A few weekends, late nights, a powdery mess of raw ingredients and a 3-foot-long ( 0.944-meter- long) immersion blender working up a storm later ,it’s become more than apparent that our friends lab at kommandostore has been cooking up another big batch.…Of Versengtarn & Acidtarn.We get it, they’re in South Dakota, USA but what did you think we were talking about? Tabs?
“Versengtarn” and “Acidtarn” are their most popular dyed-in-house military surplus garments by a longshot and it’s easy to see why. They use a special reactive dye that lasts far longer than most off-the-shelf compounds & a top-secret DJ routine on a washing machine for a shadowy redux of Flecktarn Field Shirts & Parkas that you just can’t find anywhere else. Being pre-inspected and laundered during the dye process, they’re ironically some of the best quality flecktarn pieces you can buy from kommandostore.
Versengtarn is the classic, an almost Multicam-black-esque variant of flecktarn that’s been created that quiets down the classic camo pattern to a whisper, giving it an ashy appearance that’s fantastic for working in to your daily wardrobe or just being a little edgelord who loves buying black stuff. Acidtarn is much of the same but has a green-er overtone. It retains the subtlety, and a bit of the original military looks of the Flecktarn Field Shirt.
With the first batch a few months ago being a massive success, kommandostore heard you guys loud and clear. The perpetual dyeing industrial supercomplex in their warehouse now cannot be stopped .
So, whether this is your first time dyeing with them or you missed out on the last batch, today’s the day to click the link above and get an order it. They’ve got plenty of other dye projects to do before circling back to good ol v-tarn so it might be a while before it’s back…
The Lore Drop
What watching the first season of True Detective does to a mfer… If you cant tell how excited we were after learning about dyed flecktarn, the double-exposure edit above should give you enough of a hint. It goes hard in a way we just can’t match one for one these days.
While our friends at kommadostore.com have been busy in the warehouse doing a bit of spring cleaning, how about something really special this weekend?In their back pocket, they’ve been having a chat with their Gorka-making friends in Uzbekistanand they’re once again expanding the Slav tracksuit extended cinematic universe. The camo is called “Kamysh” kamush? kamiish?, and its art. They heard that YOU LIKE STRIPES…So they put stripes on your stripes. For the uninitiated, this tracksuit features a faithfully rendered version of a real camouflage that Russia used on a militarized police force for decades.The blue tiger striped camo “Kamysh” became as infamous as it was eye-catching, so they figured why not take this work of madness and give it the full slav tracksuit treatment? But the tracksuit is as much of a work of art as the camo itself —It’s got all the features you’d expect in a premium pairing with sewn-on instead of printed stripes, zipped pockets, ultra-cozy fabric, and a “goldilocks” athletic fit you’ll love. As expected, the same people who made the Gorkas absolutely nailed it. Current ETA is mid-June. For more about what is undoubtedly the most insane camouflage ever sold surplus or not, keep on scrolling for the scoop… Not that long ago- It was the post-soviet-union collapse. Russia couldn’t make up their mind, so they finally lost it instead. The camo-of-the-week for Russia’s primary military force was “VSR”, a vertical-dominant pattern. But there was a horizontal pattern that also started to see use around the same time in the mid 90s, Tiger Stripe. It’s obviously different to US tiger stripe from Vietnam but it was deployed for the same reasons. In built up tall grass, marshlands, and water-adjacent flora, it excels. But hold on, how the heck did it turn blue? It’s obviously different to US tiger stripe from Vietnam but it was deployed for the same reasons. In built up tall grass, marshlands, and water-adjacent flora, it excels.But hold on, how the heck did it turn blue? ? Kamysh is actually a bit of a blanket term for ALL tiger stripe camos from Russia, its sometimes just called “Tigr” too. With increasing police presence during former-soviet-state separatist conflicts, Russia’s ‘MVD’ came into play, but there was a problem — they didn’t want to make it look like their internal security forces were literally the military. Normal VSR was a no-go because then it’d look like Russia’s primary military. Then they had a crazy idea: Give different police/emergency response units a different shade of the camo to soothe any accusations of paramilitary activity. Blue tiger striped camo would be given to “OMON”, a top mobile police unit in the MVD. Curiously, they’d even adopt the Siberian tiger as a mascot on some of their unit patches.What exactly does OMON do? Think of them like the US’s militarized federal police forces for the FBI, DEA, Homeland Security, and everyone’s favorite, the IRS. Except Russia liked to use them outside the country quite a bit, too. They were seen in many armed conflicts. So for decades the MVD and it’s definitely-not-military units would show up to the function wearing knockoffs of DPM, M81, Flecktarn, or this crazy tiger stripe all to not raise too much suspicion that they were militarized forces of the Kremlin… Yeah… A litany of blue-ish tigerstripe-ish commercial camos would become the face of OMON for decades. Infamously, a suspiciously similar blue tiger stripe was also used by “Berkut” units during the “Revolution of Dignity” in Ukraine c.2014. Was it a true “Urban camo”? or just an identifying mark of the unit? Does Russia know “OMON” in Cyrillic is “HOMO” backwards? It seems like it’s anyone’s best guess. And we couldn’t neglect to mention what made this camo popular to us gun-toting autists in the west. At MilSim West, an iconic photo of a man performing a flying kick into a door wearing what appears to be genuine “OMON” garb was taken.It was only in recent years that people actually figured out it wasn’t really OMON doing that, which just goes to show you how crazy that police unit is. It made that camo go “viral” amongst the surplus-sphere, and with the state of Russian unobtanium, we decided to take a new spin on it by making a brand-new garment out of a pre-existing camo. It was only fitting that kommando approached their gorka-maker to bring back this piece of Russian obscura — and they did a fantastic job to boot..MVD! OPEN UP! 🚓
Our usual milsurp article is a bit different this time around- a little less about gear in the typical sense and more about the introduction of a side project our friends at kommandostore.com have been working on for months:The long-awaited return of EDC “Range Notes”, now better than ever in any weather. It might be nearing the end of April but let’s face it rainy weather never really goes away and if you are planning on an outdoor adventure the odds are you will need to plan for the possibility of getting wet.
Why this makes sense
Maybe you are a writer or a journaling die hard or the sort of person that likes to jot things down while they are outside. Perhaps the elements stir something and help fuel your creativity. I get it. There may be waterproof smartphone screens out there but nothing beats the mind-thought-write -it-down connection between good old fashioned paper and pencil (or pen).
KommandoNotes V2 have arrived!
Do you need to write in the rain? Or when you’re covered in warm, viscous liquids, preferably non-human in origin? Look no further than KommandoNotes waterproof range notes! Seriously, DON’T KEEP LOOKING. With ten times the autism and twice the schizo-posting capacity (double the pages!) of comparable field notes, you can record far more information than anyone needed or wanted no matter where you go, and it’ll survive the sweaty, unventilated confines of your flecktarn (check out my quick review of one of my favs here)parka pocket.
The binding is a heavy-duty spiral that lets pages flip easily, even with gloves on, and the cover is a thick, weather-resistant plastic printed with our sharply honed autism. Each notebook measures 4.75″ x 7″, with gridded pages for precision mapping or quick notes. This lightweight notebook is light enough to toss in your pack and sturdy enough to take endless beatings. Whether you’re scoping out land to squat or tracking recalcitrant livestock, KommandoNotes keep your data dry and legible (if you write legibly–that’s really on you).
Specs
Weather-resistant coated paper with plastic “pretty much everything-proof” cover
4.75″ x 7″ (12 x 18 cm for non-moon visiting nations)
64 sheets (128 pages)
Land Navigation & Military Grid Reference System Cheat Sheet by Redbeard Tactical
Spiral bound
Ruler edge, land nav guide, and compass rose for orientation and measurements
Available in “A Magical Place,” STALKER, and Cashel Valley Bean Man designs
Flecktarn is one of the most ubiquitous camouflage patterns in every military surplus enthusiast’s closet and I bet many of you guys and gals already own some. But every now and then, our friends at Kommandostore get in something arguably even more special: Flecktarn’s tropical cousin Tropentarn. Wait…what? What the heck are Germans doing making a desert camo?
via ufpro.com– Just like M81 Woodland and DPM, 5FT Flecktarn decisively influenced the development of other camouflage patterns and their adaptation by other countries. One might say these three patterns inspired the next generation of camouflage patterns, much as the three were inspired by the WW2 patterns that preceded them. Accordingly, several countries merit mention:
The People’s Republic of China outfitted its Border Defence Units with an unlicensed copy of Flecktarn. Also, utilized in Tibet and the Bejing Military Region was a recolored, brown-dominant variation (which is highly sought-after by collectors).
Belgium interpreted German 5FT Flecktarn in a variant that was worn by its Airbase Security Personnel until 2000.
Denmark developed a green-dominant variation using only three instead of five colors. Tested in 1978, it today calls attention to the close cooperation of textile companies back then, since it is rumored to have been jointly developed with the French company Texunion.
The Netherlands briefly considered fielding Flecktarn as a camouflage pattern, but for political reasons decided against it (Dutch decision-makers felt there was too close a resemblance to the patterns used by the SS during the Second World War).
Japan created its own Flecktarn version and in 1991 fielded it within the JNSDF.
And before you go and say- “Hey buddy, the Germans have had a bit of a history fighting in the desert”, Tropentarn comes from trials after the successful implementation of Flecktarn. Good ol ‘Fleck had a bit of a hard time getting fully fielded as Germany was a bit sensitive to using any kind of pattern that resembled the various Waffen SS experiments in the 40s for obvious reasons. This was back in the late 70s after all.
But after ‘fleck got through the filter, Germany’s increased presence as peacekeeping forces brought them to the doorstep of everyone’s favorite sandbox, the middle east. A new camo was needed. As early as ’93, Tropentarn would appear as a reduced 3-color (vs 5 colors in normal flecktarn) arid version of the now beloved pattern. Unlike many desert patterns of the era, the Germans tastefully sprinkled in a few specs of green to really make the camo versatile beyond the dunes in Iraq.
If you’re not aroused by the typical brown, brown and more brown nature of a lot of desert camos, Tropentarn might be the right one for you. It even has a few bonus features over the normal field shirt that make it a little more breathable in the summer if you live in the south or simply yearn for temperatures over 70 Fahrenheit in polar vortexes like today’s…
It even works wonders in the great plains since everything turns tan come the wintertime and it gets just as much attention from fellow milsurp enjoyers and normies alike. So if you’re in the mood for another flavor of flecktarn in your wardrobe you’ll definitely want to dive in and grab one on the kommandostore site while you can, they’re always popular…and stock won’t last long. For the Silo, Jarrod Barker.
Featured image- Erbsentarn 44 dot peas pattern German WW2 Waffen SS standard camouflage pattern.
While our friends at 
For more about what is undoubtedly the most insane camouflage ever sold surplus or not, keep on scrolling for the scoop… 
