Alpha Industries M65 Field Jacket

[Doctor Damage]

 

[Doctor Damage]

 

[Doctor Damage]

graduates of one of Delta Force’s Operator Training Courses in 1978
interesting mix of clothing including 2 M-65 jackets and 3 quilted liners

 

[Doctor Damage]

source: https://militaryyearbookproject.com/

 

[Peacoat]

I can only imagine how cold basic training would be in January at Fort Dix.

 

[Doctor Damage]

 

[Doctor Damage]

 

[Doctor Damage]

 

[Doctor Damage]

 

[Doctor Damage]

 

[Doctor Damage]

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

When did they start putting buttons on the liners so you could wear the liners by themselves? If I remember correctly, they used to just have holes so you could button them into your jacket. I noticed in some fashion situations that they're also putting knit cuffs on the liners to make them look like actual jackets. You can see one in this IGTV

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBll9xAH3QV/

 

[Doctor Damage]

This is a jacket I saw on eBay last night. It's a really early M65: note the simple tags and the lack of shoulder straps.

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

When did they go from inking the label directly on the material to an actual sewn-in label? I think I ran into one made in 1966 with the info inked on the green material. Maybe that was an M-51?

 

[Doctor Damage]

When did they go from inking the label directly on the material to an actual sewn-in label? I think I ran into one made in 1966 with the info inked on the green material. Maybe that was an M-51?

Some of the M1951 field coats had white printed tags sewn in like above while others had the info stamped or silkscreened onto the lining. I've collected a bunch of photos of vintage M1951 coats so I'm basing that on photos of actual jackets.

 

[Peacoat]

With a DSA 100 suffix, followed by additional numbers not related to dating, I would say this is a post 1966 jacket.

1966 saw "DSA 100" only with no dating code or other numbers or letters.

Normally from 1967 through 1977 the dating code followed DSA 100, but there are some DSA 100 labels, such as the above, with a suffix code that has nothing to do with the date of manufacture. These relate to the defense contract or a manufacture's code. I don't know if these were prevalent in early 1967 or if they occurred throughout 1967 to 1977. I would suspect the former.

Too bad @Atticus Finch is no longer active, as he also has a good grasp of these codes. Don't know if he would know more than the above, but he might.
.

 

[Doctor Damage]

 

[Peacoat]

With a DSA 100 suffix, followed by additional numbers not related to dating, I would say this is a post 1966 jacket.

1966 saw "DSA 100" only with no dating code or other numbers or letters.

Normally from 1967 through 1977 the dating code followed DSA 100, but there are some DSA 100 labels, such as the above, with a suffix code that has nothing to do with the date of manufacture. These relate to the defense contract or a manufacture's code. I don't know if these were prevalent in early 1967 or if they occurred throughout 1967 to 1977. I would suspect the former.

Too bad @Atticus Finch is no longer active, as he also has a good grasp of these codes. Don't know if he would know more than the above, but he might.
.

Unfortunately, this pattern isn't always followed. My M-65 issued to me in January, 1966 has a tag that reads:

DSA-100-58-C-0867

So, who knows the contract date for the date of the jacket posted above by @Doctor Damage? Although the tag seems to indicate post 1966, as noted by Doc, there are no epaulettes on the shoulders. That may indicate an earlier jacket, or it may indicate that the epaulettes were eliminated as a cost cutting measure during VN. Whatever the reason, they were back on by 1983 as my camo jacket of that year has them.

 

[Doctor Damage]

So, who knows the contract date for the date of the jacket posted above by @Doctor Damage? Although the tag seems to indicate post 1966, as noted by Doc, there are no epaulettes on the shoulders. That may indicate an earlier jacket, or it may indicate that the epaulettes were eliminated as a cost cutting measure during VN. Whatever the reason, they were back on by 1983 as my camo jacket of that year has them.

I've got one of those heavily illustrated Japanese clothing books which has a page for the M65 field jackets. They show what they refer to as "1st", "2nd", and "3rd" versions. The 1st has no shoulder straps but the 2nd and 3rd jackets has them. The 1st one has the same tags as the one posted above: the large instruction tag with the much smaller "coat man's" tag sewn above it and left justified. The 2nd one they don't show the tag, and the 3rd is a later Alpha with the big all-in-one tag.

I've just taken a glance through my photo file and there are some interesting tags in there which I'll post this evening. I think we might be able to come up with a general typology for the tags.

 

[Doctor Damage]

tags from the 1960s and early 1970s
these jackets all had shoulder straps
all but one of these tags were accompanied by a separate "instruction" tag