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XBradTC

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240 Years of Army Uniforms

With the rollout of the new OCP uniform replacing the hated UCP pattern, IJReview has a brief video showing the evolution of the Army uniform.   With the increasing costs of combat uniforms, I have a couple of thoughts. Enlisted personnel are issued free of charge their first uniforms, everything from socks and underwear to…

With the rollout of the new OCP uniform replacing the hated UCP pattern, IJReview has a brief video showing the evolution of the Army uniform.

 

With the increasing costs of combat uniforms, I have a couple of thoughts.

Enlisted personnel are issued free of charge their first uniforms, everything from socks and underwear to the blue Army Service Uniform. Thereafter, enlisted soldiers are required to replace components on their own. They are, however, paid an annual allowance based on the cost of uniform items, and their expected useful lifetime for each component. For instance, the typical grunt will go through socks at a faster rate than the blue coat of the ASU. Unfortunately, the allowance rarely accurately tracks the real lifetime of uniform components, particularly the Army Combat Uniform. Thus, the ever increasing costs of the ACU costs enlisted soldiers out of pocket expenses.

The costs of combat uniforms will only increase, as the Army continues to improve the technology of textiles. Eventually, the replacement costs will become prohibitive for the average soldier.

Further, we’ve already reached a point where the ACU a soldier wears while at his home station is not the same as the uniform he wears when deployed overseas to a combat theater.  Prior to deployment, each soldier is issued a variant of the uniform that has been treated to be more fire resistant.

Probably 90% of the time in garrison, soldiers don’t really need to be clad in camouflage. Time spent in the company area cleaning weapons, or sitting through SHARP training, or in the motor pool performing maintenance on the vehicles is the norm. So why issue an expensive uniform for that? Why not issue a simple, inexpensive uniform for day to day wear that comprises the vast majority of a soldier’s time?

That uniform could be similar to the simple green fatigue uniform issued in the 1970s and early 1980s.  For those times when training at the home station calls for an actual combat uniform, the ACU in OCP (or future combat uniforms) could be issued as organizational clothing, similar to much of the cold weather gear issued today.

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  1. mushdogs

    That makes way too much sense. Therefore it will never happen.

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  2. TomR,armed in Texas

    Korea and Vietnam did not have the same uniforms.

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  3. timactual

    “That uniform could be similar to the simple green fatigue uniform ”

    Ah, yes. Utilities, cotton sateen, OG 107 or somesuch. Cold in the winter, hot in the summer. Looked like crap unless professionally laundered and heavily starched. And I mean heavily. There was a reason putting on a fresh set was known as “breaking starch”. And the buttons were frequently broken by the laundry. Wore out and ripped fairly easily. Not a good field or work uniform, unless you worked behind a desk.

    Similar, maybe, but hopefully much improved.

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  4. Kirk

    Video is… Sloppy, and wrong. The Interceptor Body Armor shown for Operation Just Cause wasn’t on general issue until somewhere after 2001, and the correct body armor would have been the PASGT vest, the one with the weird “epaulets” that snapped down over web gear.

    The rest of the uniforms look as though they came off Joe the Ragbag. LBE with the first-aid pouch hanging like a cantilever? C’mon, now–When would that have ever flown?

    The basic problem with uniforms in the current era is that the garrison uniforms are starting to take on the attributes of the typical “dress uniform” vs. what is actually worn in combat. There is no purpose to keeping a set of camouflaged uniforms that won’t be worn in combat, and will only be used in garrison life, other than the way the whole cycle of combat/garrison/ceremonial uniform goes from one generation to another. We forget that the dress uniforms of today were once “battledress”, and the vestigial features like the pockets on the coats were once utility features and are now fakes.

    Two things–We need to revive the idea of a “fatigue uniform”, and make that the standard garrison uniform, and I’d suggest, strongly, that the current dress uniforms need to go away. They’re the last remnant of a dead age, when troops were not allowed civilian clothes (mostly, to keep them from deserting…), and needed pretty uniforms for “walking out” on pass. It’s been generations since someone looked at his buddy in the barracks and said “Hey, let’s get into our Class “A” uniforms, and go out for a drink or two…”. Hell, these days, it’s positively against common sense, given the threat environment even on stateside assignments. So, get rid of the damn things, completely, adopt a decent-looking fatigue-type uniform for garrison, and put the money into better combat uniforms and cold-weather clothing.

    I give it a couple of generations, and we’re going to reach a point where camouflage patterns become the purview of the heraldry folks, and we’re wearing what we currently consider a combat uniform as our dress uniform–Probably FRACUs with padded-out IOTV-looking things and heraldric pouches displayed on it. Meanwhile, the real combat uniforms will be some kind of powered full-body armor set with active camouflage built in…

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  5. Esli

    Somewhat embarrassed for my first unit, The Old Guard, to be a participant. Not only the comments above but also the glaring absence of camouflage bands on all of the helmets that should have had them. Could have been a good effort but they missed the mark.

    Disagree on having a utility garrison uniform. Not convinced that we could make it and sell it that much more cheaply than ACU. I’m having a hard enough time keeping up with one uniform style. I also disagree with ending dress uniforms. Anecdotally, I have worn my mess dress uniform on a couple of cruises during the formal nights and any American over about 50 loves it. Given how much I paid for them, I’ve had to find a couple of extra venues to wear them in to reduce the cost-per-wearing.

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  6. Kirk

    The dress uniforms are really a joke, when you get down to it. I added it up, and over the last 15 years of my career, I wore the damned things exactly NEVER for anything other than an inspection to ensure I had ’em and they fit me. That tells me that the Class A isn’t exactly necessary, and we could probably do what the civilians do about tuxedos–Rent the damn things, whenever necessary. Authorize an allowance for people doing things like embassy duty, or other occasions where a uniform like that is appropriate, and save the damn money. As an enlisted guy, my uniform allowances never even came close to covering the expenses of maintaining the clothing bag, let alone accounting for the idiotic changes. I wouldn’t mind so much, if the Class A or B was even worn for a few days a month as part of my duties, but it never was.

    And, let’s be honest, here: The current Class A is essentially a WWI battle uniform in vestigial form, with classic Revolutionary War infantry colors applied. Does it make sense, in this day and age, to have this thing? I’d submit that it does not. Nobody is wearing these things anymore, for the original purpose, which was to provide a neat, distinctive uniform for “walking out” on pass, back in the days when private soldiers were indistinguishable from indentured servants. Half the reason they weren’t allowed civilian clothes was to prevent desertion, and we’re a bit past that, right now.

    Adapt to the times. We don’t need pretty-pretty walking out uniforms for every soldier, so remove those from general issue. You want to wear a dress uniform for some legitimate function? Fine, rent one from a concessionaire on post. Need one because you’ve been assigned as an attache at an embassy? Fine–Here’s the money. Go for it. For the rest of the force? We’re making decent cold-weather boots basic issue, along with the Gore-Tex shells…

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