Pentagon spent 28mill on wrong camouflage!

Watchdog: Pentagon spent $28M on Afghan uniforms with bad camouflage - UPI.com

The U.S. Department of Defense may have wasted nearly $30 million over the past decade on uniforms for the Afghan military that featured a forest-style camouflage pattern inappropriate for the country's desert landscapes, a top government fiscal watchdog said Wednesday.

A 17-page report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction says $28 million has already been spent by the Pentagon on the uniforms -- and perhaps another $72 million will go toward them in the next decade.



:mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen:


US Pentagon at its finest, got to love bureaucrats

Higgins86 said:

Watchdog: Pentagon spent $28M on Afghan uniforms with bad camouflage - UPI.com

The U.S. Department of Defense may have wasted nearly $30 million over the past decade on uniforms for the Afghan military that featured a forest-style camouflage pattern inappropriate for the country's desert landscapes, a top government fiscal watchdog said Wednesday.

A 17-page report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction says $28 million has already been spent by the Pentagon on the uniforms -- and perhaps another $72 million will go toward them in the next decade.



:mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen:


US Pentagon at its finest, got to love bureaucrats

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Yes. I chuckled, when I saw that. The department responsible should be held responsible and to be made to reforest Afghanistan. That way the uniforms will work fine in a hundred yeats.

Who the heck made the call to use a forest pattern for soldiers who live in a desert? Hopefully that person was fired for being a total idiot.

Empire, what did you expect.

fashion mistakes are so terrible; hopefully no titties were exposed .............

Josie said:

Who the heck made the call to use a forest pattern for soldiers who live in a desert? Hopefully that person was fired for being a total idiot.

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joG said:

Yes. I chuckled, when I saw that. The department responsible should be held responsible and to be made to reforest Afghanistan. That way the uniforms will work fine in a hundred yeats.

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Higgins86 said:

Watchdog: Pentagon spent $28M on Afghan uniforms with bad camouflage - UPI.com

The U.S. Department of Defense may have wasted nearly $30 million over the past decade on uniforms for the Afghan military that featured a forest-style camouflage pattern inappropriate for the country's desert landscapes, a top government fiscal watchdog said Wednesday.

A 17-page report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction says $28 million has already been spent by the Pentagon on the uniforms -- and perhaps another $72 million will go toward them in the next decade.



:mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen:


US Pentagon at its finest, got to love bureaucrats

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It's baseline budgeting and Trump promised to get rid of it. That's the #1 driver of waste in the U.S. government but especially the military. Things like a week-long trip to do a ribbon cutting ceremony cold weather equipment sent to a hot weather combat zone. And let's not forget...so many unnecessary Abrams tanks being sent that the military has to be Congress to stop sending them. The problem is that baseline budgeting is so entrenched it would take years to do so. I hope he does it though.

reinoe said:

It's baseline budgeting and Trump promised to get rid of it. That's the #1 driver of waste in the U.S. government but especially the military. Things like a week-long trip to do a ribbon cutting ceremony cold weather equipment sent to a hot weather combat zone. And let's not forget...so many unnecessary Abrams tanks being sent that the military has to be Congress to stop sending them. The problem is that baseline budgeting is so entrenched it would take years to do so. I hope he does it though.

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While I agree with you that baseline budgeting, along with the practice of "use it or lose it", causes lots of problems, I fail to see the connection to this particular F-up. This strikes me more as good old fashioned incompetence.

Skeptic Bob said:

While I agree with you that baseline budgeting, along with the practice of "use it or lose it", causes lots of problems, I fail to see the connection to this particular F-up. This strikes me more as good old fashioned incompetence.

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The thing about baseline budgeting is that it's indistinguishable from incompetence. They ordered the wrong camouflage: was that because the purchasing department is full of idiots or was it because they can now justify ordering more equipment to maintain budget?

reinoe said:

The thing about baseline budgeting is that it's indistinguishable from incompetence. They ordered the wrong camouflage: was that because the purchasing department is full of idiots or was it because they can now justify ordering more equipment to maintain budget?

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Baseline budgeting would explain buying more uniforms than they need. Incompetence would explain buying the wrong uniforms for the environment. Though I admit it doesn't make much practical difference to the tax payers. It is still wasted money.

Josie said:

Who the heck made the call to use a forest pattern for soldiers who live in a desert? Hopefully that person was fired for being a total idiot.

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I would bet some supplier stupidly made miles of that pattern and had to get rid of it. Some people got handsomely rewarded for helping them out. Military spending is the most corrupt in Govt. That's why the GOP is so fond of it.

bring home all of the troops from Afghanistan now. the war there has been going on for sixteen years.

Hate to add facts to the pentagon hate fest as they do deserve a lot of the crap they get but giant parts of Afghanistan including the ones where it seems like most of the fighting takes place is quite forested and where it's not there is enough green in the vegetation to allow their cameo to work. In fact back when the conventional Army was wearing ACUd over there the afghans camo worked a lot better then theirs did.

In fact I think that a far bigger waste of money was how the Army spent so much money on such a completely useless uniform.

Josie said:

Who the heck made the call to use a forest pattern for soldiers who live in a desert? Hopefully that person was fired for being a total idiot.

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Afghanistan is not all desert, it is actually a lot of pine forests there and their deserts and less sandy and more rocks and shrubs.

braindrain said:

Hate to add facts to the pentagon hate fest as they do deserve a lot of the crap they get but giant parts of Afghanistan including the ones where it seems like most of the fighting takes place is quite forested and where it's not there is enough green in the vegetation to allow their cameo to work. In fact back when the conventional Army was wearing ACUd over there the afghans camo worked a lot better then theirs did.

In fact I think that a far bigger waste of money was how the Army spent so much money on such a completely useless uniform.

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I hated the acu, also called ucp or universal camo pattern. It was a great camo pattern for areas in iraq with very light colored sand, and urban fighting, and night time fighting. But outside those three roles which is a small fraction of where us forces fight, it did horribly.

Were it me ucp would be kept in stock and renamed urban camo pattern, and only issued to soldiers in highly urban areas where the grey actually works. The old dcu/bdu standard worked quite well, and if they stick with the one camo pattern, the multicam vastly outperforms ucp in most environments, but does worse than specialized camo.

beerftw said:

I hated the acu, also called ucp or universal camo pattern. It was a great camo pattern for areas in iraq with very light colored sand, and urban fighting, and night time fighting. But outside those three roles which is a small fraction of where us forces fight, it did horribly.

Were it me ucp would be kept in stock and renamed urban camo pattern, and only issued to soldiers in highly urban areas where the grey actually works. The old dcu/bdu standard worked quite well, and if they stick with the one camo pattern, the multicam vastly outperforms ucp in most environments, but does worse than specialized camo.

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While I agree with you that the pattern does work in certain areas and not at all in others, on top of that the actual uniform is horrible. Falls apart super fast, rips easily is cut horribly and once dirty it never comes clean. People should have went jail for that abortion.

Higgins86 said:

Watchdog: Pentagon spent $28M on Afghan uniforms with bad camouflage - UPI.com

The U.S. Department of Defense may have wasted nearly $30 million over the past decade on uniforms for the Afghan military that featured a forest-style camouflage pattern inappropriate for the country's desert landscapes, a top government fiscal watchdog said Wednesday.

A 17-page report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction says $28 million has already been spent by the Pentagon on the uniforms -- and perhaps another $72 million will go toward them in the next decade.



:mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen:

US Pentagon at its finest, got to love bureaucrats

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RIGHT?!?


YAY Government!!!! Let's have these people run our healthcare system!!!

Josie said:

Who the heck made the call to use a forest pattern for soldiers who live in a desert? Hopefully that person was fired for being a total idiot.

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The person(s) who made a handsome profit from the transaction. :mrgreen:

cpwill said:

RIGHT?!? YAY Government!!!! Let's have these people run our healthcare system!!!

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Oh the stretch some on the far right can manage when it suits.

First of all Uniforms identify the wearer as in a certain service- just why do swab jockeys need a blue camo uniform? To blend in where???

No it identifies the wearer as an anchor clanker, gives them a bit of 'cool' factor- same with the Marines wanting their own camo or the SF wanting tiger stripe.

Now camo doesn't negate poor concealment or blending. You still have to use some smarts- back in my day as an instructor our senior instructor would wear street clothes and a red ball cap to show what good technique can do.

That said the ACU is crappola and the non service whiners about the Afghan uniforms missed the boat on what to whine about. Compared to German desert, Marine digital, Danish Woodland, and just plain OD green the ACU GLOWS... :roll:

In both brown dead grass and forbes or various greens the ACU seems to be spotlighted compared to the others. I liked German desert best even in lusher settings and woodland worked surprisingly well when behind even a thin screen of natural brown concealment.

So rather than whine about woodland in Afghanistan, how about whining over camo blue or hell, why does the vast majority or AF pukes need camo uniforms??? Lots of bushes on a flight line? A jet hanger???? :doh

But even further why does the vast majority of Army REMFs need a uniform with so few, so poorly designed pockets? They are not going to wear armor- and if so for an hour at most! For that matter the grunts spend most their time without full body armor on. Simply replace buttons with flatter Velcro and you have a uniform far more practical under far more encountered conditions.

I was a grunt- I cared far more about design. wear and functionality than what camo pattern was in favor- the only exception has been the ACU glow pattern... eace