Vietnam Field-Made Tiger Stripe Combat Vests

Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com. I'm Ian McCollum and I am joined again today by Mr. Owen Thornton, author of the upcoming book from Headstamp on tiger stripe camouflage. And today we want to talk about vests, combat vests. Like today there are combat vests that are standard issue, formal. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this is not a standard issue item. You're totally correct. All right, so where, who, when, what? Today's and today's military combat vests are like the rigor, you know, they're, they're, they're standard issue. Everyone's got like a battle vest there. There's Kevlar vests with pouches on them, but remember that had to start somewhere. Yeah. And combat vests kind of came in a little bit in world war one. There was the body armor started with the Germans, the full piece, you know, the big heavy chest armor. Then the Americans came in with their grenade vests for storming the trenches that, that then that carried through to like what, you know, the assault vest and D-Day, the saving private Ryan drop on the assault vest. Well, that, that custom vest tradition went full 360 in Vietnam, where men went into tailor shops and they asked for ammunition bearing vests because there was nothing on issue. So basically every camouflage pattern that was known from the hurdle, the leaf to the police to tiger stripe vests were made in every rendition. There was, there's no standard, right? The standard is there is no standard. Okay. And here's a beautiful example. It looks like this is grenade pockets. Yeah. These are, these could be grenade pockets are, they could also be a 20 round magazine pockets. It's amazing how, okay. Yeah. You can squeeze one in. It's a little bigger than it looks. Yeah, but they, they are, they, you know, it's a 20 round magazine. As you know, you can stuff that in. It's not that big. They're not that big. They look bigger. You know, people are used to a 30 run magazine today. 20 runs just came in. It was like a new thing. And you know, if you want to look rock and roll, you, you went and got yourself a vest. I like how they they've got the, the accent of tradition here with the French style. Absolutely. Yes. You know, what's really strange about these, this vest, the, no, let's just not open it up. They were actually made. And this is something very, very interesting. They were actually made from us. That liner was a us mail bags. And there it is. Backwards mail mail. And because this was really good canvas. It came from the, it came from the United States. It was better than what was in Vietnam. And traditionally they use it as liners. So you've even got a rough date on this. Like it's a 1968 mail bag. So, you know, this was at least 68 or later. Yeah. So, you know, like this mail bag was swiped. They procured it. Okay. And the vest was made. So look, here's like a gold one. Here's the one that dropped down. Yeah. Well, we'll get that. So here's a tiger. Here's a lightweight tiger stripe. Again. It's got the 20 round magazine. Yeah. On the bottom. It's also got zipper pockets. You would put like a map in there. You know, dry goods, you know, you little Hershey's in there. Something like a little go time, your cigarettes. And it's a little bit of mismatched material. Like the pocket material is different. One thing about camouflage and tiger stripes to a working soldier. That collectors sometimes overlook is all camouflage was camouflage. To match it up. You'll see a guy with a used pair of pants and a new shirt. And a brand new boonie hat of a different pattern. It was all flage. Okay. And that concept carried through with the vests. Okay. Just like this. Here, you want me to hold on? No, I'll set it with the other one. So another style of vest. This is just slightly earlier. This would have been made for an aviator. This came from a U.S. Air Force guy's estate. Exactly. Thank you. Who's groping for the word there. And this is like mission related type of thing. So he would have had survival equipment in here. You know, pan flares, a signal mirror, a little, maybe the little flat sachets of water. Okay. And signal equipment, some rations. A couple of pockets on the back. Exactly. Pockets on the back. And it's cool. Those pockets are styled just like the BDU trouser pocket. Yeah, well, the jungle suits. Yeah. Only except they're not taken off a set of tiger stripe pants. They're actually custom made for this. So that tells us as historians that they did have a bolt of this cloth. They were able to cut it from scratch. And what's very interesting about this vest is it doesn't open from the top. Like you would see, it opens from the bottom. That was a personal preference. The guy just, that was his hand, you know, like a left-handed versus right-handed guy. Okay. You know, he wanted it from the bottom. And, you know, these vests are very, very rare and very sought after. I would suspect so. Yeah. And as a collector myself, when I find one of these, I'm happy inside for six months at a time. Well, and it's got to be really interesting because they are all different. And each one says something about the guy who had it made. 100%. They tell a personality. They tell a guy's story. What might work for you doesn't work for me. You know, it's just as simple as that, you know. That's super cool. Yeah. So was there, there was never a standardized vest even by the end of the conflict? Not a camouflaged vest like this. There's like the 27P U.S. Air Force survival vest that was a standard. And of course, individual airmen moved their pockets around and like SOG got a hold of those. They dyed them green. There's a SOG vest. It's heavy canvas called a 1-0 vest. 1-0 is the designation for a team leader. So he was, it was like a badge of honor. Pretty much you didn't, went out and bought it yourself. You were awarded it by your team. And the indigenous soldiers were like, you're the boss, you know. But stuff like this, an individual airman would, went in and had this made. Okay. Because there are tailor shops easily accessible in Japan. Easily accessible in Japan. In Saigon. Plus, every major town and village, you could pretty much go in, get something made. Because of the black market, there was a lot of fabric that was appropriated. Available for the right price. Okay. That's fantastic. That is super cool. Yeah. Now in the book, all three of these are in the book in beautiful detail. Yeah. I think we have a couple of others in there as well. We have a few other ones that we haven't touched on for this video. Okay. But in the book, we're going to cover those in minute detail. All right. Well, if you guys are interested in seeing more about not just the custom gear from Vietnam in Tiger Stripe, but also the evolution of Tiger Stripe as a general camo pattern, and how it went from French to Vietnamese to American. All of that is covered in our new book. We currently have it available for pre-sale over on Kickstarter, along with a bunch of cool extras and stretch goals. Definitely, if you're interested, check it out in the description text below. We've got a link to the Kickstarter. Hopefully, you enjoyed this little look at a couple of particularly interesting vests. Thanks for watching. Thank you.