Aaaaaaaaaauuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhh!!!!!
 

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2...ESRC=marine.nl

So for about 20 years we just blew the US taxpayers' dollars (read: millions of dollars) on new utility uniform after new utility uniform only for Congress to finally say "hold up, this might not be the best use of our money." Now all that "R&D" and "wear testing," not to mention the uniforms themselves, will all go to an even bigger waste then they were before.

I was a radio operator, among other things, in the Marines. I had to buy my own goddamn antenna tuner (around $400) to use in the field, while my officers were wasting money trying to look spiffy wearing what amounts to heavy-duty pajamas. In Afghanistan, with the Navy, I had to buy my own compass and binoculars while my officers were rolling out a motherfucking blue camouflage utility uniform. What a fucking joke.

Hey, matching antenna impedance is serious shit :lol:

(Would you really trust the government to buy something that isn't crap for that? They'd probably buy from MFJ :lol:)

That reminds me, I need to pick up a decent tuner for some antenna projects.

What this means is we'll probably be stuck with the damn ACU's for even longer now, and the damn things don't camouflage you from anything!

The advantage is that now that I'm AGR and have to buy my own, I have about 10 years worth, so I shouldn't have to buy any.

What it means is they'll just waste money on something else.

Meh...First World Military problems
They don't need no stinking uniforms in Thailand

As per quote

Where I work the different camos make it easy to tell who's who. Otherwise this is a good idea just too late. Also, good luck getting everyone to agree on a pattern.

Itll work in a banana field.

http://www.spencersonline.com/images...eractive.a.jpg

Also if some woman bitches about their looks in them, they just ugly.


http://www.cosypajamas.com/uploadfil...ajamas-set.jpg

Exactly, I actually like a different pattern for Army, AF, Navy, Marines.

They just better not bring back the beret BS. Leave that to the folks that earned it.

In a sense of effectivness...It's shit. But I like the Navy's the best...The blue is awesome looking.

Army and marines to someone who doesnt know any better are closer looking together and the airforce looks like the army's colors it's just a different pattern.

But man man man servie men i've spoken to said they all find them pretty fucking useless.

Even more useless? The safety belt.

May kind of crack ate you smoking? The safety belt is the best armour available, it is like solid steel against anything and everything

PT belt nation. Saves you from everything...

most useless thing that everyone and their other has a hard-on for

What was wrong with the BDU's? Great uniform with tons of stuff available for it that you can get anywhere. ABU's, by the way, are lie wearing a garbage bag. Down here in Mississippi you'll sweat them through in a day. My BDU's full of starch didn't do that. And the sage green boots are horrible. I have milk that lasts longer, and you can't clean them. Just because assholes can't polish stuff doesn't mean we should accept shitty boots. 12 million we spent and now we have to develop something else? Bullshit.

Agreed, the navy's are the best looking.

The AF's are the ugliest. Why the fuck did they pick those colors? About the only time I could see those colors "blending in" with anything is if an enemy attacked an airfield on foot, and our airmen took cover behind planes and hangers. :lol:

Thing is, most of our hangers are painted regular green (read BDU green) not sage green. ABU's don't blend into shit.

Oh, and the guys and girls that would be around the airplanes and hangers wear blue coveralls.

Just hope that they don't go for the bloody wedge. No one looks good in a wedge.

Well, except my drill sergeant, but then she looked good in everything right down to nothing.

Truth. I'm ok with it for the dress uniform though.

Agreed again. Only thing I like about the ACU over the BDU is the calf pocket on the pants.

I can acquiesce to that, preferable to the cunt caps. :lol: I still have my old one issued to me in BCT, along with my original green pickle suit.

I don't think I even have a cunt cap anymore... :idk:
Have my original greens (not even close to fitting) and then my current sized greens (with 6's on them, not dropping 'em down to my current 5)
ASU's are getting altered as we speak. Got lucky and got them ordered before I went AGR, so I didn't have to pay for them, and the unit is being nice (since it took forever to get them) and covering the alterations as well! :rockwoot:

Damn straight it is. SATCOM only works when the satellite works. And when there's no overhead cover. And when it's a clear day. And when the other side remembers which is the uplink and which is the downlink freq...

And that was the problem exactly. They provided us with an antenna tuner, and it was crap. You'd watch the SWR meter and the needle would just sit there laughing at you.

I can only imagine. They could also invest in some resonant antennas, too :lol:

I put a max of 140 watts or so into the tuner I have - it is supposedly rated for 300 but I'm guessing it'd start to arc badly at close to 215 or so.

That's well beyond my know-how, ours were 20 watt man-packables. The 10' whips they came with are generally worthless for HF (most freqs that's what, 1/8 wave?), so we were stuck running field expedients (read: speaker wire and a cobra head). At 20 watts, proper tuning is not optional. And I wasn't very successful even once I had a decent tuner. At any rate we didn't have to worry about arcing, but your fingers might get a little warm if you were holding the antenna while you keyed (guilty, I'm a moron).

This was back in the '90's. When I was re-activated in '09, the military had pretty much gone strictly to SATCOM for long range comms. Worked great in the sandbox and I was glad to have it, but it's gonna hit us in the feels if we ever try to fight a war in trees again. NO ONE will know how to bounce a sky wave.

I understand they have a few volunteer-run SATCOM projects for ham operators now. That's kinda crazy.

HF is the spectrum between 3 and 30 MHz for those just tuning in :)

1/8 wave kinda for some frequencies though stunted to all hell without a counterpoise. Damn inefficient. At 20 watts with one of those, you're lucky if you're getting a couple watts to actually radiate you're lucky :lol:

You were probably better off with the speaker wire though depending on the frequencies you're working on, you may have been warming the clouds above you w/NVIS if you didn't have any height!

The have been Ham ops involved for years as part of the MARS programs. SatCom was just a natural progression.

Guess what my hobby is lol

We need to look towards some foreign armed services for uniform inspiration. Let us wear some fucking shorts! T-shirts with rank/name on them? Sure! Morale increased 500%.

You need to go back over to Cycleforums and look up some of the pics of female Israeli military members, posted by a certain member.

...or coveralls as a uniform for maintenance, not just authorized in the industrial area, but an actual not bullshit uniform...