Hey All,
recently picked uo two different British Desert vests, one is typical of other that Ive seen, where the pockets are permenant, but this other one is different, almust like a US MOLLE vest, the vest reads, Vest, tactical Load carrying, desert DPM 2007, the color is a more golden than the other vest and has several pockets which can be changed and moved about the vest. Any idea??

I'll post some pix on photo bucket today,

thanks
paul

Paul, there were two variations of vests used by UK forces before the fully-modular Osprey vest system was implemented.

The first was the Desert DPM general ops vest, with the permanently attached pockets like you mentioned. I have not seen a wealth of photos of these vests in use, but they were on-hand for issue, as far as I know. They may still be in inventory, but I am not sure.

The other MOLLE-style vest is known as the "Osprey Assault Vest" and was introduced to be worn with the first generation of the new Osprey body armour, and uses the PALS webbing system, which is very similar to US MOLLE. In fact, pouches from MOLLE are usable on PALS webbing.

However, since the British Army has now implemented "round two" of the Osprey (the solid tan-coloured version) I have seen not seen very much of the Osprey Assault Vest, and instead have noticed that the troops have expounded on the fully customisable convenience of the new vests.

Great finds, nonetheless!

Just thought of something else, too --

The variations in colour are common among gear for many reasons including material, individual manufacturers, as well as the inks and printing methods used.

It's not uncommon for items produced at roughly the same time (but from different manufacturers with slightly different production methods) to have completely different wear and fading patterns. A perfect example of this are the 1970s & 80s-era Tropical DPM uniforms, which are actually highly prized by collectors because of their bizarre (but very cool) fading.

Ben, your absolutely spot on with your comments mate.