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Ghillie Suits
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A Ghillie, or yowie suit is a type of
camouflage clothing designed to resemble heavy
underbrush. Typically, it is a net or cloth garment covered in loose strips
of cloth or twine, sometimes even made to look like leaves and twigs. Snipers
and hunters
with extreme requirements for going undetected in wilderness areas use a
ghillie suit to blend into their surroundings.
The
ghillie suit was developed by Scottish gamekeepers as a
portable hunting blind. Lovat Scouts, a Scottish Highland regiment formed by
the British Army during the
Second Boer War, is the first known military unit to use ghillie suits. In
1916, Lovat Scouts went on to become the British Army's first sniper unit.
The name derives from ghillie, the Scots Gaelic for "boy", in
English especially used to refer to servants
assisting in hunting or fishing expeditions. A ghillie dhu is a type of tree
spirit that is supposed to disguise itself in leaves and
vegetation. |
| A US Marine
sniper wearing a ghillie suit. |
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Construction
High-quality
Ghillie suits are commercially manufactured, but
military snipers generally construct their own unique suits. Proper camouflage
requires
the use of materials used in the area a sniper will operate in. Making a
Ghillie suit from scratch is time-consuming, and a detailed, high-quality suit
can take hundreds of hours to manufacture and season for use; however,
Marine snipers are often required to customize their own suits to the
environment in
a matter of minutes.
Ghillie suits can be constructed in several different ways. Some military
services make them of rough burlap flaps or jute twine attached to a
poncho.
Army ghillie suits are often built using either a
battle dress uniform (BDU), or a pilot's flight
suit or some other one-piece coverall as the base.
On the base, rough webbing made of durable, stainable fabric like burlap is
attached. A nearly invisible material like fishing line is used to sew each
knot of net to the fabric (often with a drop of glue for strength). The jute
is applied to the netting by tying groups of 5 to 10 strands of a colour to
the
netting with simple knots, skipping sections to be filled in with other
colours. The webbing is then seasoned by dragging it behind a vehicle,
leaving it to
soak in mud, or even applying manure to make it smell "earthy."
Once on location, the ghillie suit is customized with twigs, leaves, and other
elements of the local foliage as much as possible, although these local
additions must be changed every few hours, due to wilting of green grasses or
branches.
Ghillie suits are essentially impossible to clean. Although the underlying
garment (s) is tough and washable, the attachments tend to be too fragile to
survive washing. In practice, this is a moot point, as dirt is an essential
part of the suit's camouflage. Generally, snipers are unconcerned with being
very fastidious. They are rarely inspected for correctness of uniform, and
they stay far away from the target.
Safety considerations
Although highly effective,
Ghillie suits are impractical for many situations
where camouflage is useful. They tend to be heavy and hot. Even in
moderate climates, the temperature inside of the Ghillie suit can soar to
over 50 °C (120 °F). The burlap is
also flammable, unless treated with fire retardant, and the wearer may be
exposed to ignition sources such as smoke grenades and white phosphorus.
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