Viper UBAC Special Operations Shirt
With the advent and wide-spread use of body armour came a new type of shirt: the Under Body Armour Clothing or UBAC for short. The idea is simple; if you’ll be wearing a vest it may not always be comfortable to wear it overtop your normal shirt or jacket. So the solution is simple: an undershirt with sturdy sleeves.
Viper UBAC shirt
And that is what it is: a moisture-wicking CoolMax out of 100% polyester ensures you do not get too much heat buildup; while padded poly-cotton sleeves provide adequate protection to be comfortable in rough terrain. The padding is split in three sections; shoulders, elbow and forearm. On the arms there is a pocket with Velcro for attaching patches, and on the forearms there are small pockets for small items.
The lower parts of the sleeves can be removed, undoing the elbow and forearm padding, yielding a T-shirt.
The Viper UBAC Special Operations Shirt is a relatively cheap UBAC, and I figured I’d buy it to see if it is any good in hot weather conditions. The moisture-wicking works quite well, although like with any other synthetic material, you’ll stink quite rapidly. I wonder if a similar shirt with Merino wool would perform better (it would, however, be significantly more expensive).
Also, in the situations in which you may be wearing such shirts, I’m not sure if you’d like to have so much synthetic material around your body, as it can catch fire or melt. Another point where Merino wool could provide a solution.
The sizing is OK, but the neck section is made for people with very thin necks; there is no way I can close the zipper without choking myself to death, which is a serious drawback obviously.
It is available in DPM (woodland), Desert tan and black.
Conclusion
Nice for the price, but the tight neck literally kills this shirt.