Ok this may seem like the stupid question of the year...but looking for serious opinions, is night time camouflage uniform effective ? This is in regards to patterns such as multicam black and kryptek typhoon. I have a older tru spec pattern that looks like a digital camo pattern except for main colors are black, gray and dark gray that I may try some un scientific experiments with. The main use of this would be coyote and hog hunting. Thanks in advance

No, I would avoid "night" camo--it doesn't work like you'd expect. Stick with the regular stuff you'd wear during the day.

I asked a superior one time about the Desert Storm era "night desert" camouflage and why it never really caught on. His response to me was rather spot on.

"Did the desert change colors at night? Did the trees? No. They didn't."

Surprisingly the Special Forces Military Free Fall School's all-Yellow GQ-360 / Unit IV main parachutes used from 1979 thru 1985/6 could be very, very hard to see on full-moon nights.

Kinda counter-intuitive.

Not exactly relevant to your question but from view in the video below, UCP is pretty damn good in regards to NIR

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z7Zi4EZXtA

How would the US Navy camo fare in low light ops? Not NV but by naked eyes.

If the camo you're wearing is effective during the day, it'll be effective at night.

Just don't wear black, as you'll be surprisingly "darker" than things around you.

What works during the day works during the night.

And sometimes, what doesn't work during the day will work during the night.

Next time you go camping take a Hawaiian shirt in bright colors but with a floral/leaf pattern. Once the sun goes down and your cones stop working, you'll be surprised at how well the shirt works as camo.

I have tried different black shirts trying to match the black Crye Precision combat pants that I have and have yet to find one that is black when viewing through NV or NV cameras. most blacks appear as white in the NV, well except for the crye they are black

One thing to keep in mind is that the pattern may not necessarily be as important as making sure the IR signature is low.   An example is this picture of me on my trail cam last fall while deer hunting.  Notice my jacket looks "white" as well as my back pack straps, but my pants are dark and splotchy.  The jacket is a "soft shell" and the pants normal cotton BDU style pants in the same Mossy Oak pattern.  In day light I'm very nicely camo'd up with a mossy oak infinity pattern.   But under IR I might as well be wearing a blaze orange t-shirt in daylight hours.   I do have a rattle canned AR pistol across my chest and that seems to break up pretty well.

This picture was in "low" light...after sunset, but not completely  night time.  Dark enough that I needed a flashlight to see fine detail but enough ambient light to walk in the woods without running into anything.

While he makes a great point, the night camo was designed to hide a body as seen through grainy, Russian gen 1 night vision.  The US discovered that Russian night vision technology was a little further along than we had thought making the night camo less effective than intended.

Wasn't that stuff designed for urban operations? Not necessarily for night ops.

Off of www.multicampattern.com

"The MultiCam Black™ pattern was developed to meet the unique requirements of law enforcement officers operating in high-risk environments. It projects a distinctly authoritative presence appropriate for domestic operations. MultiCam Black™ is designed to complement an officer’s existing equipment and present a sharp, professional image for top-tier law enforcement units."

Makes it sound like it was designed for marketing ops.

Yup. For police teams who can't wear plain green BDUs because it's militarized, but black camo is a-ok.

This.

Don't wash your stuff with detergents as they take out any IR masking qualities and/or add glow under IR qualities to the clothing.

If you have to wash something and have to use something, use the original plain Woollight.

"Night" Cammo is fucking stupid, works worse than regular Cammo (makes the wearer appear as a very noticibly dark black blob at night) and is perpetuated by marketing departments.

Darkness is not a color change-- darkness is an absence of light.  As noted above, what works during the day works at night.  

I recall hearing the late 80s-early 90s night desert camo was designed to defeat a specific type of Soviet night vision.  I'm not sure if that's true.

As mentioned above, it was designed to counter 1st Gen. Soviet night vision, which was actually more advanced than the designers had anticipated, rendering the night camo useless.

Re "utilizing MAS Grey for nighttime operations"

Quote from Vans.

"After the Naval Special Warfare developed main camouflages “AOR1” and “AOR2” for desert and tropical environments, MAS (Maritime Assault Suit) Grey was introduced by London Bridge Trading as a color variance that would provide optimum environment blending for Navy SEALs to wear while conducting VBSS (vessel boarding search & seizure) and maritime operations.

Since shades of grey have a history of minimal identification and work well within most environments due to their lack of visibility/contrast across the color spectrum, Navy SEALs started utilizing MAS Grey for nighttime operations in addition to maritime operations. Developed originally for SEAL Team 6/Devgru, very few MAS Grey items were ever issued to Naval Special Warfare Operators (i.e Navy SEALs).    

The MAS Grey kit consist of an OpsCore carbon helmet, a Bluewater Defense combat outfit and a London Bridge Trading 6094 plate carrier with assorted pouches and two different London Bridge Trading assault backpacks"



Review the two old threads below

https://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=6&f=10&t=447861

Also

I am 13 units short of having LBT make a custom production run Plate Carrier for us in MAS Grey.

I am seeking permission for a Group Buy thread, and awaiting a return IM from MOD Striker, since he approves/disapproves all Group Buy requests.

If MOD Striker approves, this is what I have in mind.

My old thread is at this link

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_6_10/460214_.html&page=1&anc=4535854#i4535854

I am not a dealer but LBT said they will make the Plate Carriers and ship them to me. I need 13 more units to make this a go.

I collect the money and buy the plate carriers from LBT through my account with them, then I ship them to each party.

I had hoped LBT would place this on their Doug's Trench collection per my initial request and still hope they change their mind.

If there are any changes I will post.

This is a very rare LBT plate carrier that combines the Release with UnderWay float pads. To me it helps saves lives. This plate carrier may interest the Tactical, Survival (Outdoors) and Training Forums, and with other kit could help save your life, those of family and friends.


Color: MAS Grey

Size: C  XL  ESAPI Cut

$720.00 per Plate carrier Estimate with USPS Shipping USA/APO/FPO/DPO

.

I am also hoping LBT will allow other sizes to be included: ESAPI, Swimmer, A B C

If, MOD Striker, approves.

Plain gray is a decent night camo color. It does not need to be in a pattern.

With human eye physiology, as the light levels decrease, your eyes lose the ability to see color.
Therefore, everything is rendered (in your brain) as various shades of gray.

Experiment with friends (in the AO you intend to be in) using different shades of gray attire and see how it goes.

When I get a chance I will be doing a comparison of some camo i have around looking through a gen 3 nv. Also I did a completely un scientific experiments comparison between multicam and tru spec urban camo at night using me and my kids in most people opinion the tru spec seems to blend into the shadows better and in the open field. I got knee surgery Friday so I will try to get pics up before than. Also thanks everyone for the insights

Edit: I have a few patterns to try out including British dpm, woodland, od green, and some realtree hunting stuff. My curiosity has gotten the best of me.

I don't understand all this talk about "urban" NoVa is among the greenest suburban areas in the world, and its topography has necessitated significant amount of undeveloped regions to insure drainage.

Reading some of these posts, you'd think he was limited to alleys and rooftops.

Visibility at night by human eye and visibility by NVD are two different animals. NVD reacts to fabric composition, detergents (as mentioned above) - eye not.

Example of NVD use: http://gearsocru.livejournal.com/3358.html and http://gearsocru.livejournal.com/4073.html

Something I need to try myself: how does different camo look under sodium lights?  In any urban or suburban area the orangish sodium lights are everywhere.  The color temp shouldn't make a difference, but it wouldn't be the first time such a small detail can change things dramatically.

I'm firmly in the plaid shirt and pants/ regular clothes as 'camo' but I thought this was pretty neat. It's based on a dyed set of DCUs that a CAG fella used for night ops.

Best cammo at night is shadows, other than that what you wear during the day works at night but pay attention to light sources and how they are bouncing of of you.

UCP (acu pattern) makes you impossible to see at night in true darkness it's grayness and pattern really work with the rods in your eyes to make you hard to see.

Total crap.

Possibly in total darkness but how often are you in total darkness and how do you see in total darkness? Not sure what "true" darkness is.

Update: I have some different camo pattern to try out under different night vision. While I am recovering from surgery I have some models( wife and daughter) who will be helping me out. If there is a pattern you want to compare please let me know and if I have it I will throw it in the test.

a lot of how a pattern looks under night vision has to do with the dyes used.  some are more reflective to different wavelengths of light than others and if it is from a commercial vs a mil supplier, it's more likely that they aren't using mil-spec dyes.  some issue items also have an IR coating to cut on reflectiveness

It also depends on how it's been laundered. To keep it sneaky, you should not use any detergent containing UV brighteners.


Keep in mind though, all the real scary people would be using thermal to detect you anyway.


 

I would like to see Multicam and the U.K. DPM, green and desert.

Ok I got multicam and the green dpm on the list. I just got the multicam black to also try. If my knee can handle it I will try to get started tonight.

Ok got the wife to model a few patterns for me so lets start with black multicam, using a Gen 3 AB nightvision pitbull some pics have the lens cover with a hole in it and some are open lens




Just a FYI she was wearing a black hat in these pics and black redwing boots. The hat looks tan
The back ground is a prairie grass field overcast night after storms rolled away. More on the way.....

This is UK green DPM :



This was a pic in front of a pine tree with a dark shadow:


Much thanks to the wife for being a trooper!!

Here is multicam:

Here is something just for comparison: Threw the multicam black and regular multicam coats into the pine tree here is the results:



I thought this was a interesting comparison.

Multi Cam is the winner out of the lot for sure. Thanks for dressing the wife up in G. I. Jane gear for us to evaluate camo. The black hat looking beige is funny.

Thanks for sharing.  For me, feral hogs don't have great eyesight so smell and sound are my primary concerns, especially at night.


More important than the clothing, is how I smell.  The first thing to go was deodorant because of the strong smell that carried so well in the wind.  Over time, I discovered that wearing the same clothes for 2 or 3 days also worked much better than 'fresh/clean' clothes which was counterintuitive to me as I assumed the 'human' smell would be stronger.  Even using non-perfumed detergents gave me away even with several rinse cycles.  I should note I am in a rural area so the 'stink' may be more natural for me than someone in a more urban area.





Today, I find being quiet is very important, clothing color not so much so and, letting personal hygiene fall off a little is the best thing for feral hogs where I live (shots from 100~200 yards mostly).




 

Cool post, OP. I appreciate the effort. Good to see MC performing well. It's amazing how well anything black stands out so well in those wavelengths. M81 Woodland, Woodland MARPAT, DPM- these are not good choices if one is expected to be under NVD observation.



I was wondering about scent reduction the other day: specifically neutralizing human smell while not adding any fragrances. I can smell sweat and BO from a ways off, and, if I can, there's no doubt animals can, too. Whether they can associate that scent with us is up for grabs. I'm wondering if there's a deodorant out there that is unscented and that still inhibits microbial action well. Having silver-impregnated/anti-microbial garments against the skin would likely help, too.

IIRC some time ago a study that Marpat Desert does pretty well at night, too.



Too lazy to Google it, but cool work OP. Looks like you had fun and got your answer.

 
Silver impregnated clothing is really nice when traveling internationally.  


If nothing else, at least get some t-shirts and briefs and occasionally wash them out in the sink.  I have traveled for weeks like this with no issues overseas.

I got a few more patterns to try out might be able to get out tonight. If anyone wants me to try a pattern let me know. If you want something and I don't have it maybe pm me and we could come up with a solution. I might also try my scope which is a pulsar n750 to see how some patterns look under digital night vision.

This has blown my mind, appreciate the effort firemed13. Also I now have an uncontrollable urge to buy a pvs14

As far as solid colors go, I'd be interested to see navy blue, black, ranger green and coyote.

 
If you've got anything in the old desert storm night grid camo that'd be interesting to see. I've always heard it was abandoned because it ironically performed poorly under NV but I've never actually seen how it looked.

can you also try at longer distances (out to 100yds)?

To answer some some posts above: yes I can do 100 yards but remember I am only using a cell phone held to the back of the monocular. I will try some solid colors I will see what I can come up with.

Good point on the smell.   I try to leave my hunting clothes outside after washing to absorb some of the natural smells around the area vs any smells that might come from the house, basement, or garage.

OP this is an amazing thread!!!  And I'll admit I've used it to shut up some people who claim black multicam is the best of the best.  If you do get out and do some more, I'd be interested to see how just play Coyote Tan and OD Green do at night.  Thanks for all the work you've done so far!!!