Friday, April 20, 2012

FROG Hunting

Wearing a FROG Desert Marpat shirt
No, not the little green amphibians you find at the lake.  I'm on the hunt for some rare "Fire Resistant Organizational Gear", better known in the military as "FROG".  I've done a post on this before, but now there's more schtuff I wanna get!

For awhile now, I've been increasingly interested in this stuff not because I plan to set myself on fire whilst playing a game of outdoor laser tag, but because... well... it's cool.  Literally!  FROG shirts are designed to be worn underneath heavy gear like body armor, plate carriers, and tactical vests and rigs.  The portion of the shirt that covers the torso is made from a breathable cotton fabric that is extremely comfortable.  The arms are made of Rip-stop camouflage fabric with organizational pockets set on the biceps.  They also generally have a zip-up mandarin collar that I really tend to like.  It keeps slings and harnesses off your neck.  In general, this stuff is really comfortable to use and is excellent for the summer games we  have our outdoor laser tag season in.



In full laser tagging gear with my
Woodland MARPAT Shirt
Here in the Heartland, it can get pretty warm, but most camouflage jackets and such aren't very fun to wear in 90+ temperatures.  For the past two years I've been utilizing Combat Shirts and FROG gear to keep me cool whilst still being able to run around in all my tactical goodies.  The only problem is that, for awhile, the only genuine FROG gear that was out there was in Desert MARPAT (short for MArine PATtern), which isn't really good for blending in during the summer months.  I had tracked down a Woodlan MARPAT Combat Shirt that was a Chinese Knock-off that I used for some time, but the colors were never quite right and the fabric was more like a stretchy silk than the Cordura breathable fabric that other Combat Shirts have.

A Marine wearing the Woodland MARPAT FROG shirt
There is a Woodland MARPAT Combat Shirt out there made by Tru-Spec, but it lacks the mandarin collar.  I've thought about picking it up, but I feel like if I'm going to invest in another piece of camouflage, I want it to have the features I want.  Recently, the United States Marines made a rare production of genuine FROG shirts in Woodland MARPAT, which is exactly what I need!  Only problem is that, aside from these being relatively pricey when they have shown up on eBay and such, that they're also not my size.  I've lost some weight over the past year or so, but not enough to squeeze into the Small and Medium sizes I've been seeing out there.  It's been an ongoing search to track down a genuine Woodland MARPAT Frog Shirt in a Large Regular size, so I figured I'd at least put this out there in case anyone can hook me up with one.  In the meantime, I'll just keep rolling with what I've got until I find it!  But with there being less than a month now before our summer season of laser tag starts (May 9th), I doubt I'll have one in time.  Regardless, the search continues!  Any leads/links/finds would be helpful!

8 comments:

  1. Grr... I was upset when I figured out that FROG stood for Fire Resistant Organizational Gear. I though that, somehow, you were going to say that you could shoot a frog with a laser tag gun and it would do something like blow up.

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  2. I hope the stuff I found works for you.

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  3. So zook do they use laser tag gear in the marines?(As like a combat exercise)

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    1. Nearly every branch of the military utilize laser tag for combat simulations, and not just in the US either. I did a post a little while ago about a British/ French joint simulation that utilized laser tag systems to train with. The most common type is called MILES. A search on my blog for that term should come up with more info if you're interested in seeing more.

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    2. Read it. Really interesting info!

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  4. Have you checked out Multicam? It's what I use and works really well. Check it out here... http://www.multicampattern.com/about/
    You can also purchase FROG Multicam gear.

    'jammer

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  5. Got 2 mediums and 3 large, both mediums are multicast while the large are 2 woodland marpat and one multicam

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    1. If I had a way of contacting you, I'd probably drop you a line on that MultiCam one. Been interested in trying out that camo type.

      Since this post (goodness it's almost 2 years old now), I've since found the MARPAT FROG stuff.

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