Sir,
In regards to the article: An Army Veteran’s Thoughts on Camouflage. I have a few comments and recommendations:
There are many different types of materials that a ghillie suit can be made from and burlap being a very good and cheap and easily accessible one, a couple bundles of natural color jute and some color dyes (mixed with some burlap) can make one very nice ghillie suit. There are many places that these materials can be purchased from. Ghilliesuits.com (which I have ordered my Jute from) is just one. Do a quick search for “ghillie suit kits or jute ghillie suite material” and have fun selecting from the masses of web sites. Why not just search for ghillie suit kits? Why pay someone hundreds of dollars to build you one that you may not like and/or it may not match your area. Building your very own ghillie suit is a great accomplishment that you will have for years to come. Same thing goes for buying natural color materials. If you live in a desert area, well, natural color will be you main base color.
Jute vs. Synthetic materials?
- Jute is a natural material. It will lay in a more natural look in the woods, weeds or brush. Jute when wet gets heavy because it is a natural fiber. It will hold the water from rain, dew, pond or creek/river. One good/bad thing about Jute is that it will retain scents of your environment. Every time that you use you Jute suit you should hang it out to dry or place it in a sealed bag (so that it will not gather the scents of an indoor environment).
- Synthetic is a man made fabric made of two parts. It is a nylon, polyester or Acrylic base material. It is lightweight and it will repel water (to an extent). It is somewhat of an insect repellent because of its manufactured smell. It is a flimsy material and doesn’t lay in a natural form that you would find in the outdoors. Synthetic materials break down much faster that natural materials from sunlight, water and just being out in the weather and become very brittle.
When building your Ghillie suit there are a few things to keep in mind:
- Your environment (Dry or Wet).
- What is your surroundings (Desert, Woods or Brush)?
- How long are you going to be wearing the suit?
- What is the weather going to be like?
If you live in a dry/desert area then you are going to want to make your suit accordingly. You will want it to be lightweight but you might have to use more material to get it to blend in better. You can make it so that your back is a bug netting material (heat rises). This will let your body naturally release body heat and it will let you get the most out of every breeze. If you live in a wetter environment you would not want a netted back. Being wet in a wet ghillie suit is no fun at all. With that in mind, I am not a fan of coveralls for the base of a ghillie suit. Coveralls are a full body suit that in it’s self is not really a lightweight garment. If you were in a “hide site” why would you wear a garment that conceals your legs? If you were on a long patrol in the weeds, why would you cover your legs? There is no need carrying extra weight on your body than you have too. You are going to be burning enough calories on daily activities let alone walking patrols with a full ghillie suit on that might get wet or cause you to sweat more than you need too.
Tactical Concealment has, what I think is a nice alternative for use of a ghillie suit for a patrol. The Cobra is lightweight and allows you easy access to your mag pouches (if they are in front of you). They make one with and without a hood. This is not a very hard article of clothing to make with the hood or without. This could be made of bug netting to make it very lightweight. I am not a big fan of bug netting for clothing because of its lack of strength. It tares very easy when in a bind. You can get some sort of netting material (I would make sue that it has no smaller than ½ inch squares). You can use 550 paracord for your edging. Sew the netting to the 550 cord and sew a couple of Fastex buckles, in the front, to each side and you are ready to start tying on your ghillie material. If you choose to make one with the hood, I would not use the drawstring!
The materials for your front side, I would not use materials like felt. Felt is a thick material that can just add a lot of weight if/when it gets wet. If your in a desert area,
maybe. Reason I say maybe is because if you are crawling around the felt will wear out pretty fast. If you go with a thin batting material (for cushion) covered by a Cordura material it will keep the batting material drier because the Cordura material can repel water.
We personally have ghillie suits made of BDU-style coat and trouser, Cobra like cape style coverings and blankets. It is much cheaper to buy the materials and make them yourself. Use your ghillie material sparingly. To much cover can also look out of place and you can always fill in the bare areas with natural vegetation! No camouflage in the world can beat natural covering.
The poster of the article had it right but I will make things a little more clear on covering your face. One thing you should remember about covering your face is that you want to make your face “flat” but not appear flat. What I mean buy that is that your face will cast natural shadows that you want to remove. Your eye sockets are naturally lower than your forehead and cheeks and your eyes are white. You would not want to make your eye sockets black! You want to make them appear that they are on the same level. Same thing goes for your nose but in the opposite. You would want to make your nose darker and your eye sockets lighter but not with just blobs. Make it random to match the area your in. Use a mix of blobs and [curved] lines. Think of the different camouflage patterns out there and how they look. Be sure to match your face to your own camouflage. – R.H.