In a major announcement today (well, yesterday if you're thinking about it from EST), the Australian government launched one of its most sweeping uniform replacement programs in decades.
The Australian Defense Forces have asked the United States military to filfull an urgent need to outfit all its troops in Afghanistan with the MultiCam combat uniform developed by Crye Precision. You'll remember we broke the news in August that Aussie special forces were prowling around The Stan with the MultiCam duds. According to Australian military acqisition chief Jason Clare:
For the past 12 months our Special Forces troops in Afghanistan have been trialling a new Mulitcam combat uniform made by Crye Precision, based in the United States, Afghanistan.
The preliminary results of this trial indicate that the camouflage pattern provides our troops with greater levels of concealment across the range of different terrains in Afghanistan - urban, desert and green.It also makes it easier for them to do their job.
The ADF will try to slip in an order for MultiCam combat uniform for use by all Australian troops in Afghanistan when they "go outside the wire," Clare said. There are almost 1,600 Australian troops in Afghanistan.
The so-called MultiCam "trial" will last another year.
Meanwhile, Clare dropped a bombshell, saying he was looking to buy a license for MultiCam and to go the way of the Brits in developing their own variant. We reported on the new Brit camo pattern several times here on Kit Up!...
I have also instructed the DMO to begin discussions with Crye Precision about the possibility of obtaining a licence to manufacture this uniform in Australia and develop our own unique camouflage pattern.
This brings up two major questions: First, to what extent does the urgent Australian order for MultiCam material and uniforms disrupt the US Army's efforts to execute its fielding of the OCP setup to Joes in the Box? I sure hope the Army isn't put in the position of slow rolling the fielding in favor of giving some wiggle room to the Aussies. And second, is Caleb Crye trying to take over the world?
Well, if it works, use it.
(Thanks to Aussie Observer and DoD Buzz for the gouge)
