9/12/2023 0 Comments Tiger stripes camo![]() military advisors, mostly Special Forces working with South Vietnamese military members. Combined with some British uniform components, the tiger stripe camo pattern was the preferred uniform pattern of choice in the bush.ĭuring the Vietnam War, in the early 1960s, tiger stripe camo was embraced by U.S. Derived from French leopard and lizard camo patterns dating to World War II, the Vietnamese version was better able to distort a soldier’s body shape. The first tiger stripe camo uniforms were created in the 1950s for the Vietnamese military. The pattern was never fully recognized as an official pattern and unlike OCP or the Air Force’s old ACU, the pattern was simply unofficially called tiger stripe camo pattern. The tiger stripe camo pattern was aptly named because the pattern resembles the stripes on a big cat, like a tiger. Ben Willard and Navy SEAL Thomas Magnum in tiger stripe camo. The tiger stripe camo uniforms have always been associated with special operators and of course Hollywood took notice and clothed many memorable movie and television characters like Capt. If you’ve been around the military for any length of time the mention of the tiger stripe camouflage pattern, also known as tiger stripe camo, conjures images of Navy SEALs or Special Forces personnel doing spooky stuff in the jungles of Vietnam. “Not only Special Forces type units wore them, infantry, Air Force para-rescue & Air Police, Marines, Riverine – anyone who had access to them would wear them,” added Chatt.Tiger stripe camo. The other fact about tiger stripe camouflage is that it was universally appreciated by those who were “in-country” during the Vietnam War. “No one will ever know how many different patterns there were as every tailor shop could and did print their own patterns.” “During Vietnam, tigerstripes were made in Vietnam, Thailand, Japan, Okinawa, Taiwan, Philippines, and Korea,” said Chatt. The tigerstripe uniforms were manufactured across the region so there is a wide variety of patterns and color shade variations. Marine Corps advisors also had contracted Vietnamese tailors as well as Southeast Asian manufacturers to produce fatigues as well as Boonie hats. ![]() These Navy SEALs are wearing tigerstripe camouflage among other patterns. Throughout America’s involvement, a variety of camouflage – much of it locally made – was used in Vietnam. The pattern then became popular among the insurgent forces and was adopted by the armed forces in some of the former Portuguese African colonies including Angola. It was used from 1956 by elite paratroopers, then other units, and was worn in the Portuguese “Overseas Wars” in its African colonies. Portugal had also developed its own version of lizard camouflage that was similar to the French, but it featured vertical lines rather than horizontal lines. ![]() The final country to use the pattern across its military was Congo, which only phased it out in 1978. The Israel Defence Force also used French lizard uniforms, which were supplied from French stocks – while several African countries including Chad, Gabon, Rwanda, and Sudan all adopted similar uniforms. However, a variant of the lizard pattern remained in use with the entire French Foreign Legion in the 1960s and by the French Foreign Legion paratroopers until the early 1980s. The French Army continued the use of horizontal lizard patterns until after the Algerian War as it was felt it was too closely associated with the Paratroops Munity that called for French President Charles de Gaulle not to abandon French Algeria. French soldiers in Indochina in the early 1950s wearing the lizard pattern uniforms, which proved quite adequate in the jungle terrain.
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