Newsgroups: sci.military.moderated
From: Ed Rudnicki <erudnick@pica.army.mil>
Subject: Anti Starlight Camouflage Clothing
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 00:32:03 GMT
Lines: 65

This was forwarded to me by someone in the USMC who says he can't
post himself. These words are not mine.


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The Scout/Sniper section of the Marine battalion I was in in Desert 
Shield/Storm did some experiments with the 'desert night camou coats and 
trousers'.  We were all quite skeptical that these new suits did any 
good.  The tests involved comparing visibility of Marines (standing, 
kneeling, prone, and moving) wearing the chocolate chip (day cammie) and 
green night cammie outfit.  The subjects were observed on two nights: 
one that had 100% cloud cover (very dark) and the other with minimal 
cloud cover and about 50% lunar illumination.  Observers used the naked 
eye, PVS-4s, PVS-5s, and the infrared TOW sight.

	Results:  Across the board the green 'desert night cammie' 
coveralls increased the chances of being observed.  Perhaps this suit was 
effective vs the older PVS-2 systems but vs all the other systems it was 
less than ineffective.  The only time the green 'night cammie' suit did 
not assist the observers was during the 'dark' nights when observed with 
the naked eye.
	The bottom line:  someone bought a bill of goods with those 
suits.  Some have stated the qualities of the suits could not have 
withstood numerous washings - the ones we wore were BRAND new, not 
been worn previous to the tests, and were kept dry.

	Two interesting other results:

1.  A couple of Marines did not get the word (what's new) and brought 
sets of winter overwhites (as in they brought the kit you'd expect to 
see men wear in Norway) - actually they brought them intentionally to see 
what use they would be.  Against both the PVS-4 and PVS-5 the overwhites 
were extremely effective - under both lunar illumination conditions.  We 
even had Marines move to within 20 meters of the observers (from 200 
meters) without being seen - wearing overwhites.  Of course this was in 
Saudi Arabia (grid ??????) which had sand that was pretty clean.  Once we 
got into the oilfields I am sure it would not have been as effective.

2.  The infrared TOW sight was superb and no outfit mentioned under no 
lunar illum conditions was able to hide.  BUT - Marines are ingenious and 
someone brought out a space blanket (not the cheap ones you get at the 
end of a marathon but the thick one with a green backing).  If you 
carefully wrap yourself in the space blanket the TOW sight was not 
effective - I do not recall which side of the blanket needs to be towards 
the TOW sight but it did make a difference.  Unfortunately, the space 
blanket vs the illumination intensifier sights (PVS types) was not 
effective.  We figured that the thermal qualities of the space blamket 
kept the Marines heat in and thus defeated the TOW IR sight.

	I will always chuckle when I see or hear of the desrt night 
camouflauge parka and trousers.  Next thing we will get is blue paint for 
the bottom of our boots ????