SRVV SURPAT AK-47 / AK-74 Operator's Chest Rig

[CitizenPete]

Moved this post off of another thread (decided it was off topic there and didn't want to hijack the other thread - sorry about that). 

Russian  SRVV SURPAT AK-47 / AK-74 Operator's Chest Rig
VERSION 2

Should work for VZ58 mags as well.

https://www.full30.com/video/6ef05b4d0baa2c3f3881b3613a391c2e?utm_source=system&utm_medium=email&utm_content=mrgunsngear&utm_campaign=subscribers

[RSR]

Tough to go prone in that chest rig... 

Related, I like the Surpat plate carrier too and the two separate plates for mobility, but all that's available is the level 3 steel plates for it from AR500 (SPEARS/BALCS soft armor can be inserted too) that don't stop M193...  Might w/ the help of soft armor...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1_jDxzE90o

(AR500 just came out with the level 3 plus steel plates that look to stand alone in the markeplace... Looks like the only thing they don't stop that AR500's ceramic armor does is the .30-06 ap round (and stops M193!)...
http://www.ar500armor.com/ar500-armor-body-armor/level-iii-body-armor-en.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB1uq1T9SHg

https://youtu.be/FfA3Qv9JjBA

Regardless in MRGunsNGear's review of the SRVV Surpat plate carrier, he's a tall dude (I'd guess 6' 3" or 4"), and that plate carrier rides awfully low on his chest vs where it should be (in first vid). 

My favorite chest rig, and it's not really a chest rig, rather a "battle jacket."  The South African Type 83 battlejacket:







I think hyperstealth has the best digital camo on the market: http://www.hyperstealth.com/camouflagepatterns.html
But the Surpat is my 2nd favorite digital camo on the "surplus" market (and what I think the Army ACU was intended to be) to the Italian Vegatato Woodland with its brown and earth tan base with green accents...  The marine and seals digitals being the next on the list in no particular order...  (For arid texas, I much prefer the navy type 2 to marpat desert however.)


Ultimately, the thing I like about multicam and vegatato is that both have light elements and are brown/tan based with no black...  (Marpat woodland does okay in this respect too).  Both light colors and patterns that mimic light through the trees.  Really dark camos (like surpat reads to me as well as the old Army woodland) tend to read as extra dark shadows at distance, and its dark areas/shadows that naturally attract the human eye/suspicion more than lighter areas...   Also the contrast between light and dark colors also help with camo's effectiveness under night vision...  It's ultimately more complex than that, but in brief, light colors help to camo when in shadow and darker colors help to camo when in light...

Grey ghost gear makes a really good bare bones plate carrier for not much more than the cheap condor chinese crap too if you're looking -- and small enough to go under your jacket or whatever:
http://www.greyghostgear.com/product-p/0007.htm

[PLANofMAN]

Lvl. 10 post ^^^

[RSR]

LBX has come out w/ a pretty cool region pack -- developed by hyperstealth

LBX Tactical has released additional images of the soon-to-be-released LBX Tactical Camo selection first seen at SHOT Show 2014.

For those not in the know, LBX Tactical is offering four new camouflage patterns designed for Winter/Urban, Desert, Woodland, and Transitional environments, developed in cooperation with Leading Edge Ventures and HyperStealth Biotechnology Corporation. The goal of the LBX camo project was to improve upon the vulnerabilities of several of the most popular brands of camouflage while offering the improved capabilities of camouflages previously only authorized for use by Special Mission Units within the US military.

Current uniform digital patterns such as MARPAT, CADPAT, and AOR utilize square and rectangular pixels with a larger Macropattern/Spatial Frequency that tends to blend into one color as distance from the target increases.

LBX Camo utilizes a proprietary 3-dimensional pattern which is added to the larger Macropattern regions to subdue the Spatial Frequency of the pattern and allow for different aspects of the pattern to work at various distances. This feature also creates a semi-horizontal natural flow texture and the illusion of depth and more than seven colors from a distance. This flow helps to mask horizontal movement at various tactical distances.

Sniper instructors from Naval Special Warfare and the US Marine Corps were consulted to ensure the operational effectiveness of the patterns were validated and optimized.

http://soldiersystems.net/2014/02/17/lbx-tactical-camo-pack/

Woodland/Caiman and Desert/Taipan are available in the LBX store...  Looks like a great alternative some of the military camos out there...

Winter/Urban


Transitional


Woodland:


Desert:


Caiman and multicam:
https://youtu.be/jONIG9rU0Nk

EDIT: More comparison and vision pics now available:

[CitizenPete]

Best Urban Camo.

Since the thread was hijacked once again from a Russian vest thread for vz.58 mags ... and is now a Camo thread.  I thought I might as well post the best, bar none, urban camo example on the planet.

[CitizenPete]

RE: Best Urban Camo


Problem is that while this is perfect camo for the kitchen as soon as he leaves the room or goes outside he will be visable.

SO,  Without revealing where he is hiding in the picture, who sees him?

[Brasky]

RE: Best Urban Camo


Problem is that while this is perfect camo for the kitchen as soon as he leaves the room or goes outside he will be visable.

SO,  Without revealing where he is hiding in the picture, who sees him?

I see him

[Brasky]

RE: Best Urban Camo


Problem is that while this is perfect camo for the kitchen as soon as he leaves the room or goes outside he will be visable.

SO,  Without revealing where he is hiding in the picture, who sees him?

I see him

My answer looks right to me

[smokemup]

 

[RSR]

Missed the memo... Thought the camo was the primary appeal of that/any of the Surpat stuff SRVV sells... 

Speaking of urban camo -- I maintain this is the best way to disguise your weapon in urban environs.

Cheap folding chair bag plus one 4" PVC end cap.

Chair bag works for shotguns, too... The $4.99 chair was a little too small, so I had to upgrade to the $14.99 chair. The $14.99 chair fits me a little better, too 
When the chair is folded in the bag, it is roughly square shaped. I didn't want to use a round pvc cap and let the rest of the bag be "loose", so I cut up a box and put it back together to the appropriate size. It protects the bottom of the bag from the muzzle poking through and gives the general shape of a chair being in the bag.

Pics from here: http://www.texasguntalk.com/forums/articles-how-tos/45804-disguising-your-ar.html

[RSR]

Blackheart International is doing an interesting paint job on their AKs -- mostly tan and brown with a touch of green... I'd like to see a little more gray (perhaps in place of tan), but it's interesting nonetheless...

The GRUNT series was developed for all-in-one performance in urban, woodland, and mobile environments...no matter the mission...no matter the target. Utilizing the same AK platform as the militarized BLACKHEART FAAK.762R SOPMOD rifle, the GRUNT PRO is the industry?s first true tactical-hunting crossover AK.

Urban / Woodland Camo
[GRUNT PRO TC only]
A custom flat, non-reflective camo paint scheme is designed to blend in both urban and woodland environments. This pattern and paint type was chosen to provide for easy touch-up with similar-type spray paint.

http://bhiarms.com/grunt-series.html

Another related urban/universal camo thread: http://www.czfirearms.us/index.php?topic=65520.15

EDIT: Sort of reminds me of a blend of the two atacs camos...  AU and FG but oriented more towards AU...

[RSR]

Some good surpat pics here: https://tacr.wordpress.com/category/clothing/russian-surpat/









Surpat definitely reads pretty dark...

[smokemup]

Exactly what are you showing us? I can't see a thing! 

[RSR]

As previously mentioned, the US4CES is one of my favorite modern military camos right up there w/ the Italian Vegetato Woodland...


Here's the US4CES range -- the OCIE/PPE was the camo intended to for backpacks, plate carriers, and the like as a universal camo (think the marines currently using coyote brown, but a camo-ed rather than solid color item...).


Transitional US4CES with OCIE/PPE vest:


Multicam, US4CES Transitional, and Kryptek Mandrake:



The why on the US4CES T:
Mexico Marines select "Marina Trans Jungle" Camouflage (formerly known as US4CES Transitional), after new objective testing proves it is nearly twice as effective over their current digital pattern and Multicam in three separate environments
Link: http://www.hyperstealth.com/Mexico/index.html

In 2010 the U.S. Army started the "Phase IV Camouflage Improvement Effort" to replace their existing camouflage pattern and in December 2011 the ADS Inc./Guy Cramer US4CES family of camouflage was selected as a finalist in the Phase IV program. US4CES is pronounced as U.S. Forces.

In 2014 the Phase IV program was cancelled and the Mexican Marines immediately selected the US4CES transitional pattern as a potential replacement for their current digital pattern if objective testing confirmed the effectiveness of the US4CES camouflage.

Objective Testing methods for camouflage have been developed over fifty years, and have been employed successfully in numerous tests for the United States Army, the United States Marine Corps, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Land Management, and others.

Mexico Marines Objective Testing

The Mexican Marines conducted objective tests of the US4CES Transitional (Marina Trans Jungle) pattern versus their current digital woodland camouflage design in three environments selected by the Navy Secretariat:  lowland forest (Michoac?n), lowland scrub desert (Sinaloa) and riparian forest (Coahuila).

Twenty-three Observers were used in the first comparison experiment between their current design and Marina Trans Jungle (US4CES Transitional design), drawn from the Unidad de Operacciones Especiales plus three Observers from outside that unit.  One Observer's results were rejected because he had zero target detections; reasons for this performance are not known.
Each Observer completed 38 trials: 4 in the Coahuila environment and six each in Michoac?n and Sinaloa, plus six "null" trials in which the scenes did not contain a target.  The null slides were inserted as a check on guessing.
The final numbers show that the new Marina Trans Jungle design was significantly more difficult to detect in the three separate environments. On average the viewer took 6.232 seconds to find the Mexican Marines Current Pattern in the Coahuila location and 9.699 seconds to find the Marina Trans Jungle pattern in the same location.

Marina Trans Jungle (US4CES Transitional) Versus Multicam
In the second comparison (Marina Trans Jungle and Multicam), which was conducted in the United States, there were twenty volunteer Observers; all were current or former members of the United States armed forces with visual acuity of 20/20 Snellen and normal color vision.

Similar results were obtained. On average the viewer took 4.190 seconds to find the Multicam Pattern in the Coahuila location and 10.978 seconds to find the Marina Trans Jungle pattern in the same location.

This data below indicates that to detect the Marina Trans Jungle pattern takes almost twice as long to detect over Multicam in lowland forest (Michoac?n), lowland scrub desert (Sinaloa) and over twice as long in riparian forest (Coahuila).

Trials resulted in large numbers of nondetects; because of this, the results in the chart below is considered a more reliable measure of effectiveness in this test.  A significant majority of these events was associated with the Marina Trans Jungle pattern, reinforcing the results of the mean detection time.

These Trials also resulted in large numbers of nondetects as seen below. 4% of the viewers could not find the Multicam Pattern in the Coahuila location within 15 seconds whereas 27.5% of the viewers could not find the Marina Trans Jungle pattern in the same location.

The data below shows that the Marina Trans Jungle pattern was 2.6 times better at not being detected within 15 seconds over Multicam in lowland forest (Michoac?n), 2.3 times better in lowland scrub desert (Sinaloa) and 6.8 times better in riparian forest (Coahuila).

There was no significant statistical difference for recognition time between Marina Trans Jungle and Multicam as there was with detection in the charts above, thus there is no chart provided for "Time to Recognize" as there was between Marina Trans Jungle and the current Mexican Marine camouflage.

And if you're interested in the "testing" science/study design -- as well as why the Mexican Marines now have better camo than the US military:

Looking back at previous testing

The Mexican Marines Objective tests results between Multicam and Marina Trans Jungle (US4CES Transistional) correspond with those 2011 Objective tests results conducted internally by Guy Cramer/ADS Inc. comparing the same two patterns, US4CES Transitional against OCP/Multicam for the Phase IV U.S. Army program.

Part of our submission included objective testing we conducted internally which concluded that US4CES transitional was more difficult to detect than Multicam within transitional environments. As the chart below shows, it took about 3.5 seconds longer to find the US4CES Transitional than Multicam. The differences between the Guy Cramer/ADS Inc. test and the Mexican Marine objective test is that Cramer used a 60 second timeout whereas the Mexican Marines used a 15 second timeout, Cramer also used the backgrounds provided by the U.S. Army for the 2011 test whereas the Mexican tests used backgrounds within Mexico, with Sinaloa (lowland scrub desert) best representing what the U.S. military refers to as a Transitional Environment. The longer 60 second timeout and different backgrounds translates into a longer average for detection time for the two patterns in the 2011 test. The AOR2 pattern shown below is the U.S. Navy ground forces camouflage for woodland and transitional environments.

2011 objective test results shown below

In 2014 the U.S. Army?s Phase IV Camouflage Improvement Effort was cancelled even though all their testing was completed. The results of the testing are known to only a few and the Army refuses to release those results. I have spoken to some who had access to those results and while some of those people perceive there was a clear winner, Multicam. However, according one key scientist who had to crunch those numbers, the problem was not that all the camouflage was similar and yielded similar results but the four finalists camouflage patterns were very distinct and different from one another and yet yielded similar results, this should not have occured.

So why were the Mexican Marines different from the U.S. Army? The Mexican's used Objective tests while the Army used Subjective. 

Trying to find camouflage is imperitive.

There are two critical issues concerning camouflage; Detection (where is it?), Recognition (what is it?). The subjective picture in picture (PIP) testing the U.S. Army has relied upon for the past decade does not address either of these two issues. The PIP testing places a rectangle of the camouflage to be tested in the exact center of the photo and viewers then rate how well it blends in on a scale of 0-100. Where is it? It is in the exact center of the photo. What is it? It's a rectangle.

With objective testing, we simulate a target such as a soldier with the camouflage and place the simulated target in different areas of the photo causing the viewer to search for the target, once located the time it took to find the target is logged as the viewer clicks the mouse over the target, then the viewer is asked to identify what the target is. In the case of a soldier, we use different poses; standing, kneeling, sitting and flat on the ground and each target is either pointing left or right. This allows the program to determine how well the target is recognized with that particular camouflage down to the millisecond.

We also use the exact same target pose in the same location with the other camouflage we are comparing to and flip (Mirror Image) the slide as the brain has trouble identifying the mirror image of a background it has already seen. This way the two different camouflage targets have no advantage over the other one due to placement. Slides are shown randomly in each test so as to remove any advantage of one target over another.

A camouflage pattern may blend very well into a certain background but the pattern does not disrupt the target very well. Subjective testing only provides a glimpse of what we should expect in real world outcomes. Objective testing provides results that appear to be consistent with real world outcomes.

Subjective Phase IV U.S. Army testing

The picture in picture (PIP)(1) subjective test technique consists of placing a photo at a particular pattern representing the height and width of a soldier at a particular distance (the pattern is scaled and blurred to provide a similar look that the human eye perceives at that simulated distance (in this case 46 yards), the pattern rectangle is then placed directly in the middle of the photo, meaning you do not have to search for it and the viewer is only asked to compare how well it blends with the background in the environment.

So PIP has will provide a general idea of how a pattern will work compared to many other patterns at 46 yards. Subjective PIP testing has allot to do with the colors and contrast differences between the colors within the pattern as they compare to the immediate colors and contrast surrounding the rectangle.

This PIP method fails to provide any indication on how the pattern disruption and geometry effect the length of time to find it in the first place or determine what the target is as it is already in the middle (where is it?) and the shape is a rectangle (what is it?).

The goal of the Mexican Marines was not about finding the most fashionable pattern, it was all about finding the most effective camouflage pattern in the world to provide the highest level of survivability the camouflage is able to offer the soldier. That pattern turned out to be US4CES Transitional, renamed Marina Trans Jungle, it is now the official pattern of the Mexican Marines.

The new uniforms were officially shown at the Mexican Independence Day parade on September 16, 2015 and the Marines will fully transition from their current pattern to the new pattern by November 2015. The Mexican Navy is also considered the same branch as the Mexican Marines.

This camouflage pattern is highly restricted to only be used by the Mexican Government. It is not available for commercial purchase in or outside of Mexico.

Some more pics/graphics in the original link above...

[RSR]

Brent 0331 released a vegetato video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_2nHlsEIUg

Flecktarn vs Vegetato:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp7SMCR2DPE

Vegetato (dude w/ mohawk) vs Penncott green:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO7-bKglZ2M

Vegetato vs Multicam:


Vegetato vs Multiland vs Multicam -- think these pics do a great job of showing benefit of a larger/more open pattern as well as digital camos:




Multiland is the transitional version of Vegetato -- effectively vegetato w/ multicam colors: