SHAH ALAM:REMEMBER the AW109 which seemed to be painted in the desert camouflage? Well the helicopter (most likely it was the same one) was seen conducting test flights around Subang this week. And it appears that desert camo turned out to be standard Army digital camouflage.
The picture below is a bit grainy I must admit but it is the best picture I have of the newly painted helicopter. Perhaps I will get lucky and I will get a better picture or someone will send me one.
Even from the grainy image, we could make it out that it has more green on it compared to the digital camoed Nuri which were handed over to the Army’s Air Wing in LIMA 2015. That said this is a preliminary assessment based on the grainy picture and it may changed when a better picture of the aircraft is available.
As I reported before the digital camoed Nuri will also be sporting a greener tone in the future and it appears that paint job on the AW109 (if its more like the Army digital camo) will be the benchmark. For perspective below is an Adnan spotting the Army digital camo look.
And the AV4, which was probably painted in Thailand.
The Weststar G-MK1, painted in Port Dickson.
Anyhow here is a picture of the AW109 while it was undergoing its digital camo paint job.
— Malaysian Defence
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Look garang!
Sometimes TD goes over the top, literally, with their camo paints, IMHO.
I’m not sure if they’re just trialling the paint job, but won’t a helicopter painted in camo in woodland colours, pixellated or otherwise, stand out — as dark specks — when looked at against a background the colour of the sky? It’s well, erm, illustrated in ZR’s pic. Just like how the 4 RMR guys, albeit in non-pixellated camos, look like dark figures when seen against the shrubbery in the last posting.
The helis would be better off ‘camouflaged’ in battle-ship or light grey like RMN or RMAF a/c. All right, if we’re worried about silhouetting against wooded and hilly ground, and the sky, plain PD Green will be a better compromise. Even the Nuri paint job with lots of grey is better than woodland camo. All this paint is more about ‘gah-ness’ than anything else.
Many years ago the RN conducted trials on a Trafalgar painted in light blue. The idea being that a sub operating in very shallow waters would be harder to spot from the air if painted in light blue rather than the standard colour all subs are painted in. Makes sense when one thinks about it.
This is not as crappy as the proposed new tudm “digital blue” combat uniforms. Why does tudm ground personnel need a digital camo in blue?
Camo pattern is also about a unic identity of any army, and i’m pretty sure that our pattented digital camo is one of the best looking among the others.
Ferret
I’d prefer solid green for army choppers…
We’ve went through this topic before Marhalim. Some of our friends were hell bent on saying that we are going to be joining the saudi’s in Yemen. Looks like it was simply going to be a normal army digital camo after all (as i side before). I dont want to say it but.. “ahahhh what did i tell u guys???!!”. Joking aside bro i still dont see the need 4 this digital camo. Concealment? Nope. “Gahness”?. Nope. Now the US is transitioning to the multicam pattern. Are we going to follow suit? Coz what the US is doing seems to be the current trend. And as u know we are trend follower. Not trend setter.
No, I think the AW109 is painted to conceal it being seen from above! That’s why it has green and brown shades…..I think.
@ zekMR
Digital camo’s unique? It is almost indistinguishable from most other digital camos! If you want unique, should have maintained the old belang harimau camo.
As for the heli’s, I.wonder how many kg of max load was sacrificed for that many layers of digital camo paint…
Azlan
The Todaro class submarine had the same light blue pattern. I guess if it worked out 4 the Italian then why not us? But im a sucker 4 tradition.. black it is then. Btw is the KD TAR operational?
…. says
The RSAF is using the light blue digipat 4 its personel. Its looks fine to me. Its not about concealment or anything. It symbolizes their service. The air arm of the armed forces of Singapore. Dont see them putting the same digital camo 4 their choppers, fighters or ground vehicle do u? Its more about practicality. But 4 us its something else..
At one time we even experimented with a gaudy camo scheme on our FACs. The Swedes paint their FACs in a camo scheme but the key difference is their FACs operate almost exclusively in the littorals; ours operate as far as the EEZ.
Before the “harimau belang” was introduced, some Sibmas has bloches of black applied on an olive green background. Same was done with some Model 56s. What really irritates me is how face camo has also been applied into “camo schemes’ – judging by the recent National Day Parade, the Sings have done the same. Face camo should just be roughly applied as its intended to prevent light reflecting off one’s face!
My question is,
Why desert camo pattern?
Lkick
I think they would say, ‘saja je…’ lol
Actually for paint job u need a lighter color base first b3fore applying the actual color on top so the color that u want will come out as it is not lighter or darker than the propose color
Camo is suppos3d to blend the wearer or the asset using that colour into rhe background. In fact all the camo pattern used by the armed forces does not blend in well with our malaysian jungles. The camo worn by VAT69 wirh two shades of green may have been a better bet.
In fact olive green may blend our soldiers n their equipment better into the malaysuan jungles.
Does a one still remember the allouettes that require bright orange/ red to be painted so that it is better visibly in case of accident for easy search n rescue. It wears an olive drab colour. Similarly our nuri, caribou n tebuan
That even reminds me, what happened to the ‘one-color-tone’ glory old days?
The problem is we are not in a situation where troops will fight almost exclusively in the jungle as was the case in the past. What blends well in the jungle may not blend well in an urban environment or in a palm oil estate.
MILSPEC – ‘That even reminds me, what happened to the ‘one-color-tone’ glory old days?”
It ended when we introduced the ”brushstroke” pattern; which was originally created for use in Europe and later by the Belgians and Rhodesians in Africa. Not many people realise but prior to the ”brushstroke” some Malaysian units in RASCOM had a unofficial ”tiger stripe” pattern from fabric sourced from Hong Kong [the ‘tiger stripe at that period was famous due to Vietnam]. There is, I’m sure, a very interesting story of how we adopted the brushstroke in the 1970’s but unfortunately it hasn’t come to light yet.
For many years, the French relied almost exclusively on an olive green uniform, the ”Satin 300” and until today the bulk of the Israeli army has no camo; which may be suitable in the deserts of the Negev or Sinai but not so in the streets of Gaza or the hills of southern Lebanon.
I feel it’s pointless saying that camo ‘x’ is not effective in the jungle or in an urban environment as everything’s a compromise. Either that or one has several types of patterns for use in several different environments; obviously not practical and economical for the bulk of the world’s armies.
Lee – ”Does a one still remember the allouettes that require bright orange/ red to be painted so that it is better visibly in case of accident for easy search n rescue.”
Not sure if this is still the case but in the past, fast jet and heli pilots on training sorties over or near the water; wore orange jump suits.
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There is an entry in Camopedia.org on the Malaysian camo pattern. http://camopedia.org/index.php?title=Malaysia. I am not vouching for the accuracy of the entry, just sharing the link.
The people who run “Camopedia” are experts on the subject who have studying uniforms for years. Some of them have personal collections comprising literally hundreds of various uniforms, including some very rare ones. Amongst collectors, the most sought after “brushstroke” pattern is the Rhodesian one and off course the WW2 Denison, which is the “grandfather” of pattern. In the past, various Indonesian and Philippines units have also been issued with the “brushstroke”.
To my thinking..there are 2 types of camo 1.disruptive pattern no matter what shades of green..black..tan..or brown the pattern should break the shape of a human body from a distance thus tricking the eyes for few seconds..it is good especially if the wearer is in a still position be it in urban enviroment or secondary jungle…2.no matter wat pattern the camo is the color suppose to be of pale hues…look at SAF uniform using pale hues…the multicam camo also using pale hues…anything pale that is in a shadow enviroment will blend in naturally…any dark shades of camo being in shadowed enviroment will become dark n appear a blot in the envirinment…STRIDE bijak pandai should study this first before taking sample n just digitized it….haha waste of money.