What is the school of thought on most developed nations adopting similar multi cam uniform for their armed forces? I can barely identify which soldier is from which nation/branch of military. Albit different but even russian/ukrainian soldiers are hard to distinguish except for the colored arm bands. I know multicam is not be all, for all solutions but seems like multicam offers good enough camoflauge for variety of terrain.
but when I look at Chinese camo , its as diverse as colors in rainbow. I think Different uniform steam from need to distinguish themselves from other department rather than practicle needs. Can’t they adopt a good enough multicam as standard & issue speciality camo as per need of special forces ? Saving in logistics, uniformity, easy to adopt next upgrade in uniform, easy to procure.
Just my 2cents.
PAP units gave a multi cam clone PLA have their own type. Now then Multicam is the new M84 woodland. Most nations don’t want to spend a fortune developing a new pattern, as well as sourcing manufacturing of said pattern. They buy off the shelf and as such preference is to proven. Alternatively they get via military aide which again will tend to be an established pattern. Multicam as designed has the nice advantage that it can be worn in woodland with only minor issues, desert, even sub temperate climates. Only units of Russian Speznaz use Multicam. Which fits as they are generally under the FSB and GRU.
Russia and Ukraine have had common camouflage and uniform patterns because of the Soviet period. Until about 2008. In 2008 Russia launched its green dominate field uniform EMR pattern (looks kinda like the Creeper from Minecraft) In about 2013 then President Yanokovich whom had run on pushing Ukraine independence and European Alliances began a series of military reforms including developing new pixilated patterns. Of course in 2014, Yanokovich pulled a 180 and for that he was ousted. The Ukrainian military was forced into a war as “Little Green men” Russian troops appeared across eastern Ukraine. The name “little green men” being a reference to alien invaders and the camouflage they wore being the same green dominant EMR. I remember doing a detailed breakdown of the gear and equipment they wore as Putin early on claiming them “local militia” despite wearing and carrying weapons and equipment that was unique to Russia.
Now after the failure of 2014 Ukraine’s military modernization was kicked into high gear. The Ukrainian army command was worried that older sets of uniforms or commercial sets could be easily available to saboteurs. They set to establish two patterns one in temperate for the north and western regions and a eastern southern variant for the steppe. In the end they only procured the Steppe version. Which is very brown khaki That said once the Russians invaded other patterns appeared. Rule of thumb if green probably Russian.
The Chinese aren't doing it by service anymore. It's going to be based on the area of operations. Refer to the image below:
View attachment 86792
Also multicam isn't one color. There are different versions of it as well:
View attachment 86794
Finally, for Russia and Ukraine, it is extremely easy to distinguish between the two nations' camos. The Ukranian standard camo has larger squarss when the Russian standard one has small dots.
Multicam’s expanded family hasn’t seen as widespread adoption. Doing so requires a royalty duty that frankly many armies don’t want to pay. It’s done well commercially though. I mean black Multicam doesn’t really has a function other than looking cool. Woodland Multicam would do better in forests and jungle but traditional does okay.
Desert Multicam would be great but traditional is damned good.
Arctic is about the only one that stands out enough to justify for most users if you need over-whites.
