Reserve your copy of “Tiger Stripe: The Vietnam Camouflage Story” on Kickstarter today:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/tiger-stripe?ref=45nn7u
With historical roots based in the “Lizard” camouflage patterns worn by French colonial troops in Indochina in the years following the Second World War, “Tiger Stripe” has become an icon of the Vietnam War. Most commonly associated today with US Special Forces advisors, Tiger Stripe camouflage saw surprisingly wide usage across an array of forces in South Vietnam – with South Vietnamese Special Forces (LLDB), South Vietnamese Marines (VNMC), South Vietnamese Rangers, Civilian Irregular Defense Groups (CIDG), Mike Force, MACV-SOG, and more. The reputation of Tiger Stripe is such that even the most disinterested person today instinctively associates the camouflage with Special Forces. Tiger Stripe: The Vietnam Camouflage Story is the most visually comprehensive book to ever dive specifically into this topic, covering its development and usage leading up to and during the Vietnam War.
Authored by film producer and long-time camouflage collector and dealer, Owen Thornton, Tiger Stripe: The Vietnam Camouflage Story will transport you back to the early days of the conflict in Southeast Asia to tell a story through an almost unimaginably diverse gathering of authentic vintage uniforms, original never-before-seen photographs, government documents, and historically significant (but largely forgotten) magazine articles. All told, this book contains in excess of 1,250 images.
Tiger Stripe covers the following topics as it works its way through the history of this camouflage pattern:
· Windproof Pattern
· Lizard Pattern
· Sea Wave Tiger
· Bulletproof Pattern
· Fat Tiger
· Silver Tiger
· Okinawa Tiger
· ARVN Tiger
· Gold Tiger
· 1969 Pattern Tiger
· Other Miscellaneous Patterns and Variants
· Hollywood Usage
· Women and Kids Clothing
· Reproduction Clothing
· Modern Tiger Usage
Photographed by celebrated photographer James Rupley, Tiger Stripe: The Vietnam Camouflage Story presents this highly curated collection of camouflage and relevant accessories in never-before-seen detail on large format, full-color prints in a premium hardback form. Tiger Stripe is the next best thing to having these exceptional collector’s grade items in your own personal collection.
thank you sir!
The US Air Force ABUs were a muted tiger-stripe, or at least tiger-stripe inspired. The Air Force dropped them for US Army OCPs several years ago. The Air Force Auxiliary (the Civil Air Patrol) is transitioning to OCPs now and will drop the ABUs at the end of October, 2028. So one might see cadets helping out at air shows wearing them for a couple of years. Cadets usually prefer the OCPs, but I thought the lineage back to South Vietnam was cool.
Do I see a sister site in the future? ‘Forgotten Uniforms.’ When I first thought of that I was sarcastic but now I think it might be interesting. I recall reading General Mead once took Brigadier Bartlett to task over his uniform, ‘Where’s the rest of thr circus?’ Finley Peter Dunne opined the U.S. could solve its turn of century gold crisis by ‘seizing General Miles uniform.’ I also recall chafing in the late 70’s over Army fatigues and cap that looked like castoffs from Texaco. So the thinking behind military uniforms might be of interest.
The “lack of thought” behind military uniforms would be equally interesting, and far more depressing.
Have a thought for the systemic stupidity inherent to the process, and the demonstrated inability to learn.
Couple cases in point: The successive “crotch failures” with iterations of hot weather uniforms. Occurred in the OG-107 Jungle Fatigues, the Hot Weather BDU, and the Army Combat Uniform. Every single initial version of those uniforms displayed the syndrome, perhaps forgivable in the OG-107s, but after those? WTF, Natick?
Then there was the horrid Universal Camouflage Pattern idiocy. Everyone who was involved thought that they were going to adopt the Crye Multicam or the Army’s version of it, Scorpion. Nope; not a bit. Out of the blue, some senior ranking idjit decided on the UCP variant that they fielded, against all common sense. I was there when Logan Coffey came back from the big unveiling back east when they released the pattern to manufacturers like his Tactical Tailor company, and all he could do was shake his head at the sheer stupidity of it. Everyone knew that Multicam was a superior pattern, but for whatever reason, some flag-ranked idjit went with UCP against all testing and common sense.
Cue a couple of billion dollars down the drain, and a bunch of “issues” caused by crappy camouflage downrange, all of which could have easily been avoided through the application of common sense and good judgment.
The actual process by which we arrived at UCP was entirely opaque, with no names attached to it. Almost like they knew it was stupid from the beginning.
Even more aggravating? The Army had already paid for the development of Scorpion, which became Multicam, through the Force XXI program. We had patent rights on it; we just needed to exercise them. Which we later did with the final iteration of it all…
Yeah, don’t get me started on this crap. The idjitry surrounding the dress uniforms for the Army? The ones we never wear, any more? I don’t have enough blood pressure meds on hand, for that discussion…
On the issue of Tiger Stripe camouflage in general…
Am I the only person who ever looked at the majority of it, and said “Why the hell are the stripes running horizontally, and not vertically the way they do on actual tigers and zebras…?”
I got curious, once upon a time, and did some experimenting with actual Vietnam-era Tiger Stripe camouflage. I ran into a poncho/shelter half thing done up in that pattern, which I checked and was a duplication of the majority of the issue Tiger Stripe pattern they used on uniforms. When you took it into the woods, and hung it with the stripes running vertically? Way, way harder to spot. Horizontally, the way they had it on most items done up in the pattern? The incongruity of those dark patches being run that way, contrary to most shadows? It actually made it far easier to make out.
I mean, if you’re in the prone? The way most of the Tiger Stripe was set up did you some good; actually standing and moving around? Horrible.
I never could figure out what the hell they were thinking with that move, TBH.
The original commercial hunting Mossy Oak camo, as well as East German “rain” camo patterns are both vertically oriented.
It looks like someone–more likely a committee– thought of the soldier like he was a tiger walking on its hind legs. Which suggests they were watching Tigger in Winnie the Pooh with the kids on TV when they should have been hanging fatigues off of tree branches out in the woods.
I never got a definitive answer on the question, but I was once told by someone who claimed to have “been there” that the reason it was horizontal was because the original fabricators of the uniforms in either Singapore or Hong Kong failed to follow the instructions given them by the Special Forces Quartermaster team in South Vietnam… And, from there, once the first orders were made and delivered, then it was “Yeah, that’s how it’s supposed to look…”
I rate that information as about a 3-B on the intelligence information rating scale. The source was “usually reliable, but has provided BS before”
When I was a teenager, one coctail bar we frequented during summer at seaside had a peculiar product on its menu: tiger milk. We always wondered what it was having so exotic name, but iirc when we tried to order it few weeks later, they didnt have it 🙁 Maybe it was a menu gimmick.
RE: Tiger’s Milk
What you probably saw was an iteration of a 1960’s health-food fad created by Adele Davis. It was super-popular, and led to her selling the rights to the name to a corporation that sold a very popular powder version of the recipe. From there, it morphed… And, how. There are a bunch of different cocktails based on the idea, and those are most likely what that bar had on their menu. There were also protein bars that aren’t available any more, but which are missed by a lot of people…
https://ericbakker.com/recipe/tigers-milk-protein-drink/
That link has the best breakdown on the original recipe.
If I’m not mistaken, there are references to the powder product sold commercially in Woody Allen’s Sleeper:
Thanks for the great info Kirk, I never heard about it or this woman.
Seems like there are many variations of drinks bearing the name but I suspect that product they had on the menu in that bar would be most likely a disappointment, not up to such fancy name, so I’m 50:50 on regretting that it was never tasted.
Few years ago there was also a “Tigers Blood” BS spread by famous actor turned scandalous bad boy “Carlos Estevez” ; also sounds like good gimmicky product name, though word blood never has so mellow impact as milk.
There was some old movie with Paul Muni and Walter Matthau from the 50’s. Muni is going insane feom cortisone side effects and his buddy, a junior high coach, keeps insisting that that ‘tiger milk’ will for sure bring him around.
Tiger’s Milk Cocktail Recipe:
https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/1954/tigers-milk