Reserve your copy of “Tiger Stripe: The Vietnam Camouflage Story” on Kickstarter today:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/tiger-stripe?ref=76pah5
Lt Gen Lê Nguyên Kháng was the commander of the South Vietnamese Marines (RVMC), and much respected by both his own men and American troops who worked with him. As the commander of the service, he could choose to have any sort of uniform he wanted, and one of the pieces he had custom made was a one-off M65 style field jacket, made in a tiger stripe print. Today, it resides in the Museum of the Republic of Vietnam in California and they were kind enough to loan it to use to photograph for Owen Thornton’s book “Tiger Stripe: The Vietnam Camouflage Story”.
Well, tiger stripe is better than ACU. We were taught, correctly, that it’s not very good in the field. How often in nature do you have a bunch of lines running the same way. That’s why they went to BDUs/DCUs and now Multicam/OCP. As to the point, unless you’re lying in gravel, ACU is worthless. BTW, DCU is still the best in desert environments. We did OPFOR for the 11th ACR at NTC and we were issued four sets for the rotation and we loved them.
The arrangement of the press studs are reminiscent of the Denison Smock, wonder if the Lt General got the idea from it