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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.]

1951 M reconnaissance camouflage (brown)
People's Republic of Hungary

When the Hungarian People’s Army initiated a programme for matching camouflage suits in 1950, it did not immediately develop the existing 1949 M sátorlap-esögallér camouflage pattern. Instead, an entirely new concept was developed.

The resulting 1951 M camouflage coverall system comprised three suits in all. One was a plain white coverall, for snowy terrains; the second was a green-dominant camouflage, for wear in open terrains (lowland); and the third was a brown-dominant camouflage, for wear in forests (highland).

The lowland and highland camouflage coveralls differed only in their base colours. The otherwise identical camouflage patterns comprised a sparse, dark yellow pattern of large, leaf-shaped elements overprinted with dark brown branch- and leaf-shaped elements. The brown-dominant highland variant is shown here.

Orders indicate that each reconnaissance company — consisting of 100 soldiers — was to receive 50 sets of lowland camouflage coveralls and 50 sets of highland camouflage coveralls. It is difficult to imagine just how the military establishment envisioned this mixture of colour schemes was to be employed in the field but, in practice, the two types were worn simultaneously.

Tamás Baczoni, of the Museum of Military History, Hungary, is yet to see an example of 1951 M camouflage coverall that was manufactured later than 1953. However, it seems that they were produced is sufficient numbers, between 1952 and 1953, that stocks of these oversuits lasted into the 21st Century. The last examples of lowland and highland camouflage coverall were discontinued and sold to the public in 2004.

The winter version of the coveralls, on the other hand, continues in service.

kamouflage.net is grateful to Tamás Baczoni and Steve Hoeger, for their invaluable contributions to this article.

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