Camouflage uniforms of the Vietnam Wars Part 1: French Indochina.

[Patrick Dempsey]

Which can be seen in better clarity here.

Suffice to say headgear such as this is both rare ( in the true sense of the term) and highly prized by collectors.

Note too the classic "mix and match" of patterns from the UK and US.

[Patrick Dempsey]

Another superb shot to show the print.

Note too that modified and unmodified sets can be seen in wear in this photgraph.

Also to be seen is another modern classic camo print and garment the French jumpsmock.

As can be discerned from the print, it is the direct ancestral grandfather to the iconic tiger patterns of the second Indochina war.

French camouflage of this period is just sublime.






I hope you enjoyed the historical interlude.



Patrick.

[kammo man]

Fantastic shots Patrick .
I am enjoying these so much .
This is gonna be a great thread
o

[thefallenbuddha]

Kammoman, great items as always! I am more than jealous. On that note, what is the next installment of this killer thread to be?

[kammo man]

Sorry for the delay .
I am swamped at work .
When crazyness passes I am goinna hit it hard
And I think it will come in order from French thru late war .
owen

[kammo man]

Well I think the Vietnam Camouflage story began in WW2 .
The Germans began to develop Camouflage uniforms and material by 1931 .
The Splinter pattern appeared on zeltbhans , tent sections , at this time .
The SS opened a section just to develop patterns .
In the pre war years many patterns were developed .
These patterns were hand screened and were labour intensive and had various results .
Colors varied and lots of fabric could look different from one batch to another .
By 1937 the Germans bagan to produce patterns using rollers .
Not only did this give uniformaity but it speeded up production .
By 1942 the Germans were deeply into development of new patterns and many of the pre-war schemes were redundant .

British camouflage development was quite a different story .
The war had been raging on many different fronts for 4 years before the first British uniforms made an appearance .
The first of these was the Dennison smock .
These first smocks were made from a hard wearing denim like material ,but what made them unique was the hand painted pattern .
This pattern was applyed with the use of a mop !
The fabric was layed out on the ground and a bucket with green dye was mopped in S shapped movements .
When this was dry another mop , this time with brown dye made a different sweeping movement .
the base color was a tan .
The result was a primitve camouflage pattern .

Also in 1942 this pattern was reworked using rollers , which printed the classic WW2 pattern most common to collectors and one that served well into the 1960s .
It is obvious the the hand painted fabric was hard to manufacture , but it is a true classic and is more than worthy of mention .

Here is a Dennison in the hand painted version .

[kammo man]

Here is the rear .
You can see the hand painted sweeping movements

[kammo man]

The pattern .
When looking at these first jackets I am always taken back by how crude the pattern is .

[kammo man]

Makers tag .

[kammo man]

More of the large random pattern .

[kammo man]

The front pockets were sewn on at an angle and closed with pop studs made by Newley .

[kammo man]

Smocks were vented under the arm pits like this .

[kammo man]

There was a zipper to the front .
This was only a half zip and was made by lightning

[kammo man]

The cuffs had a knitt end .
These were not tops of socks but factory applied .

[kammo man]

There was also shoulder straps .
It is hard to say how many first patterns reached Vietnam , but some must have .
The pattern is hard to see in B@W pictures for sure .
But it is the daddy so worth including in our story .
More to follow ............

owen
kammoman