These are from posts on Camouflage and rec.sport.paintball on AOL, and the
following web sites:
http://www.ghillie.com/
http://www.ghillie.com/rulesN.htm
http://www.warpig.com/paintball/net_resources/other/other.long.shtml
http://www.tctc.com/~herb3/jsw/ghillie/ghillie.html
http://www.prostar.com/web/sniper/ghillie.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ScoutSniper/sniper_ghillie.html
http://www.sniperstore.com
http://www.wyomingmall.net/sabco/
http://www.deershack.com

Where to purchase:
http://www.ghillie.com/rulesN.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~ScoutSniper/sniper_ghillie.html
http://www.sniperstore.com
http://www.wyomingmall.net/sabco/

For Camouflage on AOL, use Keyword "Paintball", select "Message Board", select
"Camouflage", select "List All."
To enter rec.sport.paintball on AOL, use Keyword "Newsgroups", select "Search
all Newsgroups", enter "paintball",  select "rec.sport.paintball", click "Add".
 Then go back to "Newsgroups", select "Read My Newsgroups" and select
"rec.sport.paintball".
Dan Martin,  Memphis
Dnmartin46

A ghillie suit is a suit of camo where it is covered with woodland looking
stuff like leaves and sticks. Burlap strips dyed dark dark green or brown
(well, browner than normal) may also be tied or sewed to the suit to give it a
deeper blend in effect. Ever see "Clear and Present Danger"?  The sniper going
through the sniper qualification test was wearing a great example of a ghillie
suit.

A ghillie suit is pretty much 3D camo.  You know how you can usually spot a
person with camo on because you can make out a 3 dimentional body with 2
dimentional patterns on it.  A ghillie suit is made of strips of burlap sewn on
a jumpsuit or coveralls.  The strips overlap and stick out like real bush.  It
doesn't sound like it would work but the suit blends in like nothing else can.

How to make a Ghillie Suit:

1.  Obtain an old pair of coveralls -- this is called the foundation of the
suit. In a pinch a fatigue blouse and pants will suffice.

2.  Get some burlap from your local fabric store (about 4 yards). The more
burlap you use the more effective (up to a point) will be the Ghillie Suit --
however, it will rapidly become heavy (Army and Marine sniper suits weigh up to
20 pounds or more).

3.  Dye the burlap some dark to medium green (Rit dye -- try to match foliage
greens). Instructions are on the dye package), Dye a little (half a yard) brown
(use sparingly).

4.  Cut the burlap into strips 2-3" wide and anywhere from 6" to 12" long (mix
up the widths and lengths)

5.  Sew one end of each strip to the outside of your foundation -- all over it.
Space them so that the ends of the upper strips will overlap the attachment
points of strips lower down. The sides do not need to overlap. Fill in by tying
vines, small foliated branches, grass, etc. to the suit by knotting the strips
around it, or sew strings or cord at random over the suit to tie these material
in.

6.  Crawl and enjoy!

Overlap the assorted colors like shingles on a house when you sew them on. 

Wash it. Washing it makes the burlap fuzz up and blend better with foliage.

Ghillie suits are good when you are playing to kill and not to capture the
flag.  A ghillie suit requires you to stay in one place for it to work.  If you
are running around a lot, the suit will get caught on something, and then hours
and hours of hard work is ruined.  If you are serious enough about sniping,
then chances are, your gun is already all black or a dark green.  The ghillie
suit will cover it up a lot too.  This works for defenders in capture the flag.

If you are a "paintball sniper" cammo is good.  If you like to run around,
cammo is less useful.

For all you people who are looking for camo, I have a tip for you. go to a
local surplus store and buy that splotchy camo { I think it's called woodland
camo }. It works as good or even better than this high-tech camo that costs
hundreds of dollars. Stick with the old fashioned stuff.  It's ten times
better!

Real military camo Battle Dress Uniforms (BDUs) are incredibly durable and have
numerous pockets.   And for people who keep saying that, "paintball is moving
away from a military image..."  I don't know what part of the country you're
in.  A large majority of walk-ons and team players that I've seen at the fields
where I play (near Los Angeles) wear woodland camo BDUs.  The second most
commonly seen camo is tigerstripe, also real military.  "Paintball camo" is a
distant third.

Instructions on how to make  at:
http://www.tctc.com/~herb3/jsw/ghillie/ghillie.html
http://www.prostar.com/web/sniper/ghillie.htm

Pictures of two suits at.
www.deershack.com
Look under camo.
gneckers@epix.net

There is a link at
www.warpig.com/paintball/net_resources/other/other.long.shtml to
http://www.ghillie.com/
home page for site in "Where to purchase" above
http://www.ghillie.com/rulesN.htm
Custom Concealment, Inc. Manufacturers of Ghillie Suits. While not often 
seen in paintball, as they are not allowed in tournament play, you will 
find (or not find because they are hidden so well) players in ghillie 
suits in some recreational games, and more often in scenario games where 
stealth, and ambush tactics come into play more often. This page tells 
about the history of ghillie suits, and includes photos of several 
designs made by CCI.

http://members.tripod.com/~paintwar/index.html
has tactics on sniping and concealment.

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Subject: Ghilie
Date: Sun, Dec 28, 1997 8:38 PM
From: SENAT3
Message-id: <19971229023901.VAA05818@ladder01.news.aol.com>

General rules of thumb for using camouflage: 

1.  Brightness difference with the background (contrast) is the initial
detection cue to the human eye. Therefore, light colored camouflage will give
you away in dark, shadowy foliage -- however, it will blend well in rocky,
sandy areas, or in dead grass. Conversely, light green single color BDU's might
blend well in short, green grass, and dark green night cammys might fit well if
you crouch in the shadows at a tree line. 

2.  Patterns and shape are the next most important cues. Try to get a
camouflage pattern that matches the "blobiness" of the range you fight at. Too
large a pattern -- the color patches on your camouflage are larger than the
average patch of color in the background -- generally increases shape cues,
while too small a pattern generally increases contrast cues. General patterns
-- like the USA green BDU -- are a compromise to try to give some reduced
detection in as many scenarios
as possible. Specific patterns, like tree bark, work very well in very specific
locations, but not as well generally. 

3.  Avoid, AT ALL COSTS, being back lit. Do not allow brighter objects behind
you, like sunlit patches, the sky (coming over a ridge, or boulder, or log, for
instance), or a lighter colored bush, rock, or field. In such a case the
camouflage pattern simply disappears to the human eye, and you appear as a
human silhouette. 

4.  If you are not found, stay still, or move as slow as possible when
advancing. Movement is a great give away -- equivalent (to the human eye) to
increasing your brightness about an order of magnitude. Of course, once
discovered, this advice goes out the window. 

5.  If you mainly just run and shoot, pick camouflage that you like, and look
cool in, because then none of the stuff I've discussed matters. 

What should be worn where? 
In the U.S. and Europe, most deciduous forested areas will need a general
pattern like the USA green BDU. Tiger Stripe in subtropical areas (heavily
forested with undergrowth, vines, etc) like the southeast and northwest. Grassy
lands, use overall olive drab fatigues (live grass -- California in winter) or,
belive it or not, 3-color desert (dead grass -- like California in summer).
Desert and rocky areas (southwest U.S.) use the 3-color desert BDU
(this is the new desert pattern-- not the the old 5-color 'chocolate chip'
pattern). Tree Bark patterns can be used anywhere there are large enough trees,
but I think most of the patterns are for pine or oak forests (which mean they
blend in well in temperate and alpine forests such as in the U.S., Canada, and
Europe. 

What about Tiger Stripe? 
The camouflage pattern most familiar as Tiger Stripe was developed for U.S.
Special Forces during the Vietnam era (circa 1965) for jungle fighting. It is
an adaptation of an earlier British design developed during the Malyasian
"difficulties" (1950's). It is for ultra-close range (50 yards or less)
fighting in heavily foliated jungle. Again, it should be effective in similar
areas like the heavy subtropical areas of the southeast U.S. and pacific
northwest. If you have trouble walking through the forest, and it is impossible
to walk a nearly straight line, Tiger Stripe might be appropriate 

What difference does the size of the "blobs" make? 
The average size of the "blobs" (actually known as the predominate or average
spatial frequency of the pattern) is directly proportional to the expected
range of engagement AND the expected envrionmental background. The spatial
frequency of the camouflage pattern should match the spatial frequency of the
background at that range of engagement. It is possible, using fractal patterns,
to match the spatial frequencies over some span of ranges -- but no
one makes a good fractal pattern yet -- and that is a hot area of pattern
research.
 
A "Ghillie" is a Scottish game-keeper. Pronounce the word "Gee' lee", starting
with the glutteral gee (guh), not a jay sound (jee). These guys found that they
could sew strips of burlap to their clothes, then wait patiently for poachers
to come by -- as long as they remained still, their game would nearly step on
them.

The real professionals at making Ghillie Suits are military snipers. Making a
suit and using it to stalk your instructors is part of the graduation from
sniper school. I was once stalked by a special forces sniper from 500 meters
across a field of grass, bushes, and general scrub -- at the end of 4 hours, he
stood up TEN METERS BEHIND ME! -- I never saw him -- even though I knew he was
out there somewhere.  Good, professional-looking Ghillies can be seen in the
movies "Sniper" and "Clear and Present Danger".

In most lighting conditions, detection is a result of both brightness and shape
contrasts with the background. Most camouflage fatigues do a pretty good job of
matching the general brightness level of foliage, desert, etc. The camouflage
pattern printed onto the material attempts to match the shapes inherent in the
background as well. Unfortunately, all camouflage fatigues follow the human
form pretty closely -- resulting in an overall shape that
looks like a human, not natural background. The problem lies in the fact that
the fatigues are trying to duplicate a three-dimensional pattern of shapes
(foliage, usually) with a two-dimensional camouflage pattern applied to a sheet
of fabric. In most lighting conditions, it don't work very well. Now,
camouflage fatigues and jackets and such certainly blend in much better than
blue jeans and T-shirts, but they aren't totally effective -- and cannot
be without adding three-dimensional noise to the essentially two-dimensional
form of a human.

A Ghillie Suit is a very effective camouflage technique that uses strips of
material to break up the outline of the wearer. This fools the eye of the enemy
-- the brain sees no recognizable shapes. By adding strips of burlap, or
camouflage netting, or branches off bushes to your clothing, you create the
three-dimensional pattern disruption I was talking about above. The advantage
comes from creating patches that are nearly the same color as the
environment, while simultaneously creating ultra-dark shadows alongside.
Printed fabric cannot create black patches as dark as real shadows -- the
shadow is about 2 orders of magnitude darker than the darkest printed black
fabric.

TACTICS:
Ghillie Suits are used for stealth -- move as slowly as possible, if at all. If
one hides in bushes, and uses single shots, the enemy won't be able to find you
unless they are looking almost directly at you when you fire. Be careful that
muzzle blast doesn't disturb foliage or raise dust.
An effective technique is to hide in the base of bushes near a path, let the
enemy go past, then pick them off with single shots from the rear.
A gun cover can be made using the same techniques and should be used to disrupt
the shape of the weapon.
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