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Question regarding a correct camoflauge.


Fox3

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Greetings. Thank you for opening my question. Quite a bit of a long post ahead. Sorry for possible typos.

I am preparing to buy my new airsoft loadout this fall. I've been running a cheap Woodland setup for a few years now, but it's more than time to upgrade, really. I've put together a kit I would like to use, so I have every single element (Weapons, base uniform, carrier, pouches, helmet, accessories etc.) already picked. I am working with more kit variations, depending on which pieces will be available when the time comes to buy them as one full loadout. But I have stumbled upon 2 problems.

My trouble is connected mainly to the camouflage and climate I will play in, so photos of our average forests are coming up shortly. My location is Middle / Eastern Europe.

1. I am not quite sure what my base camoflauge and upper layer color should be. I would like something functional for my climate. So, I picked Kryptek Mandrake as my base (combat uniform set). I would like to ask: Do you think this is a good decision ? Would you recommend something else ?

2. Again, I am not sure of my upper layer (Helmet, carrier, pouches, MOLLE backpack, gloves, knee and elbow pads). There is not much of these colored in Mandrake, and if yes it would most likely cost me a lot in shipping. So, I have to resort to one-color accessories (gladly, I think it looks cooler, actually). Now, I can't decide between Olive and Coyote. I know Olive is great for forests but I have seen Coyote working wonders in some forests as well. What would you recommend picking ? If there is something better you can think of that I have not mentioned, please, write me about it here.

I tried putting all of these into perspective in Photoshop onto the images I attached to this post. From what I've seen, my current favorite combination is Mandrake base + Olive upper layer. But I am still not quite sure, considering all the stuff such as shadows, bright sun light etc. And that is why I would like to ask for help from you guys.

Photos:

Kryptek Mandrake variant I think will work the best for my climate:
Kryptek-Mandrake-Camo_a8ca51e9-bbd4-4251

Average look of our forests in spring:
43312566.jpg

43349558.jpg

In summer:
uFYUMwSrF7ZfWLAgetC05v_YI7QqtB0pV3meJ4-I

 bvysokyles.jpg

And in fall:
56811556_335730567140281_360893639705501

Beech_forest_in_Slovakia.jpg

So, what do you guys think ? Should I switch any parts for other camo / color ? Would you overhaul my choices completely ? What do you think could be done in a better way ?

TL;DR
I am looking for the best color combination for my loadout and climate. Current favorite is Mandrake + Olive but I am not quite sure, and I would like to get to know other's tips.

Once again, sorry for a long post. Thank you for any input. Have a nice day.

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It all looks good. Obviously its fun to think about - but you don't need to overthink it either. That camo looks fine for year round maybe you could consider some darker trouser for the autumn and winter, but its not the biggest deal in the world. I have various camo but tbh I go more on weather then season, if that makes sense. As for olive drab vs coyote brown - whatever you think looks cool, its no biggie really. Camouflage and concealment are two sides of the same coin - camo is something you wear, concealment something you do. enjoy! 

 

 

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I vote coyote over olive.

Maybe have a watch of some of the Polenar Tactical videos on YouTube and see what kind of gear they run.  They're in Slovenia but might be close to what sort of environment you have.

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Best info for camo suitable for your own location would be looking at what your armed forces wear at home. Same stuff might be hard/illegal, but it gives you the idea of the colour ratios to look for.

Going for some exotic camouflage pattern can, indeed, be a pain with getting the whole set to match, since helmet covers in particular tend to be hard to come by. They are easiest to do yourself, though, if you can get the fabric from somewhere.

I'd be a bit more inclined towards the olive drab than coyote, at least unless oyu can see in person how light the coyote actually is, but either should work in your environment, as long as you don't do too large patches of one.

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2 hours ago, hitmanNo2 said:

I vote coyote over olive.

Maybe have a watch of some of the Polenar Tactical videos on YouTube and see what kind of gear they run.  They're in Slovenia but might be close to what sort of environment you have.

I'm from Slovenia, can confirm the pictures OP posted looks basically the same as our forests.

Marpat works very well here, M81 woodland is good for the greener times of the year. Flecktarn is quite good aswell.

If you want to go more "futuristic" with your camo the kryptek you picked would work well during the green months.

As for gear coyote/khaki is more apropriate for the entire year, OD is okay in the summer.

In the end it doesn't really matter as long as you are wearing something remotley apropriate so pick what is cooler looking to you. Concealment is more in what you do rather than what you wear.

PS there is a great youtube channel that demonstrates a large selection of camo patterns in a similar environment to ours if a bit denser with vegetation. Look up "Brent0331". I can send you a direct link in DM's if you cant find him.

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Hi guys. Thank you all for your answers, they were all really helpful !

 

 

@Skarclaw Yeah, I do overthink things a lot. I have been building this loadout in my head and "on paper" for a good year now. But I enjoy it. I have gotten suggestions on A-TACS AU already, mainly because of how much it can (apparently) blend in with forests in fall. I am actually considering A-TACS FG as well.

 

@hitmanNo2 They are pretty good, I have seen a few videos from them already. The most common kind of tree in forests around here is beech from deciduous and spruce from coniferous sorts, so yeah, that probably checks out. I mainly watch Brent0331 when it comes to things like camouflage, loadout colors, concealment and so on. That is just my personal preference, of course.

 

@sandstorm Camo of our army actually helped me a bit when I first started searching for good patterns. The thing is, it's kind of illegal for civillians to wear. Well, it's the combination of wearing an authentic Slovak camo uniform AND Slovak patch on your shoulder / -s that is illegal, but I definitely don't want to try my chances just by wearing the authentic camouflage itself. I respect all soldiers around the world heavily, and one of the things I put a rather big attention to is not to knowingly replicate some official army loadout, and I restrict myself even further when it comes to patches (I will never be in some way rude to anyone wearing an official military / police patch but you will also never see me walking around with one of those on). That is why I won't be taking our current official "Kocky" pattern as my base, because there are men and women way tougher than me who actually deserve to wear it. I hope to join them someday... I hope. I know it's probably not of a great interest to anyone, but I just thought I could add an image of our current official camo:

D_KZG20151101005298183-1024x683.jpg

 

@Tarr Yep, I've been running a Woodland loadout for a few years now, with Olive vest on top of that. Woodland works greatly, I love it. I was surprised to see how well MARPAT works in our environment, actually. 

You are kind of right about the  futuristic thing. You see, I would like to make my loadout to look as certain... forces (the best term I could come with up in this situation, they are more like private special forces, actually). It's the MTFs (Mobile Task Forces) operating under SCP Foundation. SCP Foundation is non-existent, of course... let's hope so... You see, I am not the only one trying to do that, but other people mostly just stick SCP's logo patch on their shoulder and call it a a day. I want to take a different approach, and make something I think MTFs would actually wear, with a few accessories. That is also why I chose Kryptek Mandrake, because it makes sense to me that MTFs operating in wooded areas wear something fresh, "top-of-the-line", made by a private manufacturer such as Kryptek. You mostly see MTFs in full black, but I have already learned black loadouts are rather terrible for forests and plains, so I definitely don't want to go with that. MTFs would not wear all black all the time, anyway. If I am to be particular about which MTF I would like to replicate, I kind of can't choose between Epsilon 11, Eta 10 and Nu 7, but that is probably for another debate.

Thank you for recommending Brent0331, I already watch him and his videos are really helpful. He is the one who showed me how great can coyote be in shadowy forests :D

 

I see more and more people recommending Coyote, so I guess it would be a good choice. The only contender it now has in my book is Ranger Green.

 

Once again guys, thank you all a lot for your input. You are all being really helpful. If you have more to add, I will be happy to read about it.

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Personally when I think futuristic camo what comes to mind is digital. Have you checked out PenCott patterns? And US4CES? Neither is in widespread general use as far as I know and both look quite modern imo.

Alternatively you could go all solid colour aswell. Ranger green clothing combined with coyote looks snazzy AF and could easily pull off the scifi look with it.
 

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Hey, nothintg wrong with rtespecting the men and women in service by not impersonating one, that's actually darn fine attitude to have, especially if you extend it beyond your own forces.

I know SCP and their MTF, that's interesting choice, you might like to start a thread on that in the Scifi/Fantasy Gear Discussion -section, it's buried a bit down in the Gear Discussion, we used to have all sorts of scifi gear plotting there, when the site was more active.

The current camo of your forces seems a fair bit lighter than Finnish M05... Which is now commercially available, but yeah, a bit too dark.

 

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@Tarr I checked them out and I would definitely consider PenCott Greenzone, it's just that... the shirt itself costs 70€, pants too, and well, I highly doubt I will find a gap big enough for that in my budget (I definitely won't). I haven't seen US4CES before, and I think it would be a great choice now that I see it. I tried searching for it on market right away, but I haven't found it anywhere near, not even on amazon or ebay, so I guess I won't be able to get it.

Thank you for good recommendations though, if I find PenCott Greenzone in my price range somewhere I am going after it.

 

@sandstorm Thanks, and sorry if that part about our troops in my first answer sounds sharply. Now that I am looking at it, it can come off as if it was written in anger. It was not, and some could definitely perceive it that way. But I mean it. You know, airsoft players have a bad enough reputation in military / police community, so I personally try my best to raise it up a little. I am not trying to get their praise, not by any means, but I want to show that there are a lot of self-aware airsoft players. It's these few individuals who take the game extremely seriously ('Call me a commander while I eat my MREs...' and such types) who shed a bad light at airsoft, and make the entire community look bad in front of actual soldiers and policemen.

Yep, I have seen the Sci-Fi section on my way here, when I am completely done with my MTF list I will most likely post something about it in there.

It is, but there is also a really bright sun light in that photo so our camo is just a little darker in reality.

 

P.S. Sorry, I know it took me a longer time to reply but I had to get rid of a certain smaller virus yesterday night. It was just that WebHelper thought, so everything is fine (clean is a word I would opt more to use in this situation) now. 

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@Fox3 I didn't take your mention as angry. But you know, this is a global forum, it's not like all police and military hate airsofters worldwide, but the places our hobby isn't hated are the ones where your attitude of respect for the professionals is mixed with the willingness to learn from the professionals. But that's quite a vague line, and some places they don't want us to learn their trade, at all...

You don't need a ready list to start a thread there, if you check few threads, they aren't so much as showing a 'ready' kit than they are asking fellow enthusiasts for 'does anyone have an idea what vest they used in that episode of Expanse/Doctor Who/28 decades later'. It helps when you don't have to research everything yourself, and we at least used to have plenty of people from all over the world, so what might be rare in one area is common sight elsewhere in the second hand stores. Or something that people from somewhere just can't figure out, since it was the 'lucky find' of some movie's prop team, is something one of us used for months or even years while in service, and doesn't mind giving us the details on how 'yes, it was experimental winter coat the Russians tried in '88 when they were freezing on the trucks north of Kabul.'

Of course, for SCP MTF, there's some definite lack of visual guides to follow or even ponder about. Although 

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Well, the thing with MTFs is that, it's not even likely there is one unified standard equipment for all of them. There are LOTS of MTFs, and every single one specializes in a certain field. Yeah, there are these tacti-cool squads taking on missions that place them on the level of SEALs or SAS, but there are MTFs whose members won't have to shoot at someone in their entire life, for example Gamma-5 (thier task is to supress any public knowledge of Foundation or SCPs) or Theta-90 (who are basically really hardcore high-level mathematicians, investigating events taking place in unstable topologies, different spacetimes and so on)

MTFs are created and disbanded by Foundation all the time, there are certain MTFs created especially just for one SCP or Group of Interest (GOI) and when the threat is neutralised (and all needed intel is collected), members will just be moved to some other squad and whatnot, with said MTF being officially disbanded.

 

In airsoft we try to replicate those tacti-cool looks, and that is why I think the best MTFs for this should be: 

Eta-10 "See no Evil"

Epsilon-11 "Nine-Tailed Fox" 

Nu-7 "Hammer Down" (I picked the ones with known patches, so they can be added to the loadout, there are lots of combat-oriented MTFs otherwise)

If we take into consideration what little we can see of the most modern military equipment, and that we are talking about Foundation here, I think it is safe to assume the equipment of these squads is at least superior to SEALs (Operation Neptune Spear variant). I am not even talking about MTFs like Tau-5 (humans embedded with machinery and flesh of a fallen god equipped with experimental weaponry, yes, you read that right) here, since those would raise the average "loadout" level pretty quickly.

But, these MTFs most likely don't go around in their top-level loadouts when they are on a guarding duty, site overwatch and so on (well, at least Nu-7 most likely doesn't, the other two mentioned could potentionally, since they are one of the most elite of the combat-oriented MTFs, with Eta-10 being "the hunters" of SCPs (it's likely they were the ones who captured SCP-173) and Nine-tailed Fox being the ones who Foundation sends when sh*t really hits the fan on-site)

That is why most people who choose to replicate these MTFs take loadouts of SEALs or Spetsnaz and then edit the visual accessories. It's kinda sloppy in my opinion, just sticking a patch on it and calling it a day. But that is their business, I am in no position to tell anyone what to do with their loadout (and, essentially, their money).

 

In case it's picking yp your interest;

List of all MTFs:

http://www.scp-wiki.net/printer--friendly//task-forces-complete-list

Not all of it is really comprehensible, since it's more of a preview list of all of them, if you want more information on certain MTF that picked your attention, follow SCPs and events associated with them, which are listed right next to the said MTF.

You can find all available logo patches under the 'Show list of MTF logos' section, it's the last one on of the options list.

 

List of MTFs which are greatly expanded upon (these are the ones with most information on them): 

http://www.scp-wiki.net/task-forces

 

P.S. Sorry @sandstormI know I have sent you this as a message already, but I wanted to add this for clarity of the thread, in case someone who also wants to make SCP-themed loadout finds it some time later. Might as well just make a stand-alone thread for that, maybe I will try.

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As an aside, MTF could well use (or even be) the same gear as the local troops around their deployment site. 

Like US and UK Special Forces do when on advisory tasks in action, they try to not 'stick out' from their charges unless you're close enough to see tge badges and flags. 

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@sandstorm Definitely, the Foundation has undercover cells literally everywhere, so they will each have to adapt to their current conditions within a certain structure. Foundation commonly manipulates companies like NASA or entire governments, so (some) MTFs are surely skilled in inflitration, and such tasks should be easy for them.

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