Fanboy/girl hats off everyone. It’s critical thinking time. Ten years ago, leaf suit based camouflage systems were everywhere and continue to sell well. Although popular, are they actually any good?

Back in 2017 (I think, just as I started blogging), I remember being part of the Mustang inner circle when leaf suits started to take off. MFH and North Mountain Gear were the brands to be seen in and the world of Airsoft sniping was learning to dye nylon leaves and glue everything to everything else as we tried to progress camouflage into the brave new world of 3D garnish. I’d bought an MFH suit because it had superb colours and at the time was the best offering available. I’d dyed and attached leaves, raffia and everything else that was trending.

And yet, I remember being at a small local site in Pittington, looking at my fully tricked out leafy and thinking “this is actually crap“. But why?

Before anyone thinks “oh he’s just going to hate on Nov/KM/Stalker etc because he’s jealous of their success”, I’m going to explain why ALL leaf suits are crap and no, I have no interest in shilling any products to anyone and success for me isn’t measured in followers or dollars. I’m a writer, not a retailer. And a sniper, so above all for me it’s about effectiveness for me personally, rather than supporting channels or brands. I like things that work.

After sitting looking at my own leaf suit, I spent the next two years playing across the UK and watching all the other snipers in their beautifully crafted leaf creations in games. Counter sniping was my game but I learned a lot from observation. Some of them were absolutely fantastically made works of art, and yet I couldn’t help but wonder why I could still see them. What is it that still catches the eye?

Materials

As much as you might like to believe otherwise, these suits are heavy on shiny polyester which might look great indoors, or in carefully doctored Instagram adverts, but that plastic reflects light and gives it a sheen that just looks artificial. Yeah you can mud bath it or spray with matt paint, but then that undoes the colours and patterns that you bought it for (more on that shortly). It’s the same effect as well with a lot of modern BDU’s. People now want quick drying fabrics, or some sort of weatherproofing, and that requires a higher plastic content – my day job btw is in textiles and clothing, working with some of the biggest technical brands in the world. Polyester is often preferred because it’s cheaper to produce, and then you can attribute some features and benefits to it to help sell it. You can try and sell me the benefits of “high tech materials” all day long but I much prefer the old school cotton blend camo gear from the 80’s and 90’s. It works so much better in daylight in terms of reflectance.

Imagine putting a green plastic carrier bag in the woods and then a green cotton tote bag next to it. Which one do you think would catch your eye first?

Mesh

Oooo, isn’t it so lightweight and keeps you cool? I’ve seen that posted so many times. Oh yeah, and the pre punched holes allow you to attach stuff so easily; it’s a snipers dream.

Shut the fuck up.

Mesh is often held up as the greatest advantage to leaf suits, yet is the biggest weakness. The mesh has an even higher plastic content to hold the suit together when it’s full of holes – it needs to be stronger to compensate. A fabric with a printed pattern which is then full of holes isn’t going to show the pattern or colours as well, because it’s interrupted by whatever is underneath. And if you go and Google some of these leaf suits, some of the retailers are kind enough to show it in the great outdoors where you can see that unnatural shine for yourself.

Do you need holes to thread zip ties through? No, you can just punch them through any fabric with a needle and thread it through. If you find you’re having to attach thousands of things to the suit, it means the base suit and pattern isn’t working because you’ve covered it up to compensate. You’re adding bulk, not camouflage. It’s just another attempt at a product feature – “oh yeah, well, ermm…see you can poke zip ties through it more easily for faster crafting…”

“Lightweight and breathable” sound like really good selling points too but it usually points to thinner, cheaper materials. If the ghillie is too heavy for you, look across at the guys wearing plate carriers and helmets, carrying four guns and wearing NVG’s in the daytime and then realise you’re not carrying anywhere near as much weight as the other players. Also you’ll probably notice that they’re running around in trousers and shirts (although I have seen players in just underwear before). So why can’t you? Is breathability an issue for them, or is it something that affects snipers who have simply added way too much 3D to the point that they look like a sheep?

US Troops in North Africa, WW2, operating without breathable mesh

Cooler? You’d think so wouldn’t you. Until you realise the mesh is, well, mesh and not something you can wear on it’s own. So you need to wear something underneath it anyway, like maybe some BDU pants, which quickly turns that one layer into two layers, instead of just crafting directly onto BDU’s and only having to wear the one layer. So that doesn’t really work does it? Clever advertising though. If it is a bit hot, you can get a grommet punch and add a couple of discreet holes for airflow under the arms, on the back and wherever else you might like a breeze to flow in. Doesn’t take much.

Here’s an Arktis B110 Combat Smock. This is a proper piece of equipment, and does come in a range of patterns but I picked the plain OD one to highlight a point about wearability. Compared to mesh, this thing will offer protection from the elements, plus thorns and brambles, twigs, stones, bb hits, and shine. The lack of mesh means there aren’t holes to catch on vegetation that would create extra noise and movement and draw attention to your position. Notice as well that it has pockets for your gear, which eliminates the need for webbing altogether so you can be less restricted during skirmish. The inside zipper pocket will take a pistol as well so you don’t have to wear a loud, clunky plastic holster too. Bonus. Mesh suits by comparison are an annoyance. Bear in mind that leaf suits originally were developed for hunting animals and staying still in one spot, not dragging yourself through thick vegetation as you hunt other players in a fast paced game of Airsoft.

Manufacturing

Let’s start with those leaves. You probably think they’re really useful because;

A) Any 3D is good, isn’t it?

B) You’re lazy and it’ll save you adding so much because the suit gives you a head start.

C) You’re new to this, you don’t understand camouflage yet and that’s what everyone else wears so popular must mean good, right? Like McDonald’s. McDonald’s is popular…

In reality, those pre-attached leaves are subject to the limitations of the Chinese factory they’re made in. All of them are uniformly sized and shaped, cut in strips and sewn on as quickly as possible to get the next suit made. Go out into the woods and look on the floor. Are all the leaves the same size and shape and has nature added them in nice neat rows? Do they all look clean and laser cut? Pick some of the leaves up off the floor and hold them in your hand. Notice how they’re quite stiff? Yes. They’re quite different from the very soft floppy polyester on the mass produced version that flaps around in even the gentlest breeze – apart from perhaps the colour, leaf strips don’t look or behave like leaves at all, so why have them?. Le Covert Sartorialist did a short video once and called it “betrayal by wind”. The leaf strips catch the eye because of the excessive movement in an environment that might be barely moving at all. And they’re all laid in straight lines, again because they’re cheaply made, even if you zig zag them across the back to try and argue “no, they’re not straight lines”. They are.

Manufacturing shapes and patterns that are not found in nature

Some suits now also have a paracord net on them to attack veg and more materials to help hide the crap base even further, and the sharp straight checkerboard overlay really does nothing to help hide you in the field.

The other limitation with this mass produced factory leafyness is the pattern and colour. If you look, it’s a micro pattern that doesn’t match up to the base suit, because it’s stitched on. And the pattern and colour on these leaf suits is the greatest failing of all. It’s terrible.

Yes, we’ve all laughed at that turquoise and yellow coloured KMCS green suit that just looked completely at odds with nature. And who can forget the “pink plastic” look of the KMCS brown that became a meme. I recall a conversation with someone who visited Nov’s HQ and spoke to their fabrics guy who correctly pointed out that it’s difficult to match colours on different fabrics anyway because the different dyes take to plastics different ways, and colour matching the Kreuzotter pattern on different items was a challenge – that’s why the leaves and the base suit aren’t matching up. It’s the same for us at home when we try to dye polyester and it never comes out the same colour as it says on the packet. So as much as you could get KM to go and sit and take a photo of his garden, by the time it goes to the factory and they attempt to print it it’s still not right and that’s why the finished product always looks a bit off. Notice how it looks either pale and washed out, or has that awful white sheen, or just lacks sufficient contrast?

Cotton is easier to dye and then we can adjust the colours very easily using sprays instead of dyes. I don’t want to sound like some kind of Greenpeace supporter but natural fabrics and materials in a natural environment just makes much more sense. This is why I switched to old school BDU’s, and even with the development of more professional kit such as the MIM-Tech SRC-S and Ghosthood products, I’m not budging and I’ve seen both in the field to judge.

You’ll notice all the brands tend to use micro patterns, like Realtree or Digital stuff. Now, these amazing leaf suits at a few metres look OK on social media, but at 50-100m are very prone to blobbing as a result. Your eyes can’t see that tiny detail at a distance and blends the colours into one mass, so your shape doesn’t break up, it does the opposite and enhances your outline. I can only imagine the manufacturers use micro patterns because they’re looking at and developing camo at close ranges or in a lab, or at a PC desk or something. Which is, quite literally, a bit short sighted. It does make it easier to link the leafy strips to the base pattern without a macro pattern, so it looks a bit more uniform.

Marketing

Leaf suits are popular with YouTubers and have been since Sniper Sochi first released his “own” suit, quickly followed by a handful of westerners, because it’s a product they can sell you. If we had an influencer that told you to go and buy a US Woodland shirt, they couldn’t make money off that. So bear that in mind first. Of course they’re going to tell you it’s amazing. Of course they’re going to have to add filters to balance the colours out and make it look like they work. And they’ll always show you it up close and in exactly the right spot for it to work. It’s all salesmanship and nothing more. It’s like those cotton leaves – “instead of you buying this pre-dyed cotton from Amazon, we’ll buy it and stick it in a bag with our label on and charge you a lot more”. Come on guys…

In the modern world, people are very easily influenced by social media, and videos in particular. You might feel like you’re “supporting the channel” but that creator is going to make the content anyway with or without your input. You are not supporting it, you are not going to become their best friend, they’re not going to make you famous, you are just a wallet that they want access to. Accept it.

Although it has made my game days easier being able to spot snipers at a distance, I still prefer to see snipers doing well against the masses of LMG operators and other players, and the only way to do that is to stand up and challenge trends and get other snipers thinking. You may well be reading this having just spent a fortune on a leaf suit and months crafting it and think “he’s wrong, this is great, what a load of shit”, but if in the future you sit down with your sniper buddies and think “actually yeah, we can do better” then it sparks change. I don’t care what you wear, who you want to support or give money to. I don’t care how good or how bad your camouflage is because if I’m up against you in a game, then yes I’d rather you were wearing something visible. I care about snipers being the best assets on the field though.

Moving forward

Leaf suits are ideal for the absolute beginner, but if you want to move up to intermediate or expert level sniping you have to be able to step back and analyse products and techniques, learn your craft and demand better for yourself. Like anything in life, you get out what you put in.

Did I mention sheep somewhere?