying deer conduct SLLS stops??

Obviously: they wait for just the right time to spring out in front of yer truck.

@marnsdorff

That would be sweet. 32 BN camo was directly influenced by French lizard/leopard, which works great in a variety of forested environments. I've worn it juniper/pinyon and ponderosa pine forests. Works very well.

Yea, I kinda like it.  Looks like a good compromise between a 'woodland setting' green and 'dead leave and the dirty ground' browns.

Reminds me of a cross between French and Portuguese Lizard patterns.

I am on the fence if all these manufacturers fighting each other selling those old eitd camouflages Just for fashion are to me Just plain silly or a good thing as they are cool, new condition and available.

On a more laconic side, it's just brushed stripes of Browns and greens on a green base.

Earthy tones? Check
Irregular shapes to break outline? Check

It could as well be greek

Or serbian

I think it's a good thing.  But I like interesting camo patterns and also actually like to use what I have, not just have safe queens.  





I like this one because of the color combos.  Specifically, something woodlandish that has a good mix of darkish brown and no black.

I love East German “Falling Rain” cammo

I showed once in the field with that (bought when varusteleka started their business and the things were like 10$ a set) and my friend dubbed it the "Kellogg's All Bran Camo"

Again, you have to rely on few styles of garments from modern sellers or expensive old surplus

The czech m60 has a slightly more green base color, some garments including simple parkas are still around for a few euros, and it also has the innovative feature for the time of changing camo when seen thru (older generations, so illuminated with IR lights) night vision.