kamouflage.net camouflage data

In June 2005, 21 female soldiers and sailors — including Lieutenant Natal'ya Karpukhina, pictured here — took part in the second 'Beauties with Epaulets' concourse. Officials were quite open about the competition being a public relations stunt staged for the purposes of increasing interest in and recruitment for the Russian armed forces. [Image: The Russian Federation Ministry of Defence.]

Flora
Russian Federation

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Soviet military designers experimented with new camouflage patterns for the Armed Forces of the U.S.S.R. (Вооруженные силы Союуза Советских Социалилистических Республи, trans. Vooruzhenyye sily Soyuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, VS SSSR). The change to a new camouflage uniform is believed to have been motivated, at least in part, by a desire to provide the Russian military with a more unified and professional image. However, the confusion of Russian ground units with the opposing security forces of regions like the Baltic States and Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic doubtless also highlighted the need for change.

The new uniforms were first authorised for wear in mid-1991, at which time the Soviet Union was still a political entity; for this reason, the series of camouflage patterns should properly be classified as Soviet. However, the uniforms were not widely issued until 1994, for which reason the pattern is better known, among collectors, as 'VSR' (from Вооруженные силы России, trans. Vooruzhenyye sily Rossii, meaning 'Armed Forces of Russia').

However, the production of new Russian military camouf­lage pat­terns did not stop there. Toward the end of the 1990s, IVU MO developed a new three-coloured camouflage (трёхцветный камуфляж, trans. tryokhtsvetnyy kamuflyazh, 3-TsV). It was produced through the simple expedient of enlarging the drawings used for the 1990 3-TsV camouflage and rotating them through 90°, while preserving the established colours. The camouflage works well at a range of 50 meters, when new, and at 100 meters, when washed several times.

More widely known as Flora, the 1998 3-TsV camouflage pattern is seen in a range of colour combinations. It is frequently suggested that these variations represent nothing more than carelessness and a general lack of standardisation in Russian industry; however, the evidence of the article numbers suggests otherwise.

Unlike Western camouflage patterns, Soviet designs were never given an 'official' name. Instead, they were assigned an 'article' — a unique number, which was used to identify any given product. In other words, every new product was assigned its own unique article.

Not surprisingly, this system has been continued by the Russian Federation. Significantly, the different versions of Flora have different articles. In other words, each is a new product, distinct from any of the others that resemble it.

At this time, I have been unable to establish the article for the variation of Flora shown here. It is, however, distinguished from other versions of Flora by its green background colour.

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