ARVN Tiger Stripe camouflage uniform 60s.

Description

The first tiger stripe design was a locally produced copy of the French lizard pattern made for the Vietnamese Marine Corps (Thủy Quân Lục Chiến), first produced in 1957. This pattern featured bold black stripes over lighter brown bands, with pale green tracer elements on an olive-green background. Production of this design ended in 1967, although units continued to wear the pattern until 1970.

The illustration below shows the original pattern (far left), followed by two variants known as the “Vietnamese Marine Corps Sparse” pattern (first produced in 1959 and often mistakenly identified as the First Vietnamese Marine Corps Pattern) and the “Vietnamese Marine Corps Dense” pattern (first produced in 1968), also referred to by collectors as the “Sea Wave” pattern or the Second Vietnamese Marine Corps Pattern.

There is general consensus that both the fabric and uniforms were produced in South Vietnam; however, the second-pattern uniforms may also have been manufactured in South Korea.