MILTEC "BGS" cammo Trousers

[Gordon Craig]

Gentlemen,

I just came a cross this auction on Manion's site. Appears to be a MILTEC made camo BGS pair of trousers. The labels are very interesting.

Regards,

Gordon

[Gordon Craig]

The other "interesting" label.

[hoover]

Yes, Sturm sells the BDU type trousers in a wide range of camos, like Splintercamo, Austrian, Swedish camo etc. They are quite cheap and made of a polycotton mix fabric.

[Gordon Craig]

hoover,

Thanks for the comments. I saw a considerable number of the Swiss cammo pants in a shop in Budapest when I lived there.

Regards,

Gordon

[Collectinsteve]

Gordon,

The Swiss stuff was likely genuine issue. Switzerland hoarded their stuff for 30+ years and then dumped it all on the market at once. They love to do that. It's how I got a Swiss Army Pinzgauer

One of the odd things about all the Sturm BDUs. The trousers made it over here to the US in great numbers. My little surplus shop near by had at least 3 different types for sale. But no jackets. I've seen the trousers for sale in catalogs, but no jackets. However, going onto eBay.de they are all over the place. I wonder why STURM, who is huge here in the US, didn't push the jackets like they did the trousers?

BTW, a note to US based collectors. STURM is not just a maker of MilTec commercial items. If you see STURM/MilTec on a sewn in label it's likely a commercial item. If you see an adhesive sticker with STURM on it, stuck to a particular product, then it's probably genuine surplus of some sort. I started noticing this sort of surplus fairly recently. I picked up some nice 1960s BW Uzi magazine pouches with such stickers on them.

Steve

[hoover]

Sturm is also a regular manufacturer for the Bundeswehr. Poncho Liner, equipment and T-Shirts are official introduced made by Sturm.

So we have to see all items and decide if repro, fake or official item.

[Gordon Craig]

Steve,

No the Swiss stuff I saw was definitely not their surplus trousers. These were of a very light weight material and though they were very close to the swiss pattern not 100% correct. I've seen enough Swiss cammo around the world to tell the difference.

Regards,

Gordon

[Collectinsteve]

Gordon,

That's interesting! Are you sure it wasn't the TAZ 83 uniform? It's made of lightweight cotton/poly cloth and was intended for barracks and summer field use. The reason why I ask is that I've never seen anything in Swiss Leibermuster that was not genuine Swiss surplus. Although a bit off topic, here are some pics of a TAZ 83 uniform.

To keep this a little on topic, only one variant of Swiss Leibermuster is even remotely close to BW Leibermuster, and even then is easily distinguishable from it. There are two primary "families" of Swiss variants, with about 2-3 distinctly different sub types per "family". The one closest to BW Leibermuster is similar is the size/shape of the camo pattern and having some of the rollers smaller than others, which produces a print offset that randomizes the overlap of the different colors. This was the primary design intent of WW2/BW Leibermuster, but for some reason the Swiss mostly did not follow suit. The Swiss also did not adopt the BW's unique half intensity portion of the black shapes (something similar was done with the Amoeba shelter halves).

Steve