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"They seek him here, they seek him there, his clothes are loud, but never square..."
Last Autumn I bought myself a sniper rifle. After using it for a while I started to get into the right sort of mindset for using it. Essentially, there are two sorts of people who own sniper rifles; those who want to act as sharpshooters and those who want to act as snipers. Being one of the later, I decided I should make myself a ghillie suit. There are a few different interpretations of where this originated, but they're all fairly similar. The term "Ghillie" comes from the Gaelic word "gille", which means servant. Landlords in Scotland would hire wardens to stop poachers on their estates. They came to be known as "ghillies". One of the techniques the ghillies used to catch poachers was to make a suit of clothes consisitng of frayed, dangling rags - which they wore while hiding in the bushes patiently waiting for poachers to appear. These suits became known as "ghillie suits".
How does it work?Ghillie suits are used to deceive the brain into overlooking what the eye is reporting. They break up the distinctive human form so that the brain does not recognise it and marks it up as general landscape clutter. Ghillie suits are considered by many to be the ultimate in camouflage and to an extent this is true. However, they have their limitations. You may well ask "If ghillie is so great, why doesn't everyone have it?" and it's a fair point. Ghillie is hot, heavy and snags on things. It's no good if you want to run anywhere and it cuts down your ability to hear. It'd also be very difficult getting webbing to fit over the top of it. Additionally, ghillie suits have to be tailored to a specific environment. One designed for open fields will not work nearly as well in pine forests. Real snipers change the local flora and fauna on their ghillie as they move through different areas, often several times on an operation. That said, when ghillie works, it works well. I've had people be 20 metres away, looking straight at me and not see me. Great to talk about afterwards, but very nerve-wracking when you're there. |
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Unlike a lot of things, ghillie isn't actually too expensive to make. This may surprise you if you've ever looked at buying pre-made ghillie, but the high prices you see there are mainly down to labour costs. Ghillie is very time consuming to make. The only item of clothing that's taken me longer to do was a chainmail top, but there again, handicrafts aren't exactly my strong point.
There are several things you'll need to make ghillie:
There are several different methods to making a ghillie, and you need to decide for yourself which one you think is best for you. Just as there is no "one size fits all" camouflage pattern, there is no "right" way to make ghille. First off you need a base. This can either take the form of a one piece flight suit, or two piece combats. Again, colour is optional. I went for a two piece flecktarn base as it better matches the winter environment where I play and it means I can remove the top when I want. An important point to bear in mind is that you're probably better off buying second hand clothes for using as a base. You are, after all, about to stick loads of hessian on to it and never wash it again, and it seems foolish to spend a lot of money on something you're just going to destroy. I think I spent £20 on getting my base clothes.
Hessian is available from a number of outlets. You can either buy it premade and dyed, or get old sandbags and cut them up, or do what I did, which is to order it online. A quick trip to Whaley's provided the base jute hessian and also some thinner stuff for covering rifescopes and so on with. I did have a look at their Fabric Chooser too, but it did not (as advertised) help me choose the right fabric as it only had option for making a wedding dress or curtains. Do these people not realise the business they are losing? Maybe.
I popped down to my local decorating shop and picked up several different colours of Dylon machine dye. Naturally you should pick dyes appropriate to the environment you play in. Warning! putting hessian in your washing machine tends to result in it losing some threads. This is not likely to impact the amount of material you have but it will do nasty things to the inside of your washing machine and its filters. You have been warned. Another option is to get some normal dye and use a giant bucket or perhaps a dustbin. I may try this on my next attempt.
Once the dye has dried, you will need to cut the hessian into strips (assuming you didn't do this before). If you have access to a guillotine this would be ideal, but failing that you should get some of those scissors that they claim cut through tin cans. You'll need them. With the hessian in strips, you can brush it using a wire brush to fray it. You lose about 30% of the hessian when you do this, but the effect is worth it. I strongly recommend you get a dust mask as I didn't and was hacking, coughing and had camouflage mucus for the next 3 days. You should also do this in a workshop or outdoors rather than in your room. All the dust will do your computer insides no good at all.
I decided to use a glue gun because it was a lot quicker than sewing the hessian to the base. If you decide to do this, there are a few things you should bear in mind. Firstly, use a big glue gun. I initially bought a piddly little crafts one and it's a pain in the neck to keep changing gluesticks. Secondly, when gluing try to use a Z mark (like Zorro) or similar, as it makes it harder for the hessian to pull away from the base due to there being more surface attached. Finally, have a bowl of cold water on standby for when you burn your fingers. And you will.
Something else you might want to try instead is sewing netting to the base clothes and then tying the hessian on to the netting. My next ghillie will probably be constructed along these lines.
And maybe a good CD collection. My time was spent with 65% of it preparing, cutting and brushing the hessian and 35% gluing the hessian to the base clothes. Don't expect to get it all done in one weekend. I think I did a couple of hours a night all week and then a whole weekend.
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So what does it look like when it's done? Something like this. Note that the covering on the front is only enough to cover the shoulders. This is so that you don't snag when crawling along the ground, but you still have cover when in the aiming position. If you plan on sniping standing up, by all means do the front fully, but most players tend to crawl. One other point worth mentioning is headgear. There isn't any displayed in these pictures, but the full article has a headcover made of two MK6 helmet covers sewn together and mounted on a bush hat. It works quite well and is definitely something you shouldn't overlook. Finally, remember to camouflage your rifle too. In the following pictures you'll see how obvious it is when you don't. |
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Here are some pictures "in the wild" so to speak. Of course, they're not really, they're in my garden. This means the ghillie is a lot more obvious than it would normally be, but you can get an idea of how it would look. Click on the thumbnails for a larger image. | |
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