Gear Scout on the new Army PTs

It's... beautiful. Go read.

Camo Circus

This should be fun to watch...

The U.S. Army;has altered its government-owned Scorpion camouflage pattern to look almost identical to MultiCam, the trademarked pattern the service has been using in Afghanistan since 2010.

On one hand, it follows my thought of keeping the gear and uniforms that are already in the system; however we'll see if Crye thinks it's a little too close to Multicam.

Army Pistols

Lots of talk about the Army (once again) not being happy with the ol' M9. Pretty legitimate reasons in my mind, but I don't think a caliber change is going to fix the issue.  A new pistol (with a rail... and a smaller grip... and not stupid backwards safeties or DA/SA... etc.) is needed, but also people need to realize that FMJ out of a pistol is going to always suck.

The overall challenge is finding something that all the new hip plastic pistols do (high capacity, lightweight, modular grip size would be nice...) that isn't a plastic frame (my vote would be a Sig P226 SAO in all honesty... even though they're not that light.)  I know how GIs treat M9s, and a plastic frame is not going to last long.  I doubt that'll happen though, probably just end up with some .40S&W Glock and go through it all again next time we go to war again.

New Camo

Scorpion will replace the MultiCam pattern, currently fielded by the Army as the Operational Camouflage Pattern, making Scorpion the standard issue pattern of the Army, thereby completely replacing the unpopular Universal Camouflage Pattern, first adopted in 2004. The Army will continue to refer to the new Scorpion pattern as OCP. The patterns are very similar so the Army will continue to purchase MultiCam as OCP until the new supply chain for Scorpion is up and running.

I gotta say, while I understand the deep down "why" of Scorpion (the Army already owns it), I still think it would have made more sense to just continue paying some royalties and just adopt Multicam (which there's a crapload of OCIE and uniforms already in the system.)  Maybe they'll just say "close enough" for the existing OCP and let you wear it too?

Image (and really good hard look at what the hell it is) from Hyperstealth

So... it's Multicam?

While not official, it seems that SMA Chandler let slip that the new camo will pretty much be Multicam.

…Chandler also told troops that the new Army combat uniforms will likely be phased in starting eight to nine months from now. The uniform will feature different colors for different environments, but the pattern will be very similar to the mottled “multicam” currently used in Afghanistan under the designation “Operation Enduring Freedom Camouflage Pattern.”

I still say it makes sense, since we've got a bunch of equipment in "OCP" in the inventory already, and it works.  I guess we'll see how true that is in a few months.

Updates

For those interested, briefly: I am now in Texas again, doing a crapload of medical and administrative stuff for the next week and a half, give or take, and there are once again two cats in the house.

Little more detail on the second bit.  Apparently after pushing the screen out of the window (no witnesses, and the two involved parties refuse to elaborate further than guilty looks and "meows") for some reason Lila decided that it'd be a good idea to climb a tree.  My money is on running away from the large black stray cat that's stalking the neighborhood from what I understand, although she may have simply wanted a good view of the area.  40 feet later she realized cats are not good at climbing down.

Reports are the neighbors closest to the tree were pretty awesome about things and kept an eye on her, and she got to spend a night or two in her little kitty treehouse.  This afternoon Manda haggled with a helpful local tree service company, and after Lila was extracted from the tree (and then extracted from the operator, I guess she didn't want to let go) she's now home and acting like nothing happened (which is a good sign.)

Anyway, the 4 hours of sleep in the last three days is catching up, so I'm probably going to work on that.

New camo?

Much like the last time I was in Afghanistan, it looks like the Army will be announcing a new camouflage pattern before I get home.  I kind of hope that new uniforms will be available fast, and I will be able to toss all my UCP pattern garbage (or maybe burn it in effigy) before I have to go back to drilling once a month.

I'm Totally Reclassing

00-ABID

Burnin' Ammo

Rockin' the .50

Vid'ya over at the deployment blog.

Deployment Blog

Report tomorrow to start the deployment.  Less than excited, but it is what it is.

I decided to start up a secondary blog primarily for the deployment.  I'll still be dropping stuff here, and will stick with the ol' G&C when I get back to civilization, but I felt I needed a different place for this whole adventure.  Please bare with the growing pains and rough start I'm sure it'll have in formatting, the last few weeks slipped by far too fast and I didn't get a lot of things done I intended to (hanging out with Manda seemed to be more important than most other things...)

In the meantime, Cro will likely be slipping in some content as well, so keep checking here too.

For now, I'll see you at Dirt Pusher's Journal!

About Time...

Now to see how long before we'll actually see Female Cut IOTVs for the rest of the Army...

One Week...

...Until I report for Active Duty.  Damn it's coming up fast.

Speaking of, that's why it's been kinda quiet around here lately, lots of crap to get together and a lot of "non-blog" stuff on my mind.  Deployments take up a lot of your time...

Bleg.

Off to McCoy for a few days for another class.  Mob is coming up fast, feels faster than I thought.

Multicam...

...for everyone?  That's the word on the street for the Army.  Makes the most sense to me, there's already a good chunk of gear in the system and heraldry in place for the colors.

Happy Birthday!

To the US Army.  Hooah! Back to training. Wondering if there'll be cake with chow...

SRC...

My Guard and Reserve brothers feel my pain. Combat Lifesaver next week though, hooray combat medicine!

Long busy day

I'm just hitting the rack, and was too busy doing boring stuff for any neat pics. Look for a repeat tomorrow.

Toys

We gots 'em.

Excuses...

...Excuses.  It's been light around here lately, but in my own defense, I did work 50 hours last week (mostly overnight hours too...) on top of prepping for a switch to Active Duty in a couple months.  It was flip-flopping for a little bit, but it's pretty much a certainty now that I'll be spending a bit of time in Afghanistan after a bit in Texas (my own fault... I was silly and volunteered...)

Anywho, I should be getting some stuff up here after the weekend.  Going to be in the UP enjoying the wilderness and ancestrial stomping ground, along with the first canned beer in a long time.  (Will also have the good ol' Jetboil with French Press for the mornings.)

Anyway, this shift is almost done, and the lawn won't mow itself....