Rhodesian Brushstroke
RHODESIAN BRUSHSTROKE
A camouflage pattern built for the African bush
CASE FILE // RHODESIA
Few camouflage patterns look as hand-made as Rhodesian Brushstroke. It looks like someone took a house-painting brush to a bolt of sand-colored cotton, went back and forth a few times with brown and green, and called it a day.
That's more or less what it is. And it worked.
Rhodesian Brushstroke was designed by Di Cameron of David Whitehead Textiles, the pattern's original manufacturer, and it uses green and brown strokes on a sandy background in a three-color, high-contrast design (Wikipedia). The big, contrasting shapes are there to break up the outline of the man wearing it. Blending in matters less than not looking like a person.
A COUNTRY THAT HAD TO MAKE ITS OWN
On 11 November 1965, Ian Smith's government issued its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain. London answered with economic sanctions, and Rhodesia adopted a policy of self-sufficiency that lasted for the rest of its existence (Camopedia).
In practice, that meant the country had to print its own camouflage.
Before UDI, enlisted soldiers were issued khaki drill. Then came the Battle of Sinoia and the start of the Rhodesian Bush War, and the security forces needed a uniform that actually suited the country they were fighting in. Early textile shortages were solved with technical help from South Africa and Portugal, and a local battledress industry grew out of it (Wikipedia).
The family tree goes back further than that. In the 1950s, men of C Squadron, Rhodesian SAS, wore brushstroke Denison smocks in Malaya, and the local pattern that arrived around 1965 was influenced by the original British wartime design (Camopedia). So yes, it's a cousin of British DPM. Just one raised somewhere much hotter.
FIRST PATTERN, SECOND PATTERN
Collectors split Rhodesian Brushstroke into two main generations (Camopedia):
- First pattern (1965–1969): Printed on the same cotton denim used for the tropical uniforms worn in Malaya. Early trial uniforms had a "translucent" print that was later fixed by changing the dyes.
- Second pattern (1970 to the end of the war): Brown and dark green strokes on a khaki background, printed on better cotton drill with more colorfast dyes. It became standard combat issue for both the Rhodesian Army and the British South Africa Police.
There were also experimental versions. One used brown and yellow strokes and seems to have been tested only by special forces. Another, tested by the BSAP in the late 1960s, ran the strokes vertically. That second one comes back later in the story.
DRESS CODE: OPTIONAL
Rhodesian field uniform regulations were famously relaxed.
The jackets of the mid-sixties were mostly replaced by lighter shirts in 1969, since a heavy jacket in the African heat makes about as much sense as a parka in Miami. By the end of the war, one-piece coveralls were common. Soldiers cut down their sleeves, wore privately bought T-shirts printed in the same camo, or ditched the trousers for running shorts (Wikipedia).
Rhodesian businessmen did a strong trade in unofficial camo T-shirts. Some copied the issue pattern and others used brighter colors, and troops wore them heavily in the hot months (Camopedia). Running shorts, a camo tee, and a rifle. The Bush War look, in other words.
The pattern itself had a good reputation. The fabric did not. Locally made uniform cloth was considered poor quality, and Rhodesian troops often envied the tougher, foreign-made kit the foreign volunteers turned up in (Wikipedia).
BORROWED, PILFERED, AND RE-ADOPTED
Brushstroke didn't stay inside Rhodesia's borders.
In the late 1970s, South African pilots, technicians, and special forces working alongside Rhodesian units were there covertly. They couldn't wear their own uniforms, so they were issued Rhodesian battledress. South African special forces also wore it on raids into Mozambique (Wikipedia).
The other side wore it too. ZIPRA guerrillas sometimes used pilfered Rhodesian fatigues to pass themselves off as security forces (Wikipedia). That has to be the most direct proof of concept a uniform can get.
In 1980 Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, and the new Zimbabwe Defence Forces dropped brushstroke for a Portuguese-designed vertical lizard pattern. Then, in the 1990s, shortly before the Second Congo War, they brought the original brushstroke back. Zimbabwe now makes a dry-season version on a light khaki base and a rainy-season version on a green base (Wikipedia). The old vertical BSAP test design also made a comeback as Zimbabwe's "wet" and "dry" season camo (Camopedia). Some patterns just won't stay retired.
THE MARINES TOOK A LOOK
Here's the part most people don't know. When the U.S. Marine Corps was building a new disruptive pattern in the 2000s, it ranked Rhodesian Brushstroke among the three best existing patterns, next to Canada's CADPAT and tigerstripe. It didn't adopt any of them because the Corps wanted something more distinctive (Wikipedia). That's how you got MARPAT.
Not bad for a pattern printed by a country under sanctions, on fabric its own soldiers complained about.
WHY IT'S IN THE MANIFEST
Brushstroke is one of the few camo patterns you can recognize from across a room. It's simple, it's loud in the right way, and it belongs to a war and a country that no longer exist.
For collectors, that's the draw. Original Rhodesian issue is scarce and getting scarcer, so the pattern lives on mostly through reproductions and modern cuts like the one in our catalog.
We have the Rhodesian Brushstroke Hooded Combat Shirt in the manifest right now. If you want the cousins too, look at our Tiger Stripe OD Hooded Combat Shirt and the British Desert DPM Windproof Smock.
SOUTHERN AIR TRADE // THE MANIFEST