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Yep, I just saw a guy today wearing a green digi pattern. It looks cool, but damn, that is like five different styles of utility uni's. We need a navy person to come in here and explain all this. My curiousity is peaked.Former political prisoner who escaped on 9-24-23.Comment
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false.
1. Sailor returning from an IA gig (When we go IA, we wear Army uniforms depending on where we go).
2. Self explanatory
3. Be more specific....which BDU?
4. Could be a devil doc, might be somebody that just got back from the sandbox with the new type II (or were they III).
as far as the beards, they are a no go without a no shave chit, and even then they have to be trimmed down to 1/8th inch. Possibly foreign nationals (Saudi/Kuwaitis) here on training.Comment
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Thanks for the explanation. I've been here a couple of weeks and am still getting used to the way the Navy operates. The BDU's i've seen worn were Woodland Camo, and I've seen some wearing the DCU's (forgot to add that to the list.)
The two individuals I've seen wearing beards were a U.S. Navy LT and a PO3. I thought maybe it was a winter deal or something. One thing with the NWU's, are the E-1's thru E-3's not allowed to wear rates? Seems that I've only seen E-4's and above wearing any rates on them.Former political prisoner who escaped on 9-24-23.Comment
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Correct...E-1 through E-3 do not wear rank insignia. They would be changing them every couple months, anyway, and it's not cheap to get the tailoring done.
BDUs may still be Seabees, EOD, MA, or one of the others that did not convert over to the new uniforms.
DCUs are either Combat Camera or someone back from a non-Army desert deployment (like I was in July).Comment
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I believe the navy just wasted the tax payers money. How the hell are you going to find a person that falls off a ship wearing that ??? I understand the logic behind why the army and marines needed to change their BDU. As for the Air Forces and their ABU's , what were they thinking...Comment
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The ABU does not look like the original design which I thought was pretty sweet. They changed it from the original design to what it is now. And they should have allowed the wear of desert boots instead of just the sage ones. To me, the ABU's look better with desert colored boots. I retired last year and wore my BDU's up to the end. I didn't feel like spending a bunch of dough when I knew I was gonna bail at the 24 year mark.
Now if we would have had multi-cam or this digi green stuff that I saw the other day, I would have layed out some shekels for that.Former political prisoner who escaped on 9-24-23.Comment
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What was the logic behind the navy's decision to change in the first place?Comment
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The Navy Working Uniform Type I (the blueberries) was developed for several reasons:
1) Life expectancy of the blue coveralls - The Navy wanted a more durable uniform than the poopie suits which were currently issued. The poopie suits were made out of a thinner ripstop cotton similar to summer weight BDUs and the new NWU Type I was supposed to have a service life 3-5 times longer via wash and wear. Also the blue digital pattern was chosen to hide oil and paint stains NOT for a tactical purpose.
2) Create a serviceable, daily uniform that sailors could wear out in town during the work day. With coveralls and the utilities sailors essentially had two working uniforms. If your ship's skipper was particularly strict e.g. East Coast, you wear only allowed topside (outside a ship's skin) in a uniform with a separate blouse and trousers (e.g. wash khakis or utilities), and poopie suits were confined inside the ship.
Believe it - the environment snipes operate in is continuously near some of the largest and heaviest machinery in the world, let alone waterborne. All of it is very exposed for servicing and lack of space on a craft. It tends to leak and spray oil everywhere when it's working and be on fire when it's not. Most of the access panels are under lock due to contamination issues and the main shaft of even the smallest patrol boat if it caught your belt, necklace or the edge of an NWU blouse - you're now a red streak and a memory.
Anyway, at the time, the Navy had a strict working uniform policy similar to the Marines. Nothing out in town other than emergency stops to and from work e.g. getting gas or supplies for you baby. No lunch stops, no events (like the Army), and sometimes not even past the pier. However, since the NWUs were supposed to hide paint and oil stains and have permanent creases for an overall neater appearance one of the selling points was that Navy personnel would be allowed to wear the new uniforms out in town during the workday (such as swinging by a sitdown diner for lunch).
3) Create a Navy wide working uniform. Big Navy had been pushing universal uniforms for years, such as the bus driver suits from Zumwalt and the new PT uniform. The Navy had a problem with this concept not just because we're a soup sandwich but tradition and diversity of rates (jobs).
Tradition - sailors in the old Royal Navy were usually pressed (forcibly enlisted) in port out of their old merchantmen or shore jobs. Once of the ship, the Captain would make little effort for a uniform appearance and sailors were allowed to wear whatever they'd like. That attitude was brought into the US Navy, and is present in some of our current uniform regulations, e.g. the dixie cup hat that sailors wear. There is literally no description how to wear it, other than it sits on your head. Once we started uniformity among the dress uniforms, the working uniforms still vastly varied.
Diversity of rates - the Navy has the broadest mission among all the armed services that requires a large field of different job specialties. You can go to the galley at Naval Base Coronado and run into SWCC candidates, aviation handlers (skittles), mechanics and cryptologists, all who have very different requirements for what they need in a working uniform such as fire resistance, flotation, easily low light identification and personal safety. Hard to combine into one working uniform type.
So the Navy forced one uniform down our throats anyway. For a lot of shore rates, such as people working at PSD, I'm sure they welcomed the change to wear something more comfortable, but a large part of the Navy was dragged kicking and screaming into wearing it. Subs for example hate the uniform because of the hazard it poses with the exposed blouse. Aviation handlers still wear their colored jackets and helmets for identification on the flightline. Pilots and aircrew still wear their flightsuits since they may be shot down and actually have to rely on their uniform to hide them from the enemy. Special Warfare openly flaunts this requirement. Other gripes include that the uniform only comes with a goretex jacket (so your crotch gets wet in the rain), not reimbursing sailors for the purchase of the uniform, and originally when the uniform was rolled out, you couldn't wear it out in town anyway as was promised (later the rules changed).
Things were so bad in adoption, my community's admiral had to issue a memo dictating that all commands had to be outfitted by 01JAN2011 (a year late) and hold an inspection. My command was delayed until February because our CO hadn't purchased a set.
The new Type IIs (desert digital pattern) and Type IIIs (woodland digital pattern) were developed because the Navy had exhausted the DOD's supply of the old pattern BDUs and DCUs, incorporate new uniform technologies (IR tags), serviceability (BDUs would bleach white and fade, also when wet would turn black) and a desire to have a uniform that didn't make us look like a Columbian militia. The easiest way to tell them from MARPAT is that the rank insignia will be on the chest and there's a lack of brown because the Marines whined that it looked to similar to their uniform.
All I have to say, is when a service adopts a universal uniform, it generally has some teething problems (Army replacing UCP with multicam for forward units, Air Force still issuing DCUs to firefighters instead of the heavy weight ABU). With the prevalence of joint operations you just have to wonder what the Tali thinks when he sights in and sees three to four guys all wearing different things.Last edited by roll2li; 12-17-2011, 10:06 PM.Originally posted by Josh3239Comment
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^^ Excellent explanation, thanks.Former political prisoner who escaped on 9-24-23.Comment
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What ever the color blue sticks out everywhere. Marpat and UCP for urban should me issued to all US personal. Multicam is over rated it looked too dark on the shadow side in desert and too light on the sun side in woodland and forget about urbanLast edited by 1lostinspace; 12-18-2011, 3:19 PM.There are sniper everywhere and nowhere.....who knows what is out there.
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