Portugal

Portuguese development of camouflage patterns for military usage were strongly influenced by the French tenue du leopard or lizard patterns. Indeed, the original Portuguese design seems to have been copied directly from a sample of French fabric, probably from one of the early TAP Mle 1947 airborne smocks. Interestingly, however, whereas the French chose to orient the stripes of their camouflage in a strictly horizontal manner, the Portuguese designs (from the earliest to the most current) have always had a definite vertical orientation. Whether this was an intentional design feature, intended to differentiate the Portuguese pattern from that of its French neighbors, or unintended, is unknown.

Portugal fought a lengthy and taxing series of campaigns in her African colonies attempting to stave off insurgencies being waged by largely Marxist idealists. These African wars ran from 1961 to 1974, during which time most of the Portuguese elite units deployed there were clad in camouflage uniforms. Although the standard combat uniform remained plain olive green, the association of camouflage with elite unit status was retained long after Portugal granted independence to her former possessions in Angola, Guine, and Mozambique. Well into the 1990s, Portuguese Commandos, Paratroopers, Marines and Special Forces could still be observed wearing essentially the same camouflage uniform worn by their predecessors 30 years earlier, setting them distinctly apart from more conventional units. Nevertheless, circa the year 2000 all units of the Portuguese Armed Forces were outfitted in a single camouflage pattern, which remains standard issue today.