Adaptive camouflage for a dismounted soldier is not a single material problem. A fabric may alter its reflectance, reduce microwave transmission or manage heat in a laboratory and still be unsuitable as military equipment once it has to be cut, stitched, powered, worn, washed, repaired and reproduced in quantity. The converse is also true: an integrated garment can be demonstrated in the field without having passed through the authority-specific steps that turn a prototype into a qualified and accepted item of equipment. For European rearmament the relevant question is therefore not whether laboratories can produce unusual electromagnetic responses. It is whether Europe has the connected capabilities needed to preserve those responses as materials become garments and garments become repeatable, supportable products, and which conditions still separate a tested demonstrator from a qualified article. Two programmes funded by the European Union provide a useful record for answering that question, because they connect functional materials, textile engineering, signature measurement, electronics, military users and manufacturers within one development chain, and because enough of the intermediate evidence is public to distinguish demonstrated capability from assumed readiness.