d'Afrique (Army of Africa). Some new equipment was introduced by Vichy for the "armistice army" limited to 100,000 soldiers on French soil. The old French uniforms were progressively replaced in the Free French forces by much more modern British or American uniforms, which were progressively withdrawn but still in use until the end of the fifties. Cold War era The first French battledress was introduced in 1945 and was made of a heavy cotton duck, sometimes taken from old German stocks and based on the same design as the British 1937 pattern. The French army introduced a new woolen serge model in 1946 looking like the British 1937 pattern but with exposed buttons. Although it was intended to be a field uniform, it was mainly used as a winter walking-out uniform until the late 1950s. However, the armée de l'air used it in its dark blue version, until 2010. A proper cotton combat uniform was introduced in 1947 (Modèle 47) based on a jacket inspired by the US 1943 pattern and loose trousers with two big cargo pockets on each side of the thighs. The same year, a special uniform, also called Modèle 47 was issued to airborne units composed of a large jacket with two breast and two hip cargo pockets. Originally, both "Modèle 47"s were issued in khaki. From 1951 on, the paratroopers' uniform and, in a lesser proportion, the standard Modèle 47 were issued in a three-colour camouflage pattern which gave the uniform the nickname tenue léopard (leopard uniform), but became better known as the TAP47 lizard pattern. It was issued in many colour variants (colourways), saw war service in Indochina and in North-Africa, and was frequently copied by nations in those areas. The last official issue was the 1956 variant, but its use continued until the end of the war in Algeria. The tenue léopard was a symbol of elite units and was issued only to Foreign Legion and French airborne units. Therefore, it was withdrawn in 1962officially, to give a standard uniform to the whole of the French army but, less officially, to punish those elite troops which had not behaved well during the conflict. The Modèle 1947 paratroopers uniform continued to be produced in grey-green material (water repellent and herringbone) until 1969, when it was replaced by the Modèle 1964. On another side, the camouflaged uniform was still in use by the French forces