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Canadian Uniforms - Literally Unplayable!


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I don't want to alarm anyone, but there appears to be a HUGE problem with the Canadian uniforms in CMSF:2.

Have a look at these fellas that greeted me when I loaded up the Cunuckian campaign:

Tabernacle.jpg.2422d8c3330f0e37971baa4187d41a99.jpg

Year 2008. Arid CADPAT - check. C7A2s - check. BEWs - check. Olive green Load Bearing Vest circa Bosnia 1994 ... what in the tabarnak is this?

Alright, drama for the sake of comedy aside, this is a strange one considering in CMSF:1 Canadian troops were (correctly) represented as wearing all Arid CADPAT gear. Where as it seems for CMSF:2 a conscious decision was made to change the Canadian uniform artwork and clad troops in their ancient OG LBVs.

Yes, the Canadians kept using the LBVs well out of the 90's - even surviving the introduction of CADPAT. In fact the initial force into Afghanistan wore Temperate Woodland CADPAT and OG LBVs. Afghanistan c.2002 (source and  source) :

ZpD1dxX.jpg

Not long after in 2003, the new Tac-Vests are introduced, albeit still in "Temperate Woodland"; the LBVs are never seen in combat operations again. (source and source) :

ovJ0Nd8.jpg

Then in 2004 Arid uniforms and C7A2s were introduced. Can you believe they still drove the ILTIS in Afghanistan in 2004? (source and source) :

CzTMyZT.jpgACBinOt.jpg

"Arid uniform - Green TacVest" combo survived for a while, well into Op Medusa in 2006 (source) :

SIOE2oi.jpg

By 2007 however, the entire ensemble can be seen in Arid CADPAT; also issued ballistic eyewear is introduced (source and source) :

EEecc3N.jpg

Thank you for making it to the end of my brief on The Woes of the Canadian Military Equipment Procurement.

Seems pretty clear that by mid-2008 CMSF timeline the gear would be all Arid CADPAT and new-pattern TacVest ... as it was in CMSF:1.

Anyone have any insight into what happened in CMSF:2 with the LBV's? @MikeyD or @BFCElvis perhaps?

Cheers!

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17 hours ago, Roter Stern said:

Most certainly intended that way, yes 😆

Apologies if anyone is reading this post in a serious tone, I'll go back to eating my pineapple pizza now 🤪

It's a known fact that eating pineapple pizza before battle increases the accuracy of incoming indirect fire

Edited by Saint_Mattis
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Nothing to do with this thread, just wanted to plug “Hyena Road” which I rewatched over the weekend. Very underrated war movie IMHO. The filmmaker, Paul Gross, went to Kandahar and filmed a lot of actual combat footage, like this clip, which were woven into the movie.

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9 hours ago, MikeyD said:

I was specifically ordered by Steve to place the ammo carrying vest over the body armor. Welcome to 2007-timeframe Canadian forces.

canadian vest 3 copy.jpg

Yeah, but a wrong vest, Mikey!

That OG LBV was fully discontinued by 2003. In fact it was discontinued with such extreme prejudice that even the Army Cadets didn't get them. I think they were all cut-up and sold as textile-scrap to recyclers. The odds of finding one of those vests on a paintball field in Canada, let alone an overseas operation in 2007~2008 is nil.

9 hours ago, MikeyD said:

2006kotuksection.jpg

Only to prove my point - here's the high-res version of this very photo.

Those troops are (mostly) wearing the new CADPAT TacVest and two on the right are wearing some COTS gear. And even then, those two are M203 gunners and I'm guessing those COTS vests are for the 40mm ammo.

cc7c26ad7983de92ab4e2f69ae584329.png

Perhaps in 2007~2008 they were still wearing a mix of arid and temperate CADPAT, perhaps a mix of COTS gear (like @sigop22 mentioned above). But the point still remains - there was not a single OG LBV in sight.

Have a quick look at this - Official photos from Canadian Forces Combat Camera from 2007

There is this photo from 21-Jan-2007 - one guy in arid and one in temperate vests, but both are CADPAT.

Then there is this one from 31-Jan-2007 - wearing some form of COTS vest.

The way CMSF:1 had it - all Arid gear - was (more) accurate than what we have in CMSF:2, in my opinion.

Edited by Roter Stern
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  • 6 months later...
11 hours ago, Roter Stern said:

@MikeyD I'm holding my breath to see those olive green vests appear in CMCW when the Canadians are added ;)

Well based on the time period we are more likely talking the Pattern 64 webbing.

image.png.040d65280ee81b9ab612568c6872dbb8.png

"Hyena Road"...yeesh that brings back the nightmares.

Anyway, I can shed some light on the mystery.  So as I recall back in the day when they were putting all this together the questions was "if Canadian deployed to Syria in 2007 what would they be wearing?".  This question was being asked in, I wanna say 08-09 while the NATO pack for CMSF was in dev.  We went around the tree a lot on this as we were in the full arid sets by 09 but as can be seen Canadian uniform procurement is a splendid affair.  In the end, as I recall, the decision was made to go to the green/arid mix (not sure why it is straight olive and not CADPAT) because it was probably more accurate of where we were wrt FG in 06-07 and it also made the Canadians more distinctive.  Not sure where it all went from there...largely due to the fact that I was in Arid CADPAT for a significant slice of the next two years.

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Arid shells for vests were taken off of outgoing troops and re-issued to incoming in 2006 so there were some supply issues although the desert tac vests were in ample supply to all troops and pre-issued before arrival by 2007.

Edited by nik mond
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On 5/14/2021 at 10:43 AM, The_Capt said:

Well based on the time period we are more likely talking the Pattern 64 webbing.

Of course, I meant it very much tongue in cheek - I was implying that those olive green Load Bearing Vests belong in 2008 Syria just as much as they do in 1979~82 Germany.

On 5/14/2021 at 10:43 AM, The_Capt said:

We went around the tree a lot on this as we were in the full arid sets by 09 but as can be seen Canadian uniform procurement is a splendid affair.  In the end, as I recall, the decision was made to go to the green/arid mix (not sure why it is straight olive and not CADPAT) because it was probably more accurate of where we were wrt FG in 06-07 and it also made the Canadians more distinctive

Yep, seems like a logical decision - and I don't take an issue with green (CADPAT) vests over arid uniforms - there is plenty of photographic evidence of that:

CzTMyZT.jpg

The problem is with the Load Bearing Vests - those were phased out about 2 years before the Arid CADPAT was introduced. 

Hence my thesis is - if CMSF choses to feature Arid CADPAT uniforms it can not by any logical stretch also feature LBVs, instead TacVests (either in Arid or TW CADPAT) are to be depicted.

Additionally, those LBVs were discontinued with such extreme haste around 2003~2004 that even if Canada found itself (as in the CMSF timeline) engaged in two large conflicts in 2008 and was in need of issuing older equipment to cover supply shortages, the LBVs would still not re-surface. After the TacVests were introduced the LBVs didn't go to Cadets, they didn't go to recruit schools, I don't think they even went to military surplus stores in any real numbers - my guess is that they were (quite literally) shredded and disposed of as scrap textile.

Edited by Roter Stern
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