Today’s post is the last bit of Crye Precision for just a little while, then I’ll be breaking it up with a few different bits and pieces. When we get back to it’ll finally just about be time for me to talk about the Generation 1 combat apparel.

An unusual thing about CP gear in the UK is that a very large proportion of it happens to be what is termed the ‘UKSF Custom’ as seen here. I’d imagine regular AC/Gen 2 stuff was issued somewhere or other within the MoD, but from what I’ve seen the beardy blokes must have ordered in an actual metric shit ton of these combat sets in multicam. Obviously they will have issued and used the majority of what was bought for themselves, then as with anything issued a certain percentage somehow seeps out in to the civilian market. But there’s so much floating around that the original quantity ordered was either monstrous, or they had a bulk disposal at some point. The latter seems unlikely though as any G3 adoption seemed to lag a fair bit behind the commercial release of the 3rd gen. Again probably because there was so much stock of 2nd gen hanging around.

Brief history on crye combats in Flecktarn and Tropentarn. During the Gen 2/AC production era, various sets were made in both patterns and issued in some numbers to German special forces units. Some were also available commercially in a roundabout fashion if you knew where to dig and e-mailed the right person at a specific German military gear supplier, but they ran out of stock many, many years ago I don’t think many were sold by that route. No field uniforms made to my knowledge. The combat shirt is the regular AC cut with no deviations but the trousers feature 2 very prominent slotted buttons CS95 style going through the main thigh cargo pockets. Something requested by the German military that’s pretty unique to the Fleck/Trop combat pants.

So what happened was, for a while I thought the NYCO G3s in the AOR patterns would be impossible to get hold of, as at the time I was looking around for AOR G3s it was only the DRIFIRE pieces that that would pop up.

Theoretically, it only makes sense for me to pick up FR material items in Multicam because then it can have some application for my work. Standard NYCO holds its’ colours far better than the Drifire fabrics and is more likely to resist getting torn, so anything I’d add to the collection just for collecting sake, or for running about playing airsoft, is better off being NYCO.

However when you’re scouring ever corner of the net for items like these and trying to put together a set, it’s bloody difficult getting what you want in your actual size. Since I had the impression I’d never assemble the standard Crye NYCO sets, I snapped up the FR equivalents whenever they surfaced, and in fairness the Drifire variants have since become comparatively scarce around the classifieds, whereas the NYCOs have been in such great supply the prices have dropped down to retail G3 levels. I’m much more an AOR2 fan anyway, partly for the pure aesthetics of it, partly because greens and browns just makes far more sense in the UK overall and also because AOR1 looks so damn similar to arid MARPAT. For a long time I actually didn’t plan to add any AOR1 to the collection due to that fact alone.

For those interested, these G3 combat sets are manufactured by Crye, I’d imagine Drifire just send them the FR fabric and have CP put the Phoenix style tag on everything. I’ve not seen much information on who actually uses them, since NSW are apparently in a mixture of multicam and Patagonia AOR these days and I’ve only come across a very small number of pictures of the AOR G3 sets (FR or not). The fact so many of the NYCO items crop up for sale (usually brand new in packaging) could either mean that tons are being made and leaking out, or that loads were manufactured then just never made issued and hence disposed of.

Either way I am personally far more of a fan of the G3 cut than AC, despite the collector community always losing their minds over the discontinued styles. The addition of the stretch panel in the groin alone is a gigantic step forward in my opinion. It’ll certainly be interesting to see which colourways are made in G4 outside the usual commercial offerings that have already been shown in the Crye catalogue. Since the VTX fabric is a new venture with only Crye adopting it so far, it’s unlikely we’ll see all the random stuff like Flecktarn, US Woodland, M84 etc cropping up as happened in Gen 2 and 3. AOR fabric may well get printed I’d imagine if the right people request it, which I expect they will, but the reality is everyone is using sort-of Multicam these days. The US Army and Air Force, the UK, Germany, Australia, the list goes on. So there’s much less demand for other patterns and very slim chances that the VTX will be printed in any colourway that’s not got a proven history of being in high demand; special requests from units with deep pockets excluded that is.

This Crye Precision/DRIFIRE set right here is what I’d call the current pinnacle of the combat uniform concept for deployed personnel in arid environments. This is what every man and woman who puts on a uniform should be putting on in places like Afghanistan if they’re going outside the wire and it’s a bloody shame that isn’t the reality.

While I’ve long been a critic of the cut of the G3 combat shirt, that is very much the nit picking side of me. The Arc’teryx Assault Shirt FR is roughly level pegging overall in that is has arm pit mesh, a far more anatomical shape to the sleeves and better pockets (just like Crye G4 funnily enough), however the collar design is bonkers and I frankly despise it.

There are guys out there who’re very knowledgeable when it comes to which SF guys (especially SEALs) used what gear and when. I am not that guy. Some folks might well get the impression in the coming months that I’m building some kind of NSW kit, but personally I’ve no specific interest in them or what they do. I just like to have the best quality kit that’s available in a combat cut and it happens that not only do NSW get a lot of that made for them, they also have the AOR patterns that haven’t been used by many other folks.

There aren’t that many products that I will very strongly recommend with a genuine emphasis, but these Leo Köhler GmbH & Co. KG Explorer model trousers are one of them. You can check my video review of these here going through what features there are to go through:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxFPYYDpM-o

It’s a very simple cut and the price at Flecktarn.co.uk has gone up a fiver since the review, but if you want something that’s a true step up in material quality compared to issued MTP (and most issued European camo) with a wider range of patterns available, while also not spending more than 50 quid, these are the trousers to buy. Some pretty cool and popular patterns are available too for you folks in the UK, including MC Tropic and Black and both the 2 popular Pencott patterns:

Welcome to the Euro zone, it’s like the twilight zone but with weirder tac gear.

Crye have pretty much nailed it when it comes to the cut of a combat trouser in my mind, however if I only ever bought their stuff I’d get bored and I like to try out different options here and there. Partly to keep my own interest levels up, but also bring some more varied coverage here of commercially available kit (at least at the time I buy it).

I wanted a pair of trousers in PenCott Camouflage GreenZone that could take an external knee pad, and at the time I hadn’t yet gone off the D3O pads, so I opted for these Leo Köhler GmbH & Co. KG Defender 2.0s. At a quick glance they might not seem that unusual, but the more you dig the more strangeness you find going on compared to what you’re generally accustomed to.