This is the kind of analysis I engage in on the subject of camo. It used to be internal until the advent of the Interwebs. This is a discussion [which i did not start!] about one reversible camo pattern among myself and 8 other students of camouflage in about 6 different countries on 3 continents, whose names have been withheld to prevent their significant others finding out how much time they waste on this. :) You are not expected to read the whole thing. Pick a chunk in the middle-- you'll get the general idea.
collector 1 Did the #59 differed from the #57 in pattern as well? As in not just the design of the uniform, but the actual camouflage pattern? collector 2 You made me go look at my small collection. :) I am actually a bit surprised by what I saw, as I had always assumed that this pattern had stayed the same from 1957/58 through 1975, because I don't remember reading anywhere that it had undergone significant changes during its service life. The first interesting feature I noticed was that part of the original #57 pattern consists of a juxtaposition of inverted clusters, with only very minor modification to some of the shapes inside the cluster. I had always suspected that this was the case through casual observation, but I didn't realize how extensive the cluster was until I studied it more carefully (thanks to your question): Secondly, and more relevant to what you were asking, I found that there were indeed two distinct sub-patterns! However, the change to the second pattern does not seem to coincide with the adoption of #59, as my 1960-dated parka is still printed in the original pattern (although the tiny sample size precludes me from making this claim categorically). I don't have any garment dated between '60 and '66, so I have no way of knowing the precise time frame in which the later pattern began to appear. All I can say is that everything I have after '66 is printed in the second pattern, which not only contains numerous minor modifications to the existing shapes, but also a major feature insertion, consisting of a band of shapes that actually disrupted the inversion feature seen above: Of course, I only focused on one corner of the full pattern (it's the part that isn't interrupted by seams and pockets on the two examples shown), but the same observation applies to the rest of the pattern as well. #59 smocks are still fairly common in surplus stores; it shouldn't be too hard to pin down the precise date of the switch if someone had access to a pile of these and wouldn't mind the headache of going through them . collector 3 Nice pattern forensics...very interesting. Too bad nobody has an uncut sheet of fabric. Surely the # military kept the original art. Might be worth enquiring. collector 4 Great work! I think it's fair to say that you've advanced our knowledge of the history of # camouflage quite significantly So how many different clusters of shapes do you think there are in a full repeat of the '57 pattern? And how many remain unchanged in the post '66 modification? Also, how many new shape clusters would you say got added in to the later design? pietbess ER... i've got a Zeltbahn. Lemme look at it. collector 2 Glad to know that I am able to contribute, Gentlemen. This may be the only place on the planet where this kind of exercise is encouraged. After some more turning and flipping, the cluster I outlined last night is still the only obvious inversion to my eyes. Here it is in its entirety (#57/58 coats have a one-piece back, which is just large enough to show a whole repeat module): All the later coats and jackets have two-piece backs - too narrow to show the full repeat module in the horizontal orientation. I made an attempt to stitch the pattern together using the back pieces of several different coats and jackets, but came away empty handed due to missing portions. I don't have the urge to expand the exercise by recruiting other parts of the garment, yet. I also dug out my four Zelts this morning to have a look. The three with legible issue stamps are all '67 dated, and all four are printed in the first pattern. So I am very curious to see what Piet can come up with. Admin Excellent bit of research there, . Thanks for sharing it with us. This is definitely a detail of the pattern I had heretofore not paid attention to. Looks like I need to update the Camo description! collector 1 Amazing responses, thank you very much! I am currently writing a list of patterns for my PhD, basically what I should be looking out there and thanks to your research I'll be aiming for two #patterns! collector 2 These comments and a full stomach are all the 'urging' I needed to finish piecing together a complete view of the second pattern. As expected, this later version is basically a lightly reworked earlier pattern bisected by a band of additional shapes, resulting in an increased repeat distance - from just under 18" to 20.5". It is pretty interesting that this variation has evidently managed to stay hidden in plain sight for so long, either as a reflection of the pattern's lack of appeal to collectors, or further proof of its effectiveness in confounding the human eye . Given that the pattern has been reproduced commercially, one would have thought that, at the very least, those who were involved in the reproduction process should have noticed the differences; that is, if they had sampled more than just a single parka or Zelt... collector 5 what's with the repetitions in the horizontal line? Admin I will make an effort to dig out my # stuff in the next few days and make a side-by-side comparison shot. I think the average viewer will have a hard time differentiating between the two, other than the fact that later production fabric seems to have slightly darker dyes. It is not that surprising to me that the details have been missed for this long, though. I think by the nature of the design, it is not as easy to pick out the pattern repeat as it is with so many other contemporary and later camouflage designs. - rather than creating a completely new set of comparison drawings, may I have permission to use the diagrams you created here for my site? I think they illustrate the difference perfectly, and would be more than happy to give you credit for the work. collector 5: Do you mean "width"? Or are you asking about those artifacts from the crappy digital stitching job I did? If it's the former, please see the illustration below, which summarizes everything I've posted. If it's the latter - I had a hard time overcoming parallax discrepancies using the simple photo-editing tools I have. Admin: Yes, that built-in inversion can certainly be disorienting to the casual observer; when combined with the common practice of reversing pattern orientation on adjacent panels during garment construction, it does indeed take some effort to see the differences on the later uniforms. Please feel free to use any of the images I posted for my site. If you need larger versions of one or the other, just let me know. collector 6 Nice work, guys. Very well researched. Admin Here is a photograph from the back of my unissued 1961-dated smock. I left it "large" despite the fact that there is a seam down the center disrupting the repeat, just in case there is something I have missed. From my observation this appears to still be the original #57 pattern and not the later version. Would you gents agree? I stared at this and the pattern from a 1971-dated smock for quite a while and they do appear to be different, although it is still difficult for me to pick out the clusters. Instead I have been focusing on particular shapes (sort of a Rorschach imagery thing). Now, take a look at this photograph of the pattern from a 1971-dated smock and you will notice that there some of the "new" small shapes that appear in this pattern which do not appear in the earlier pattern. collector 2 Now, take a look at this photograph of the pattern from a 1971-dated smock and you will notice that there some of the "new" small shapes that appear in this pattern which do not appear in the earlier pattern. Indeed, there are a few shapes in the added cluster band that are quite distinctive. Once I knew what to look for, it was not at all difficult to see them among the gaggle of blotches and squiggles. Two of the dark brown shapes are especially easy to spot. As I am not particularly imaginative, I thought that one looked like a "sock puppet", while the other resembled a "tadpole". They are 10.5" apart center-to-center in one direction, and 5" apart in the other, so at least one of them should be visible on any back panel, and two or even three of them can be seen on a front panel, where there is no obstruction. Does this qualify as the most amount of time anyone has spent on a common pattern or what? Yet it turned out to be a very enjoyable exercise for some reason collector 7 very interesting thread! I would like some IR photos of the pattern. The first is a #59 jacket marked 1960. Secondly, an IR photo of my 1965 marked Zeltbahn: I do have a second #59 jacket in my collection, but I can't read the markings (it seems to end in 5), but it has a zipper - when was this introduced? collector 2 I thought I was done with this, but you made me dig out my clothes again. Your '65 dated Zelt is printed in the first pattern, just like my '67 dated examples. Since the Zelt is made using a fabric that underwent a very different printing process than that of the uniform cloth, perhaps it was never affected by the pattern update? However, not too surprisingly, the second pattern does in fact look quite different in NIR imaging compared to the original pattern. Among the five colors in the original pattern (inclusive of the base color), both green and gray shapes are printed in IR absorbent dyes, with the gray being the more absorbent of the two (very obvious in the Zelt photo). In the updated pattern, the gray has taken on a darker and more bluish hue, but is no longer IR absorbent. As a result, the updated pattern looks significantly "paler" in NIR compared to the original (with roughly 50% fewer IR absorbent shapes). Whether or not this is by design, it is certainly one very quick way to tell the two patterns apart. Thanks for bringing it up. pietbess the other side of the zeltbahn, the swamp-pattern side, has the same differences. one older used example of this I have lacks parts of the pattern apparently inserted on another example I have which is in unwashed, unused condition. more on this later. i have this weird thing i have to go to called "work". :( collector 2 Interesting. So perhaps the Zelt, too, went through an update at some point. Does your newer Zelt show the later type pattern on the splotchy side? Can you see a date? Looking forward to reading your report! P.S., collector 7: I noticed that you had a question at the end of your Nov 30 post about you zippered coat that was left unaddressed. This type of coat is usually identified as "Panzeranzug". It co-existed and co-evolved alongside the Kampfanzug from '57 through '69, and came with matching overpants with zippered thigh pockets. Therefore, the faded numeral in front of your '5' can only be a '6'. The introduction of KAZ69, a shorter coat that resembled the earlier Panzeranzug in many respects but without a zipper, obviated the need to issue a separate 'Panzer' uniform. pietbess quote:Originally posted by collector 2 Does your newer Zelt show the later type pattern on the splotchy side? Can you see a date? Yes, the spotted side is also different. I haven't compared it with the photos here. The Zelt is stamped "## 83" quote: Originally posted by collector 2 Among the five colors in the original pattern (inclusive of the base color), both green and gray shapes are printed in IR absorbent dyes, with the gray being the more absorbent of the two (very obvious in the Zelt photo). In the updated pattern, the gray has taken on a darker and more bluish hue, but is no longer IR absorbent. As a result, the updated pattern looks significantly "paler" in NIR compared to the original (with roughly 50% fewer IR absorbent shapes). Cool animation! Remember, the thing to look for in IR is not absorbency [darkness], but reflection [lightness]. Foliage is pretty dark in the visual, but very, very bright in IR. I don't think this looks like an IR treated pattern, but I do think IR is a useful tool for looking for details in the pattern. Sometimes stamps may show up better in IR, as well. collector 2 Thanks for the follow up, Piet! So the patterns on the later Zeltbahnen were in fact updated on both sides. The question now is when. We know it's between '67 and '83. I just had a look at the Zelt Admin used for illustration on my site (I don't know why I didn't do that before): its splotchy side is definitely printed in the second pattern; so one can now assume that its 'marsh' side must be in the later pattern as well? I will have to go visit my local surplus store and look for a new Zeltbahn! Admin What are the differences between the 1st and 2nd Marsh patterns? I am not sure I have an older zelt, so this is news to me as well. collector 2 quote: Cool animation! Remember, the thing to look for in IR is not absorbency [darkness], but reflection [lightness]. Foliage is pretty dark in the visual, but very, very bright in IR. I don't think this looks like an IR treated pattern, but I do think IR is a useful tool for looking for details in the pattern. Sometimes stamps may show up better in IR, as well. Given your expertise on this subject [I would say “study” -ed.], you are undoubtedly right that this pattern was not specifically designed to be effective against NIR-imaging. The differences in the IR-absorbance/reflectance of the dyes are likely incidental rather than intentional. By replacing the highly IR-absorbent gray dye (which is the only dye in this pattern that shows up dark at the 950 nm cutoff) with one that is completely IR-reflective, I personally feel that they made the updated pattern less effective against NIR-imaging than the original pattern, as there is virtually no contrast at all in the newer pattern at the longer wavelengths. Surely this couldn't have been an 'improvement' by design? collector 2 I hope Piet wasn't planning on doing something like this. As I seem to have a lot more time on my hand than he does, I thought I'd go ahead and give the Marsh pattern the same treatment that I had given to the splotchy side, after I found a later model Zeltbahn at my local surplus store this afternoon (unfortunately, it does not have a legible date stamp): Just as Piet had reported, there is indeed an insertion of new features in the updated pattern. However, in contrast to what I had observed on the splotchy side, the newer Marsh pattern is not lengthened by the insertion. If anything, the later drawing is slightly shorter and 'flatter' than the original version, perhaps as a result of some minor compression in the overall pattern (with n=1, this is little more than speculation at this point). Since I had my IR camera out, I also took some photos using both the 720 and 950 filters (only the 720 photos are shown; the 950 ones look virtually identical). About all one can say is that the relative IR absorbance/reflectance of the brown and gray dyes appears reversed in the later pattern, and that on the whole, this side of the Zeltbahn is a lot less IR-reflective than the splotchy side, whether or not by design. Incidentally, I took a quick look at some commercially made BDUs (Sturm-Miltec?) that the store has had on their rack since forever (which I never felt the need to do before). They all appear to be printed in the later pattern. Now that I have beaten this one to death, I think I am finally ready to put everything away. Admin Great work, ! That is a marvelous schematic of the changes to the swamp pattern. Thanks again for the great work!
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