kamouflage.net camouflage data

Uncover your potential', indeed! Once you stop ogling the girl, though, you might notice that this Australian Special Air Service (SAS) recruiting poster shows Australian Disruptive Pattern Camouflage to very good effect. [Image courtesy Brad Turner collection.]

SS-Beringt-Eichenlaubmuster (spring–summer)
Greater German Reich

The disruptive pattern camouflage uniforms for developed by the Waffen-SS arguably represented the most significant advance in uniform design in the 20th Century. At least eight — and probably more — distinct patterns were eventually developed; and the innovations attempted and lessons learned, then, continue to influence the design of camouflage uniforms today.

Known to collectors as Oak Leaf B because it is widely believed to post-date the more common SS-Eichenlaubmuster (German 'oak leaf pattern'; also known as Oak Leaf A), SS-Beringt-Eichenlaubmuster (German 'ringed oak leaf pattern') might actually be the earlier pattern of the two. Daniel Peterson, in Waffen SS Camouflage Uniforms & Post-War Derivatives, states that he has seen authenticated früher Typ (German 'early type') reversible smocks that were produced in the SS-Beringt-Eichenlaubmuster material, but none that were made of SS-Eichenlaubmuster camouflage cloth. This observation strongly suggests that Oak Leaf B was the earlier of the two camouflage patterns, and that it was introduced by 1942.

The claim is further supported by the fact that Oak Leaf A is a simpler, five-colour pattern, while Oak Leaf B comprises six-colours; commonsense dictates that the need to produce more camouflage smocks in less time and at reduced costs would give rise to a process of simplification, as the war progressed, rather than one of complication.

The spring–summer variant of SS-Beringt-Eichenlaubmuster comprises blobs of black, dark earth, lime green, and medium green on a chocolate brown background. Dark green keylines demarcate the boundaries between small lime green elements and adjacent medium green areas. Where these keylines surround smaller design elements, they form the characteristic rings, for which this camouflage pattern is named.

SS-Beringt-Eichenlaubmuster was used in the manufacture of reversible camouflage smocks, helmet covers, field caps and shelter quarters. It was also used for 1944 herring-bone twill drill jackets and trousers.

camouflage data