Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Bringing sexy back

I always loved the Woodland camo BDUs in my Marine Corps days; it was only at the very end of my active service that the new digital MARPAT uniforms were coming about, and they were extremely hard to get a hold of.

I think the Marine Corps did it right with the new uniforms. Wearing them is like wearing pajamas in comparison to the BDU, and I've been told that the IR signature of the MARPAT wearer is reduced. Technology rocks.

Over at KitUp!, there's an article about Marine Special Operations (MARSOC) adopting the Crye Precision uniform (the folks that made Multicam), and the pattern depicted is Woodland. In comments, many people have elevated blood pressure over it considering that their tax dollars went to buying MARPAT for the Marines, which works excellent, and now there are Marines wearing $200 pants in Woodland. I think the thing to consider here is that these guys are MARSOC, and are probably trying to blend in with the Afghanistan military on top of blending in with the terrain. That, and Woodland works very well as a camouflage even today, and I wouldn't think twice about wearing it in greenish environments.

Woodland is good stuff.

Looking at the Marine on the right in the picture, I notice that he has the new Leupold Mark 8 riflescope, which I got to fondle at the Modern Day Marine Convention last year (advertising helps!). Here's a picture of my buddy holding the Mark 8, if you want a closer look, and go here for sticker-shock if you want to buy one. Looking closely, the Mark 8 is mounted in a reversed one piece scope mount and base, probably a quick detach type such as Bobro, GG&G, or Larue tactical, with it attached to the forearm vice the receiver. That will no doubt make some people cringe, as a forearm is not as robust of a mounting platform as the receiver, but that Marine looks like he's doing fine with it.

3 comments:

Broken Andy said...

The Mark 8s are spendy. Not sure why we should be concerned about $200 pants while the Marine is lugging around a $5k firearm.

Unknown said...

Very true. I hear the Marines have a contract to put Mark 8s on the M2 machine gun so that they can make hits at further ranges. Optics make sense to me; the crappy irons on the M2 limit you to about 800 meters, which is obviously not on par with the cartridges potential.

Broken Andy said...

A scoped M2. The Marines have all the fun!

Well, ok. I guess they deserve it.