Vitals

Chuck Norris as Scott McCoy, U.S. Army Delta Force commando

Beirut, Summer 1985

Film: The Delta Force
Release Date: February 14, 1986
Director: Menahem Golan
Costume Designer: Tami Mor

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Following my latest post about air travel calamities, I’m now turning my focus to Menahem Golem’s action flick The Delta Force—released 40 years ago tomorrow on Valentine’s Day 1986. Inspired by the real-life hijacking of TWA Flight 847 the previous year, The Delta Force capitalized on Chuck Norris’ rising fame by featuring the actor as Scott McCoy, deputy commander of a U.S. Army Delta Force commando unit.

Captain McCoy resigned five years earlier after the failure of Operation Eagle Claw and has spent half a decade ranching in quiet solitude. After TWA Flight 847 American Travelways Flight 282 is hijacked is hijacked by Abdul Rafai (Robert Forster), McCoy’s former commander Colonel Nick Alexander (Lee Marvin) recalls him to duty with a promotion to Major—and a flight to Beirut, where he meets with local resistance groups and ends up in an Uzi battle against Kalashnikov-wielding terrorists chasing them.

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What’d He Wear?

In addition to safari style informing mainstream casual-wear through the 1970s, it also became a favorite among journalists—particularly photojournalists—who appreciated the balance of light-wearing durability with plenty of pockets for extra film and camera gear. Thus, Scott McCoy aptly wears a classic khaki cotton drill safari shirt-jacket as part of his cover as a CBC-TV journalist, accented with a Canadian flag pin through the right side of his long point collar.

McCoy’s safari shirt-jacket has six large tan plastic buttons up the front placket, reinforced with a full belt that closes through a taupe leather-covered buckle. This belted waist separates the two box-pleated chest pockets (with squared, single-button flaps) from the larger bellows pockets over the hips—covered with non-fastening pockets. The shoulders are detailed with epaulets, continuing safari clothing’s military DNA while functionally serving to keep gear like slings, straps, or satchels from falling off a wearer’s shoulder.

I would have expected McCoy to wear jeans like his colleague Pete Peterson (William Wallace), but his pants lack denim’s signature flat-felled out-seams so he appears to simply be wearing dark-blue cotton flat-front trousers finished with plain-hemmed bottoms that have a full break over the tops of his low-top sneakers. These appear to be all-black Reebok Classic model with black leather uppers, oxford-laced with flat black woven laces. As later seen in a close-up when subduing Abdul Rafai, the shoes’ branding is either considerably subdued or was removed.

Three months before Top Gun‘s release skyrocketed Ray-Ban sales, Chuck Norris peered through his own gold-framed aviator sunglasses in The Delta Force. McCoy’s shades are tinted with amber lenses and follow the same curved teardrop-shaped frame.

Secured to his left wrist on an olive nylon NATO-style pass-through strap, McCoy’s field watch closely follows the U.S. military’s MIL-W-46374 specifications, though the manufacturer’s markings on the dial suggest a commercial watch like the Timex Camper.

The U.S. Army published the MIL-W-46374 specifications in October 1964 for a lightweight and durable yet ultimately “disposable” field watch for personnel, often characterized by small plastic cases and 12/24-hour markers. The first two iterations were produced by Benrus, Hamilton, and Westclox, but the seven-jewel MIL-W-46374B revision remains the U.S. military’s only watch to date produced by Timex. After the larger MIL-W-46374C revision introduced in 1983 shifted to Stocker and Yale, Timex reimagined the trusty yet inexpensive design into its civilian-based Camper, popularized as the “MacGyver” after Richard Dean Anderson’s resourceful agent wore it throughout the first four seasons of the eponymous ’80s TV show.

The MIL-W-46374 and Timex Camper share inexpensive 33mm one-piece, fixed-lug olive plastic cases and matte black dials printed with white Arabic numerals: up to 12 along the outside, then a 24-hour ring. However, mil-spec MIL-W-46374 watches never included a manufacturer’s name on the dial, while McCoy’s dial features a single white printed line above the hands and two lines below it, coordinating to contemporary Timex Campers that said “TIMEX” at the top and then two wavy lines above the words “WATER RESISTANT” below them, informing the Camper’s resistance to depths up to 30 meters.

After several iterations of the Camper through the 1990s, Timex relaunched the original design as the MK1 in 2016—maintaining the original aesthetic but with a quartz movement and Indiglo function that wasn’t present in the original 1980s-era Camper. Though we don’t see McCoy’s watch as clearly as the olive PVD-coated Heuer ref. 510.502 worn by his superior officer, Colonel Nick Alexander (Lee Marvin), the dial design has me confident enough to assume he wears an original Timex Camper.

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The Gun

In Beirut, Greek Orthodox hieromonk Father Nicholas (Shaike Ophir) arms McCoy and Pete with Mini Uzi submachine guns, which had already been established as Delta Force’s go-to assault weapon. Although the Uzi had been in production since the 1950s, the smaller Mini Uzi wasn’t launched until 1980, bursting into mainstream cinema six years later in The Delta Force as its Israeli production made these weapons readily available to the film’s armorers.

Like the full-size Uzi designed by IDF officer Uziel Gal, the Mini Uzi featured three modes—safe, semi-automatic, and fully automatic—and a range of calibers, with 9x19mm Parabellum the most prevalent alongside .45 ACP, .22 LR, and .41 Action Express—the latter two available via conversion kits that changed the barrel, bolt, and magazine. While the full-size Uzi with its 10.2-inch barrel weighs nearly eight pounds and measures 18.5 inches long with its stock collapsed, the Mini Uzi’s stock can be collapsed to a more manageable 14.2-inch overall length that weighs less than eight pounds. The shorter bolt increases the Mini Uzi’s automatic rate of fire to 950 pounds per minute, spat out at 375 m/s.

The same year that The Delta Force featured the Mini Uzi on screen for the first time, IMI Systems also developed the even smaller Micro Uzi with a 4.6-inch barrel that shortened the overall length to under one foot and weighed just over three pounds.

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What to Imbibe

Though he understandably doesn’t drink it during his mission, there’s enough Budweiser through the rest of The Delta Force to make this all-American lager the obvious choice to accompany your viewing party.

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How to Get the Look

Scott McCoy’s safari-informed style channels the post-Vietnam, late Cold War moment when commando utility and photojournalist pragmatism briefly shared the same visual language.

• Khaki cotton drill safari shirt-jacket with point collar, shoulder epaulets, six-button front placket, belted waist (with taupe leather-covered buckle), two box-pleated chest pockets (with single-button flaps), two bellows hip pockets (with flaps), and button cuffs
• Dark navy-blue cotton flat-front trousers with plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black leather oxford-laced sneakers
  • Reebok Classic
• Gold-framed aviator-style sunglasses
• Olive plastic 33mm field watch with fixed lugs, matte black 12/24-hour dial, and olive nylon NATO-style strap
  • Timex Camper

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

I have to extend an honorable style mention to Robert Forster as the lead hijacker in his off-white suit, bright red striped shirt, aviators, digital watch, and white loafers. It’s a crazy look for the job at hand, and I’d be compelled to write more comprehensively about it… if I didn’t feel icky writing about a murderous terrorist based on a real person.