We asked Dag (Head of Textile at NOVRITSCH) about the new Modular Ghillie, some of its features, and the development process. Since the new Ghillie was fully developed in-house, there is a number of features worth noticing.
We knew which materials to use…
As Dag mentioned, the Modular Ghillie Suit uses the same base: a military-grade mesh material you can see inside backpacks or more old-school plate carriers like the CIRAS by Eagle Industries. “It is sturdy and abrasion resistant compared to other mesh materials, which is why we chose it,” he adds.
“The second material we used is 100% Polyester on the 3D leaves. This material is easy to finish using the laser cut method, meaning it doesn’t add much extra cost for the customer. Also, the colour consistency of the material is a great added benefit. We also developed our own leaf form, which was done to lower the waste of materials. Believe it or not, just a different shape of the leaves allowed us to reduce waste by 20 %.“
Dag: “The new Ghillie completes the line-up.”
This Ghillie is an addition to the existing NOVRITSCH line-up. Where does it stand?
“Well, throughout the years we aimed to have 3 ghillie suits. One for the Entry level – a combination of 3D Shoulder Piece with the 3D Ghillie Boonie. For the intermediate, there is the original 3D Ghillie Suit. That leaves the most experienced group of Ghillie users for the Modular Ghillie Suit.
The new Ghillie differs from both our existing suits and the competition’s Ghillies. Still, it combines the lessons learned from our previous ghillie suit and projects the feedback from our customers. So, for example, people asked us for the ability to attach the hood to the shoulder piece, which, however, would make the original shoulder piece way more expensive. And since we wanted to keep the shoulder piece as an entry-level gear piece without raising the price, we decided to put this feature to the new ghillie suit.
Long story short, with the new Modular Ghillie Suit, we wanted to go all out on the features people wanted. Therefore it can be worn as a shoulder piece, you can attach both hoods to it (the new MGS one and the 3D Ghillie one), you can wear it with a boonie, and so much more. All these options are the reason why we named it Modular. Really, it’s up to you what you combine it with.”
What was the greatest design challenge?
“Definitely sizes! You see since we sell our suits across the globe, each country has different sizing standards. We wanted to do a suit for all of them, meaning we had the decision to make: Either have size variants and risk running out of stock for some or design a suit that is multi-sized with as much adjustability as possible. We went with the second option.
By adding adjustment cords and tweaking the design, we can say it’s suitable for most people. Of course, there will always be extra big or extra small guys and girls who might have trouble fielding the suit, but for 95% of people, it can be adjusted perfectly.”
How long does it take to design a Ghillie?
“From start to finish, we worked for 2 years on it. Mainly because the MGS is entirely our own design. Also, we measured many people around the office to see the average size of most airsofters. So the first prototype suit was done 5 months after the start of the project.”
What was the biggest difference between the prototype and the final version?
“One of the more notable changes is how you remove the front of the jacket to make it into a shoulder piece. The attachment system was weaved through the jacket in the first prototype, which proved ineffective. In addition, it took too long to take on and off in the field, so we changed it to a snap button attachment.”
We thank Dag for his insight. If you are interested in the complete list of features, we definitely recommend checking out the individual pages for the suit:
