Red and Green dyed ACU

These have just come up for sale on a UK based vintage clothing seller.

Now my question is; are these a funky fashion item. Or some form of OPFOR item.

I originally would have gone for fashion item, aside from the fact one of the red ones has white tapes on it that don't appeared to have been dyed.

I'm trying to attach the images but I keep getting an error message on my iPhone.

My guess would be possible used for training - OPFOR or perhaps an article worn by a military training school trainee/candidate for ease of identification by instructors.  

These are only guesses, however.  I don't want you to act on my guess!  Perhaps others in the forum may know better.

As a Paratrooper, we called our Soldiers fresh out of Airborne School "Cherries."  They'd have gone through the school and successfully made five parachute jumps to earn their Parachutist Badges.  Their sixth jump - with their actual Airborne unit - was what we called their "Cherry Blast."  Airborne units will have the "Cherry" wear bright red article of clothing or helmet cover.


My opinion only.

Good afternoon. Once it was obvious the Army was moving away from the ACU some manufacturers from what i understand started to "experiment" with dying uniforms various colors to see what the result would be - i.e. does the dye change the color of the velcro, buttons, is it even. I've seen first hand where this was done with combat shirts. They had a lot of uniforms and material in the pipeline so I assume they were looking at alternative markets thus experimentation with different colors. These could very well be along those lines.

I have some I picked up a few years ago that were died a darker shade

Cheers for the thoughts and comments.

I do like the cherry idea. But I can't help thinking these are more a curiosity than a serious collectors item.

I've actually worked on some movie productions that used dyed uniforms to look more sci-fi, for background characters

The red one looks like it has the white placards they use during the Q course to identify candidates by their number.

Yes, the sewing looks similar to identification sewing for SFAS uniforms.

Helmets taped red for safety identification of inexperienced jumpers (Cherries), certainly, but I think a dyed uniform top is a stretch.

These might be for some Halloween costume for all we know. I don't necessarily think there is any military significance to them.

i am more inclined to the fashion item theory. If you notice one velcro square on collar on the red one has been replaced with the flame resistant recognition square from another uniform, green one is probably Apple green Rit Dye.

These dyed are very different for the one i have seen (the blue dyed Corrections ones, the dyed lrsd ones and even the rare marsoc ones). Green ones i've seen are dark forest greenm i am unaware of the red ones even if similar white tape placement can be seen in SFAS or even other events such as the eod competition. But why it's red it's beyond me.

Good catch with the IR square on the collar.

taucco wrote: If you notice one velcro square on collar on the red one has been replaced with the flame resistant recognition square from another uniform

Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but the red uniform has the FRACU square on the cuff and I have both FRACUs and ACUs with that type of velcro on them.

The red uniform has what looks like a FRACU square on the collar, where a Velcro square would normally be. It might also be bad lighting or the dye.. Kinda hard to tell.

Some more dyed tops have appeared on the sellers site. These include a black Navy BDU and an ABU as well. I'd suggest these are fashion items given the number that are appearing.

It was worth a shot initially.

http://www.rokit.co.uk/vintage-mens/vintage-military

This website has them and more. Based on the other ones they're 100% fashion.








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Static line wrote:The red uniform has what looks like a FRACU square on the collar, where a Velcro square would normally be. It might also be bad lighting or the dye.. Kinda hard to tell.

I've never seen a FRACU square that big, but the debate is solved, I found a bigger pic, it's the plastic velcro seen on some ACUs and FRACUs, I'm surprised it took the dye.

Bagman6 wrote:Good afternoon.  Once it was obvious the Army was moving away from the ACU some manufacturers from what i understand started to "experiment" with dying uniforms various colors to see what the result would be - i.e. does the dye change the color of the velcro, buttons, is it even.  I've seen first hand where this was done with combat shirts. They had a lot of uniforms and material in the pipeline so I assume they were looking at alternative markets thus experimentation with different colors.  These could very well be along those lines.

MORE To Come.....

MZ