Tiger Stripe camo

A French pattern, redrawn in Vietnam

Tiger Stripe's roots are in the Lizard pattern that French troops wore from 1947, through the First Indochina War. Lizard was a set of green and brown brushstrokes with a strong sideways direction, meant to cut across the upright line of a body. After the French left, the first Tiger Stripe appeared in 1957 as a locally made copy of Lizard for South Vietnam's Marine Corps. The strokes changed in two ways: they interlock instead of overlapping, and far less of the pale background shows through.

The Marines kept developing it, with a sparser version in 1959 and a dense one, later nicknamed "sea wave," in 1968. South Vietnam's Rangers and Special Forces took up their own variants, and the Civilian Irregular Defense Group, the village militias trained by U.S. Special Forces, wore it from 1963 until the program ended in 1971.

How Americans ended up in it

U.S. advisors attached to South Vietnamese battalions were allowed to wear their partners' combat uniform, and Special Forces took to Tiger Stripe in late 1962 and early 1963. There was a practical reason too. The Army's olive drab OG-107 fatigues stayed damp in the jungle and showed a solid outline against the leaves. Tiger Stripe broke that outline up, and the men who wore it valued the few seconds of confusion it bought after contact.

Getting it to fit was the hard part. Vietnamese uniforms were often too small for Americans, so early wearers had sets made by local tailors. From 1964 the 5th Special Forces Group contracted makers in Vietnam and across Southeast Asia for fatigues and boonie hats, and Marine Corps advisors were buying Tiger Stripe items from 1963. The pattern became the look of MACV-SOG reconnaissance teams in Laos and Cambodia, SEALs on the rivers, long-range patrols, and the Australian and New Zealand SAS.

Why there are so many versions

No two batches were quite alike. Fabric was printed in South Vietnam, Thailand, Korea and Japan, including Okinawa, and stripe shapes, density and dyes drifted from maker to maker and run to run. Collectors still use names set out in Richard Johnson's 1999 book Tiger Patterns: John Wayne Sparse from about 1962, John Wayne Dense from about 1964, Tadpole Sparse (the "silver tiger") from about 1964, the Advisor's types (one called the "gold tiger") from about 1968, and the late-war lightweights of 1969. John Wayne Dense took its name from the 1968 film The Green Berets, where it was widely worn. Some experts count close to two dozen variants, and production ran until 1975.

Replaced, then revived

From 1967 the U.S. ERDL leaf pattern, the forerunner of Woodland, gradually took Tiger Stripe's place in reconnaissance teams, and after the war American special operations went back to woodland patterns. Tiger Stripe lived on elsewhere. Thailand and the Philippines have been its most prolific makers since the war, and special forces in both countries have worn it. A desert version appeared shortly before the 1991 Gulf War, with the U.S. Marine Corps buying the first run to evaluate.

It still turns up in the U.S. In August 2019 Green Berets of the 5th Special Forces Group wore Tiger Stripe during a training exercise at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, a nod to the group's Vietnam roots. Original Vietnam-era sets are now prized by collectors. For how it compares with the other patterns we make, see our camo patterns guide.