Little Known Facts and History about Camouflage of the Western World

Interesting article on camo history from Imminent Threat Solutions

Camouflage is the technique used to conceal the presence of a person, piece of equipment, or installation by making it blend into its surroundings. Since the 1850’s, militaries around the world have embraced the concept of camouflage in order to help obscure the visibility and movement of their troops by enemy forces. Prior to this time, militaries generally wore uniforms that were comprised of bold, easily recognizable colors.

It was the British who first abandoned their own bright red coats in favor of khaki uniforms in India, which blended more easily into the landscape in which they operated. Since that time, methods of camouflage have become more advanced and deemed crucial in battlefield situations. While these methods are diverse, today we’ll be discussing a handful of camouflage patterns currently in use by modern military organizations, mainly among Western nations. More specifically, the majority of these patterns are commercially available to the general public.

The United States of America

The United States Armed Forces currently uses multiple patterns amongst their four branches of service. Some patterns have been used by multiple forces, while others were developed specifically for one branch or another. Part of the reason for the variety of patterns in use is that different environments require different types of camouflage.

If you’re deployed in a desert environment, the colors and patterns needed to blend into that environment are obviously different than those needed to blend into a wooded or jungle environment. In some cases, the reasons for certain services using, or having used certain camouflage patterns are less obvious; having more to do with the leviathan processes of management by committee than with providing functional concealment.

ERDL, M81 and Woodland

M81 is the name of the pattern frequently referred to as “Woodland Camo”, which has seen service in the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and the Air Force. Woodland is still in use today by certain units, operating in particular environments. M81 has been derived from the ERDL pattern, which was developed by the US Army’s Engineer Research and Development Laboratory (thus the acronym) in 1948, though it didn’t see much use until 1967.

In 1981, the ERDL pattern was enlarged and released as the new standard “M81” pattern. ERDL and M81 have not only seen use by all four US branches of service, but multiple other nations’ armed forces as well. M81 uniforms and gear are still produced by a variety of manufacturers and are widely available at surplus outlets.

Within the commercial market, the ERDL pattern has been used as the template for such “fashion-oriented” camouflage variants as purple, pink, red and blue camouflage materials by replacing the earth-tone color schemes with brighter hues, which are obviously less useful for concealment purposes; unless you’re prone to hiding in piles of Lego or dog toys.

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