The Multicam rip-off from Spain

God knows I ranted for days when the first pictures of the new “pixelated” patterns were shown. Not only were they shameless ripoffs of Multicam, but they also missed the point spectacularly about what a pixelated pattern is. Squaring off the edges is NOT a pixelated pattern, but an amateur absurdity whose proponents should have been laughed out of the room 5 seconds into their presentation. I also felt that the woodland pattern was too dark and lacking contrast, a basic element in every good design. This resulted in a dark green blob at medium and long distances, decreasing its camouflage properties. It also lacked the subtle color gradation introduced by Multicam that improved its masking performance. Horrible.

I thought: ah, the Spanish military. Never missing an opportunity to miss an oportunity. Jesus Christ.

The thing is, in time I have formulated a theory about what happened, with zero evidence to support it, though:

The wording of the original contract bid was specifically for a “pixelated” pattern, which was the trendy thing back then. In those days the US Army was still using that stupid monstruosity called Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP), but its poor performance was already showing in Afghanistan and Iraq. There were already voices asking for a replacement, and mentions of Crye’s Multicam as an alternative, which the US Army would eventually adopt years later after a Congressional Enquiry and some attempts at improving UCP (like the Delta pattern).

Maybe, just maybe, the Spanish military (or the bidding contractor), at first working on an actual pixelated pattern, CADPAT-style, imagined that the US would go for Multicam in the near future, setting the usual trending effect among other NATO countries (as happened with UCP, or woodland, 3-color desert or chocolate-chip patterns before it). Maybe they guessed that Multicam would be the way to go (as it in fact happened), so they discarded their previous projects and hastily created this Multicam copy with different colors. But the bid specifically asked for a “pixelated” pattern, which Multicam isn’t, so they decided to go full retard by squaring off the edges, thus technically fulfilling the specifications for the contract.

I have to say, leaving aside the infuriating stupidity of the edge thing, that I have come to like the patterns. The pictures posted in Instagram by the Spanish MoD show surprising effectiveness.

So hey, maybe we didn’t fuck up so bad this time. That is, until Crye sue the living crap out of us for copyright infringement…

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