The US Army is getting new knees.

Well, actually, the soldiers' knees remain the same, but the Army wants new knee protectors for their operational uniforms. The US Army is not satisfied with the retractable knee pads from Crye Precision anymore and has further developed them.

They now somewhat resemble the design of Patagonia, which is used for the USSOCOM Level 9 Uniform. It is a two-piece system.

However, arguably the most important argument for this step: the US Army only buys the Crye knee protectors, they do not own the intellectual property. Therefore, no changes can be made to them, unless made by Crye and that probably costs extra. The Army's step also shows that it wants to remain independent from Crye: it did not adopt licensed Multicam as the new camouflage pattern, but opted for the predecessor pattern Scorpion, whose development it had co-financed.

It is quite a significant cost factor, we dare say. Unfortunately, the images of the prototypes are only available in a rather pixelated resolution, but you can see well where the journey is heading.

The technical specification is expected to be released in the middle of next year, and then the new knee protectors can go into production. We remain curious.

US ARMY on the Internet: www.army.mil