[pugs144]

Originally Posted by ssp21

wasnt there a big stink about how marpat was a loose copy of cadpat, just altered enough to get it past the copyrights?

i may be opening myself up to flaming on this one, but i am curious about it, as i wear both cadpat and multicam(probably some marpat as well) and a few members in our kamloops area considering marpat.

I wouldn't call it a big stink but it seems that the Marines were inspired by CADPAT.

Link

"It all started around February of 2000. I had just been transferred from Scout Sniper Platoon 2/2 at Camp Lejeune to TBS in Quantico, Va. as a combat instructor (training new lieutenants just out of OCS). I had gained a great deal of experience and training with STA 2/2 and had gotten a Purple Heart from being wounded during an embassy reinforcement in Monrovia, Liberia in May of 1996. I had tons of ribbons and medals for being just a Sergeant (E-5) and the Purple Heart on top of that sort of made me a novelty around the place. So when two Captains from MarCorSysCom solicited TBS for me to give a lecture on camouflage for them to some students at the University of Virginia who were working on some new design theories for camouflage and colors in textiles, TBS gave them free reign of me for a few days. The guys from SysCom were impressed with me at the lecture and tried to steal me from TBS to help them work on some of their projects but since there was not a billet for me in their T/O&E, they had to "temp loan" me on an as-needed basis. I did some work for them on the camouflage helmet cover (a commercial one that would take the place of a scrap piece of IR netting), the new lightweight helmet, and a few other programs.

When General Jones, the Commandant at the time, sent the directive to SysCom to develop a new and improved uniform for the Marine Corps...the guys at SysCom came straight to me. At first I thought, "Cool, no problem...I'll just check out some current patterns, maybe tweak some color schemes and be done." Boy was I wrong. SysCom flew me up to Natick and put me in touch with two of their civilian textile engineers that ran the current uniform program. There, they had gathered samples of just about every kind of after market cammo pattern you could think of. I spent about a day with them explaining to them how "wrong" most after market hunting camo patterns are. I told them about negative space, how the eye uses templates to identify objects...etc etc. In talking to them about negative space, I told them that the best type of camouflage pattern is one that looks...like nothing at all.

I basically chose 3 patterns out of the 150+ that they had. One was the classic Vietnam issue tiger stripe. Another was a contemporary commercial tiger stripe. The third was an old Rhodesian coloration of the old version of British DPM. We took the samples down to Fall River, Mass. to a company that fabricates printing screen rolls for fabric textiles. There, they had their own computer shop that could do just about anything under the sun with graphics and color schemes. We scanned the samples onto their computers with a huge table-sized flatbed scanner. They brought the samples up on the screens for me where they were able to separate each color pattern into its own image file. After doing that, we could change color schemes and actually edit portions of the patterns to our liking.

Since this was the first trip up there, we were just trying to get some ideas flowing. We changed the color schemes of all three patterns and printed them out on some production sample paper. Everything looked good at that point and I thought we had even possibly found a contender in the modified pattern and color scheme we had gotten out of the Rhodesian DPM. The color scheme was great, it was more functional and the color blotches had been reduced in size which made the pattern work better. However, after that trip was over and I sat looking at the patterns more, I realized that I needed to be thinking outside the box and that there was a lot bigger picture to what it was that I was doing. This uniform would be taking the Marine Corps into the 21st century. Marines would be depending on this uniform to do something that no other uniform has truly done to date...conceal them in a great variety of surroundings and vegetation types. This uniform would be taking my fellow Marines into battle. My fellow Marines would be wearing it on foreign ground, depending on this uniform to do its job. When I had an epiphany and imagined a squad of Marines wearing this uniform in combat in some far off rat hole, and that the very design of its pattern and color scheme could save a life...I changed gears completely. This uniform not only needed to actually WORK, it needed to be unique . It needed to be something that the Marine Corps could call its own and that would single Marines out. It was then that I knew I could not do this by myself.

Being stationed at TBS in Quantico, I had easy access to a pool of fellow snipers just down the road at the sniper school. I went over to the school and talked to the SNCOIC (editor - we'll call him 'Gunny H.' for PERSEC) there with whom I had been in the same battalion with in Somalia in 1993. I told him all about the program and that I needed some more people to help me brain storm. He was enthusiastic about it so I told the guys at SysCom about it. They agreed to let us work together and brought the crew from Natick down to listen to a presentation from us at the sniper school. We all sat around and brain stormed a bit with the rest of the sniper school staff and even the current class that was attending the school. We also took the RARE opportunity to tell the people who design our gear, what REAL operators who actually use and abuse the equipment they design wanted, what could be improved, and what was absolutely not needed.

SysCom then sent us both back up to Fall River. We looked at the patterns that had been done on the previous trip and tweaked the color schemes a little more. 'H' had found a color swatch from the Ralph Lauren paint
section of Home Depot that was great. It was called "Coyote" (recognize the name from the main Marine base in Kuwait for the Iraq war?) (editor's note: the Ralph Lauren 'Coyote' paint colour has since been discontinued, but it can be custom mixed. It was part of the 'Santa Fe' collection of colours and the RL colour code is SF11B). We had the girl in the CAD shop scan the Coyote swatch and replace the color into the patterns that I had worked on the previous trip. Coyote was to become the primary functional color in the pattern. The colors were GREAT but we were not happy with using a pre-existing pattern. The engineers from Natick had obtained a sample of the new CADPAT. It looked good in theory but the color scheme was way off for our use. The Canadians had used way too much bright lime-green in the pattern. Their color scheme is good for northern evergreen and deciduous areas such as Canada and Europe but is not a "universal" pattern that would work well in any vegetation. Particularly in deciduous areas in winter months.

We arrived at the design of the pattern by having the girl create a "snow" screen on her computer to simulate that of a TV with no reception. She then went in and sectioned out areas of the pattern to which our colors were then added. It took a good bit of refining and pattern modification, but by the second day it came out good. We tweaked the colors just a bit more, printed out a sample, and were done.

Next came the test phase. Natick had uniforms made in what we decided would be two main test patterns. Two uniforms were made out of the modified tiger stripe we had made. Each of the two had the some of the color areas reversed for variance of effect. The same was done with the digital pattern. The uniforms were then taken down to Quantico and tested in a wide variety of vegetation, always using the current issue uniform for control. Sunlight, shadow, dawn, daylight, dusk, night, grass, bushes, trees, shrubs, wood piles. You name it, we tested it there and at all different distances with naked eye, optics and night vision. It was hands down. The digital pattern blew the others away in every single test we did over a two day period. At that point it would be decided that the digital pattern would be the one used in the new uniform.

As far as the use of colors and the dyes used to print the colors to fabric...that was a considerable portion of our testing as well. We tested the patterns in different levels of light, at different ranges, with the naked eye as well as varying powers of optics. We used night vision with and without IR illumination. We used red lens filtered light, spot lights and regular old Mini-Mag lights. We also got the uniforms wet to simulate a wet Marine who has been sweating heavily or been in the rain. This was very significant as the wet fabric test is what helped make MARPAT so superior. Almost all of the other patterns tested as well as CADPAT failed miserably when wet compared to MARPAT. Wet fabric, at night through night vision painted with IR light is in my opinion one of the best tests for a pattern. So many patterns just appear as a solid black mass in this setting. MARPAT doesn't.

The next phase of testing would be for a desert pattern. We took another trip to Natick and modified the color scheme to better suit a desert uniform. Most desert uniforms either work great in high desert with rocky areas, and suck in sandy areas, or just the opposite. Three variations of desert color schemes were produced and taken to 29 Palms, Ca. for testing against the current 3-color desert uniform. A version of the pattern and color scheme was identified that worked best in both rocky areas as well as sand. Once again, it blew the current issue uniform away.

Having decided on both patterns and color schemes for the new uniform. Our job was done. The actual cut and features of the uniform would be developed and tested by the textile engineers by taking our input on what should be changed and their own ideas and issuing uniforms to units in the field for testing. Before the end of our last trip to Fall River, and I am pretty proud to claim this for myself I had the idea of placing USMC into the pattern design. 'H' thought it would be good to also put in the eagle, globe and anchor with it, just like the iron on decal that we used on our uniforms. The engineers agreed and so it was done on the computer.

That was about all the use Natick and SysCom had for us on the new uniform. They got the new cut and design of the blouse and trousers done and ready for development. I wish they had asked us before they decided to make the boonie cover brim so damn wide, but oh well. They did, however take our advise on the suede desert boots as a universal hot weather boot and that went into production. The rest is sort of history so to speak. The sad irony is that I got out of the Corps in Feb. of 2001 to become a cop. I never even got the chance to wear the uniform that I had been the first to help design since the first uniforms did not hit the fleet until the end of that same year.

I do have to admit that a huge lump rose in my throat the first time I saw CNN and they showed a platoon of Marines wearing desert MARPAT in combat at Nasirya. I cant put into words the sense of pride that I felt seeing my fellow Marines, who also just happened to have been from my old regiment, wearing "my" uniform in combat. When I saw some pictures of scout snipers in MARPAT, I was even more proud. Then, when they were interviewing Marines in camp "Coyote"...well....that was just the icing on the cake.

That is the official story on how MARPAT came about and how we did it. Hope it was entertaining to you to a degree as well as informative. Don't hesitate to ask any questions you may have and feel free to share the info with your friends.

*Note: I will officially dispel the current circulating rumor that the Canadians helped "advise" the Marine Corps on the design of MARPAT. At no point in time in any shape, form or fashion did we consult, solicit or even ask a modest opinion from the Canadians. Any Canadian CADPAT designer who wishes to make the claim that the team I was on consulted with a member of his design team or associates in ANY way is welcomed to request my email address via this site and I would love to see him have the courage to confront me with that claim. At no point in the design process did I ever lay eyes on a Canadian, speak to one on the phone, read any materials on CADPAT, send or receive an email from a Canadian, or anyone associated with them in any way; and I can also say the same for the other members of the team. I understand that the Canadians are proud of CADPAT and I do not wish to take anything away from that. However, the only thing that MARPAT lends its origin to from the Canadians is a small 6" x 6" swatch of cloth the Canadians let us have, or as the Canadians would now state as "shared the technology with us".

The Canadians are taking what was a simple request for a sample of their new pattern to study as a part of our new project (note that we also had well over 100 other pattern samples as well, and the CADPAT sample had been obtained before the MARPAT project was ever even a twinkle in the Commandant's eye) and trumping it up to appear as if we conducted some huge melding of the minds with them about the intimate secrets of CADPAT.

That sample of cloth is what compelled us to try out the idea and we gave credit to it via the -PAT descriptor in MARPAT. You can read a version of the CADPAT myth here at http://www.hyperstealth.com/CADPAT-MARPAT.htm . You will also see how the ignoramus editor of the hyperstealth site is making a speculation as to how the insignia is hidden in the fabric. (*update: this has since been removed from his web site after I pointed it out to him as incorrect.) It is really interesting to hear so many rumors out there about how this "technology" was leased, borrowed, consulted etc etc. When all we did was something anyone on a home computer with Adobe Photoshop can do on their own. It has even been recently discovered that the US Army was actually the first to work with digital camo patterns in the 1970s. So while the Canadians have been trying to argue the "Chicken or the Egg" issue...it appears that the US Army is the "rooster".

Semper Fi
Ken Henley
Former Sgt, USMC"