NAVY NWU Type 2 and Type 3 - MarPat Style Desert and Woodland for NSW

[helolumpy]

In Qatar we were told at INDOC that all the Army guys had to take the 'badges' off thier ACUs. Since they don't have fabric sew-on wings like our cammies, they have to wear black pin on wings (This included Jump Wings, CAB, CIB, air assault, pathfinder, etc).
Since they were 'badges' that had to be pinned on, they all had to come off.

Side note, the same CSM who was giving the lecture told the Army guys they had to remove thier IR reflective flags from thier shoulders since they weren't in a combat zone. This was 5 mintues after he explained that since we were in war zone they had to remove thier badges!!

 

[Short]

This makes my brain hurt. We barely have enough money to fly or get a boat out to sea, but this is what we spend our f'in time and money on. CJCS needs to lock the Service Chiefs in a room, provide 3 multi-cam options with associated rules for wear and make everyone agree on one. Then we convert the PT uniform to plain Navy blue shorts and shirt and call it a day.

 

[nittany03]

First you steal our Chucks and throw black pants on them, then our digis, what next, a blood stripe on your SDBs?

Don't give the uniform board ideas. They'll probably throw it on the chokers, too. :icon_tong

 

[DawgPoundfa]

The Army wears there badges all the time. The reason that you so not see them wearing them in country is that the IBA (Body Armor) tends to make the backs dig into your chest, so most guys opt not to wear them. I do not recall ever being told that we can not wear them though while in country. The Army is really big on showing off their scare me badges.

 

[Short]

Task Force Project Runway provide professional looking, wearable, and fewer uniforms. You can't wear your Spaceman Spiff cammies in town, the damn buttons fall off the thing, the PT uniform can't be washed in ships laundry, and now we have two additional uniforms that will be low rate production, which will only drive up the cost for those required to buy them. Let me go ahead and break something down for the Six Sigma grads; things are generally cheaper when bought in bulk. I don't have an EMBA, but I am aware of CostCo. One common uniform BDU type uniform, multi-cam, fire resistant, yadda. For f'ks sake, if we can't even do this right, what the hell does it say about our ability to build and procure weapons systems...oh yeah, we're shitty at that too (see LCS, DDX, ect.).

 

[scoolbubba]

And to think...I used to belittle the Army guys for their ACUs. You know...one uniform, you wear it everywhere, easy to pack for deployment....walk around with a silly sock on your head.


Then I bought my NWUs. And I felt dirty. And SWOish. It was awful.

 

[phrogdriver]

I ran into some Navy CASEVAC types in Kuwait who'd gone native and were wearing the groovy 2-piece Army flight suits. It looked horrible, BTW.

I honestly don't understand why Navy personnel on IAs with the Army wear Army uniforms. Not to say that the jarhead way is the only way to be, but a Marine would one, rather poke an MRE spoon in his eye before wearing an Army uniform, and two, wouldn't be allowed to. Corpsmen and flight docs wearing MARPAT is not the same thing--we've all in the Naval Service.

I honestly don't know how the Navy's going to do it. If one ends up going to a couple of different commands, he could end up having to get Aquaflage/blueberry, NWU 2/3, and chocolate chips, plus maybe Army cammies, too!

How about the Navy and Marines just get with the vendor, eliminate the micro-Eagle-Globe-and-Anchors from the MARPATs, and have an Eagle, Globe, and Anchor sewn on Marine breast pockets, while the Navy Emblem goes on Navy breast pockets?

 

[helolumpy]

This makes my brain hurt. We barely have enough money to fly or get a boat out to sea, but this is what we spend our f'in time and money on. CJCS needs to lock the Service Chiefs in a room, provide 3 multi-cam options with associated rules for wear and make everyone agree on one. Then we convert the PT uniform to plain Navy blue shorts and shirt and call it a day.

First off, there will most likely (never say never) be a common cammie pattern since Canada tried to have a single uniform for all the armed forces and they changed back to individual service uniforms in two years. One big reason is that when you are at a Joint HQ (JOC etc) and you need to get a question answered, you look for a guy dressed like you. If you have an aviation question you look for a guy in a flight suit. Marines will look for fellow Marines. Air Force will look for a caddy to see if they can claim casual water and take a drop without penalty... you see where I'm going. So I would not expect the four services to work towards a truly Joint uniform.

That being said, I can't believe anyone would expect Mr. I Like Dress Khakis So Much, that he brought them back as soon as he became CNO (plus he's the only person I've ever seen wear them outside of a John Wayne movie) try to make any uniform decision that make sense.

Right now you could have 5 sets of cammies in your closet; BDUs, DCUs, NWU, ACU (if you did a GSA/IA) and this new pattern coming on line in 2010. WHY?????

Each service needs to show some espirit de corps when they design a uniform, the problem is that the Big Navy is trying to do it by committee, viewing different patterns during wear testing and basically making it more difficult than it needs to be. Perfect is the enemy of good enough!! Find a cammie pattern that works (there are testing procedures for this problem) and issue them to the troops. The army is realizing that a 'one pattern fits all' is not working, so have a woodland variant and a desert variant.

You shouldn't need to wear test anything since the Army and the Marine Corps have worked through some of the issues regarding fabric strengths, pocket positioning, velcro vice buttons, etc.

Make ALL cammies (including those god-forsaken blue fiasco things being foisted on us by TFU) all organizational clothing. The Navy should buy us all cammies (like the Army did with the ACU rollout) and then hold you accountable for whatever you were issued. (Think flight suits). Right now the NWU parka is over $230 at the exchange! If this is something the Navy wants us to have, then the Navy should pay for it.

 

[helolumpy]

I honestly don't understand why Navy personnel on IAs with the Army wear Army uniforms. Not to say that the jarhead way is the only way to be, but a Marine would one, rather poke an MRE spoon in his eye before wearing an Army uniform, and two, wouldn't be allowed to. Corpsmen and flight docs wearing MARPAT is not the same thing--we've all in the Naval Service.

The issues is one of logistical support. If you're with an Army unit and you rip your pants open, all you can get from the Army supply system to replace the damaged uniform is ACUs. It made more sense logistically to outfit personnel deploying with a different serivce with the uniform that that service uses.

 

[Jim123]

I honestly don't understand why Navy personnel on IAs with the Army wear Army uniforms. Not to say that the jarhead way is the only way to be, but a Marine would one, rather poke an MRE spoon in his eye before wearing an Army uniform, and two, wouldn't be allowed to. Corpsmen and flight docs wearing MARPAT is not the same thing--we've all in the Naval Service.

The uniform Navy folks get on an IA/GSA depends how their orders are written. I saw some guys get DCUs (which used to be an Army uniform, didn't it?) and other guys get ACUs. And there are plenty of contractors running around in ACUs and I've seen at least one deployed Coast Guardsman wearing ACUs.

The issues is one of logistical support. If you're with an Army unit and you rip your pants open, all you can get from the Army supply system to replace the damaged uniform is ACUs. It made more sense logistically to outfit personnel deploying with a different serivce with the uniform that that service uses.

And so you don't get shot first because you look different (supposedly), which I sorta and sorta don't buy... anyway... the logistics are hard to beat. OT threadjack- we had an Army MAJ IA'ed to us on my last deployment. One of my friends and I plotted to convince him in a roundabout way that he had to wear NWUs since he was working with the Navy. We actually had him really worried for about a minute (and he was a good sport about it). Hehehehe

 

[phrogdriver]

The issues is one of logistical support. If you're with an Army unit and you rip your pants open, all you can get from the Army supply system to replace the damaged uniform is ACUs. It made more sense logistically to outfit personnel deploying with a different serivce with the uniform that that service uses.

Supply system? What is this "supply system" you speak of?!?

I got my 2 extra desert MARPATS before deployment, and that was that.

Even at Bastion, which is a largely Marine base in Afghanistan, only stocked Army uniform items in the PX, because NEX/MCX, unlike AAFES, doesn't do wars!

I think we could deal with supply issues if we wanted to. It might be easier if the Nav didn't make up new uniforms every 5 minutes!

 

[Clux4]

Supply system? What is this "supply system" you speak of?!?

I got my 2 extra desert MARPATS before deployment, and that was that.

Even at Bastion, which is a largely Marine base in Afghanistan, only stocked Army uniform items in the PX, because NEX/MCX, unlike AAFES, doesn't do wars!

I think we could deal with supply issues if we wanted to. It might be easier if the Nav didn't make up new uniforms every 5 minutes!

The supply system is a joke even for items that both services share.

PX, NEX/MCX or AAFES are not suppose to stock uniforms for security reasons; at least in the CENTCOM AO.

 

[Spekkio]

Right now you could have 5 sets of cammies in your closet; BDUs, DCUs, NWU, ACU (if you did a GSA/IA) and this new pattern coming on line in 2010. WHY?????

Why do we need to have two separate sets of working uniforms, 3 separate sets of service uniforms, and 2 (soon to be 3) sets of dress uniforms?

Would it have been so bad to just transition to poopie suits as the standard working uniform? Doesn't the USCG do this? Don't pull the "they don't look professional" card because the aquaflage looks anything but professional, particularly with bright yellow nametape and breast insignia... not that the prison suits the enlisted guys wore were any better.

Why keep around summer whites and winter blues when we pretty much wear khakis year round. I know hardly anyone wears the JCs anymore, but they were still stuffed in our seabag at OCS and those who attended in the winter had to wear them for inspections and liberty. They're still an approved uniform, too. Summer whites have been unofficially promoted to a dress uniform, which pretty much makes chokers collect dust except for extra formal occassions like military weddings or change of command. I understand the whole traditional seasonal thing, but that kinda went out the window when everyone wears khakis the vast majority of the time, and they got rid of the seasonal enlisted service uniforms.

As dress, you could have SDKs replace chokers and SDBs. Probably won't happen due to tradition, but even getting rid of one set of working uniform and two sets of service uniforms would drastically cut down on the amount of stuff we have to purchase.

Then as others have said, fix the PT uniform.

It's so simple yet...so complicated.

 

[Short]

"It's so simple yet...so complicated."

No, it's not complicated. We could have fielded a new aircraft fifty years ago in less time than it takes to make a g'damn decision about pt shorts now. A good decision executed expeditiously beats a perfect decision that takes years.

 

[Flash]

First off, there will most likely (never say never) be a common cammie pattern since Canada tried to have a single uniform for all the armed forces and they changed back to individual service uniforms in two years.

That was back when they created the 'Canadian Forces' instead of the individual services and it was service uniforms not 'working' ones they changed. Have you forgotten that we had the same cammie pattern for all services for a good 20 years?

And so you don't get shot first because you look different (supposedly), which I sorta and sorta don't buy...

Believe it or not that was the case in a few instances. One that comes to mind were the USAF EOD guys, who wore the older uniforms when riding along with the Army guys in their ACU's. At least one possibly got targeted and wounded because of it.