A ghillie suit, yowie suit, or camo tent is a type of camouflage clothing designed to resemble heavy foliage. Typically, it is a net or cloth garment covered in loose strips of cloth or twine, sometimes made to look like leaves and twigs, and optionally augmented with scraps of foliage from the area.
Snipers [1] and hunters may wear a ghillie suit to blend into their surroundings and conceal themselves from enemies or targets. The suit gives the wearer's outline a three-dimensional breakup, rather than a linear one. When manufactured correctly, the suit will move in the wind in the same way as surrounding foliage.
High-quality ghillie suits are made by hand; most military snipers generally construct their own unique suits. Manufactured Ghillie suits can be assembled from up to six pieces.[citation needed] Proper camouflage requires the use of natural materials present in the environment in which a sniper will operate. Making a ghillie suit from scratch is time-consuming, and a detailed, high-quality suit can take weeks or even months to manufacture and season. Ghillie suits can be constructed in several different ways. Some military services make them of rough burlap flaps or jute twine attached to a poncho. United States military ghillie suits are often built using either a battle dress uniform (BDU), or a pilot's flight suit or some other one-piece coverall as the base.
On the base, rough webbing made of durable, stainable fabric like burlap is attached. A nearly invisible material like fishing line can be used to sew each knot of net to the fabric (often with a drop of glue for strength). The jute is applied to the netting by tying groups of 5 to 10 strands of a color to the netting with simple knots, skipping sections to be filled in with other colors. The webbing is then seasoned by dragging it behind a vehicle, leaving it to soak in mud, or even applying manure to make it smell "earthy." Once on location, the ghillie suit is customized with twigs, leaves, and other elements of the local foliage as much as possible, although these local additions must be changed every few hours, due to wilting of green grasses or branches.
Although highly effective, ghillie suits are impractical for many situations where camouflage is useful. They tend to be very heavy and hot. Even in moderate climates, the temperature inside of the ghillie suit can reach over 50 °C (120 °F). The burlap is also flammable, unless treated with fire retardant, and the wearer may be exposed to ignition sources such as smoke grenades or white phosphorus.
To enhance safety, the US Army Soldier Systems Center has developed an inherently fire resistant ghillie suit fabric to replace the jute or burlap. This new material does not need to be treated with any additional flame retardant, as the fire resistance is inherent in the product and the fabric will self extinguish. This material was field tested in late 2007 at the Sniper School at Fort Benning and has been standard issue since June 2008