Navy Working Uniform Type II and III - finally something sailors can wear....

The NWU is fucktarded.

And that's BEFORE you get into the "replaced" Aviation Greens.

Or how about the whole "can't be worn on flightline/flight deck" thing. (Button/FOD issues apparently). Yeah, the Navy is about boats, but Aviation is a pretty damn significant chunk of the force.

Speaking of the AWGs... how is the stay on their execution going? I heard there was some 3-star review going on wrt their fate, but there was a 3-star aviator retirement recently... what's the word?

No clue. The current regime is not a fan of me rattling admirals cages over AWGs, so I can't do much through official channels.

I'm just going to keep on wearing them anyways.

This whole topic reminds me of the retardathon called the Army aquisition system. When I came in it seemed just fine that all the services could wear Woodland and Desert BDU. I guess we had to follow the marines lead and come up with our own digital uniform. Seems like the Marines are the only ones who got it right. The Army has decided to use the Multicam. Which was originally in the running but lost out. Not sure why we didn't adopt the Marine version from the get go. The Army goes one step further and decides that we must have our very own flight uniform. The A2CU. The old two piece flight suit was pretty nice. The new one not so much. I'm sure the handful of Army aviators who frequent this forum will agree with me on that. By the by they are about 100 bones more than the CWU27 one or two piece flight suit. And now we will have the Multicam one and two piece flight suit. I think there was a portion in the last defense bill that talked of going to a common uniform. Probably would save the tax payers a lot of money.

Is the Army going for the MultiCam everywhere or only in Afghanistan? I thought it was the latter. They definitely need to get rid of all of that velcro. Sheesh.

From what I've heard it will be OEF only. As a guard Bubba I hope to never see it again. I'm sure we'll have another uniform change within the next three or four years anyway.

The way I heard the story, the Marines tried to get the Army and Navy onboard to develop new digi cammies. Nobody wanted in, so the Marines (with the smaler budget) paid for it themselves. Now everybody wonders why the Marines don't just give them their proprietary pattern for free.

Whatever the solution we proably need to pick one uniform for the DOD and be over with it.
We all fight in the same places. I can only speak for the Army but who ever picked the current ACU pattern in the Army should be held accountable. So much money has been wasted on new uniforms in the ast 6 years. I guess pride gets in the way as well. The Marines got it right and the rest screwed the pooch.
When OEF and New Dawn are complete I'm sure defense funding is going to be the first to go.Remember the good old days after Desert Storm? Not a whole lot of cash being thrown around.

Quick question: are any of these working uniforms supposed to actually be replacing any other uniforms? I keep looking at pictures on navy.mil and I feel like I keep seeing coveralls and NWUs but none of these newer working uniforms...

The NWU Type II and III are not required in the sea bag. They are meant for guys on the ground. So it isn't supposed to replace anything but supplement your uniform. Basically having the blue/gray NWU I in Afghanistan is not very beneficial but the NWU II would be.

https://portal.navfac.navy.mil/portal/page/portal/navfac/nwu/about

Oh, okay. Is the blue-grey NWU supposed to be replacing any other uniforms?

I believed it replaced utilities and coveralls.

Yup, it replaces almost all the working uniforms including wash khaki (aka working khaki), SWOveralls, and, most sadly, Aviation Working Greens.

Your standard uniform fare for aviation will be flight suits 95% of the time (and related gear to include Nomex Jacket, Leather Jacket, and some of that gucci fleece/gorex stuff I see LTs have), Service Khaki for somewhat more formal stuff, Summer Whites in case someone demands it, and Dress Blues/Whites for special occasion stuff. Oh, and PT gear.

Most non-OCS folks I know never got NWUs in their seabag and don't own a set. I think I wore mine once because they were easier to wear to the doc before I got a flight suit.

That's the weird part. I keep seeing all these recent pictures of groups of people and some will be wearing NWUs and others will be wearing coveralls.

You'll still see coveralls in engineering spaces because of the fact the NWU blouse gets caught on stuff

Gatordev and Phrog'sShoeWife, thanks for the clarification!

Coveralls are still authorized. Nothing weird about that. But I have heard some COs not allow them at all. They force their ships to wear NWUs even out to sea. Madness I say!

The bad part about the Type II/III is I don't think people would actually mind wearing those. They actually resemble something less fucktarded than the NWU I. However, they are organizational, and you won't be able to get them from the NEX. Good luck on convincing your command to foot the bill for everybody to have a set of those.

Either way, have fun being camouflaged with the ocean, especially if you fall overboard.

(Of course, like good ORM warriors, you'll all be wearing your float coats, which will (at the very least) keep you on the surface and make it easier to find you. Of course, wearing the float coat will also nullify the purpose of having haze gray and underway camouflage.)

As opposed to circa-1991 neon green! Trust me, if I could wear the old neon orange flight suits while embarked, I would. I want to make things as easy as possible for Joboy if he has to come get me.

I actually don't mind the NWU. They sure beat Utilities (quite possibly the worst uniform ever) and they don't need to be ironed every time you wear them (utilities did unless you wanted to look like a shitbag). Plus, they're comfortable, you can take the blouse off in the work center, and they keep you fairly warm in most places. I may be the minority but I think they look kind of cool. Yes, a flight suit is better, but not everyone gets to wear those all the time.

Also, while the PT uniform is a bit off they're not so bad. Before they rolled out Kbay looked like a bunch of random people running around wearing whatever they pleased on PT days. People in squadron PT shirts, half not, half in black shorts, half in board shorts, etc...The PT field by Semper Fit looked like a playground at recess. I can see why they rolled that out.

I've tried so hard to get an orange flightsuit, but with no joy. My Skipper has one that he wears every Halloween.

My old squadron had a SAR Det that was going to wear orange flight suits to reinforce their SAR-ness, but eventually balked at the cost.