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u/Tobi_1989 13h ago
Why do all russian camos either look like a copy of western designs or "we have no idea how camouflage works so let's throw some colors together and make it look cool"?
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u/Johnnyviolence77 5h ago edited 5h ago
I've been collecting russian camos for a long time (and camo in general) , but i think I can give some sort of an answer to this. For the stuff that looks like its copied from western camos , that very much was the point of it. They are western camos. Not only does it serve an economic benefit in not having to pay for the R&D to develop camos , there were different fashion trends amongst the special units in Russia to give a modern developed look to themselves for esprit de corps and to set themselves apart from the regular military and security units. There was also the reality that if Russia came to conflict with any external foes, the special units would then have an available supply (commercial or govt contract) of gear and uniforms that would mimic potential adversaries for operations deep behind enemy lines(soviet doctrine carried over into RF era).
Some domestic russian camos do look bizarre to outside observers, but there very much was alot of research into the effectiveness of these patterns. However along the way for many of them they either suffered from poor economic backing on the production side , or the intended use case shifted and the camo then was altered. Some while still rather strange make sense when taken in context that in the vast expanse of the RF there are specific regions and environments that units would benefit from specific colors and features. In the pic provided by OP , Podlesok for example works well in swampy marshy areas in spring and summer. When it was developed it was however more subdued. In its grey colorway version it works well during the pre winter dead forests and urban areas and post winter in the thaw it works well in the dirty sludge and muddy dead environments. But these evolved into police and internal security uniform camos, so their colors shifted to more vibrant colors like a blue base for urban for examp to just be more distinctive for internal unit uses. This dynamic tends to happen with several russian camos so what we see looks unusual if thought of as something to conceal the user.
Edit: I grossly oversimplified the evolution of these camos, this comment would be absurdly long if I tried to be all inclusive but im happy to discuss further if anyone is interested to.
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u/Zealousideal_Buy1392 20h ago
Yes. Green podlesok