Rothco Special Ops Tactical Softshell Review

With the temperature outside dropping, now is the perfect time to pick up a Rothco men’s Special Ops tactical soft shell jacket and be ready for a cold winter, we actually snagged ours for the review over at Amazon.com. However they’re available at most retailers that carry tactical gear. After some intense review in real world usage over the span of a month and a half, the Rothco soft shell jacket had everything we looked for in a proper soft shell jacket.

The main points we look for in a jacket are: first quality, how practical the jack is to the user, comfort in material and of course retaining and venting heat, and lastly how appealing the jacket looks. I must say the jacket is not a made in USA, however the quality would suggest differently with solid construction in everything from the stitching, the durable materials, and a lack of the appearance of glue or any adhesives.

We used Rothco’s soft shell jacket in numerous conditions for practicality, from hitting the dirt during  range day exercises, hiking in different in close to freezing temperatures with just a long sleeve undershirt, and even running every day errands.

Moreover, the jacket has a total of 8 pockets, two on the left arm, one on the right shoulder, one on each side of the front torso with two (2) smaller pockets for flashlight or pen, one on each side on inner front lower torso, rear two-way compartment / vent.

Each of the main pockets (except the inner pockets) have an inlet enabling the use of headphones or coms to be ran through. It also has Velco attachments for patches on both arms.

The comfort of the Rothco soft shell jacket is optimal, the make up is 100% polyester making it water resistant with and fleece inner lining helping with breathability. The collar has a removable hood if the user desires to take it off to slim down the collars look. Another feature we really liked was the elastic wrist straps with adjustable Velcro helped with the retention to keep the sleeves right where we wanted them.

If the user feels a need to vent out some of the heat with out opening the front zipper, because of gear impeding them to do so for example, aside from the aforementioned rear vent/storage there are vents on both sides of the jacket. Located under each arm is a zipper operated vent, I found these vents extremely useful when it got a bit hot while hiking and to avoid sweat in extremely cold conditions.

The Rothco soft shell comes in three different color options: Black, OD green (depending on the light can look a bit like foliage), Coyote Tan (in different light can have a greenish hue) and Brown. The style of this line of jackets had everything we were looking for in a jacket with out the extreme cost of similar jackets from different makers.

Conclusion
Over all this jacket had everything we were looking for; I personally liked the Rothco spec ops soft shell jacket so much that I had to get all three colors. Some things to note is that none of the arm pockets appear to have any space to hold a smart phone. Another thing to note was that the size of the arm sleeves seems just a hair long for me but it was not really a big deal considering there are sturdy Velcro straps to hold the sleeve in place. For the price this jacket makes a great range day jacket, hiking jacket or for everyday use.

You can purchase the Rothco Special Ops Tactical Softshell at Amazon.com for $80 to $90 depending on the size you need. Check out Rothco.com to see other products in their lineup.

Check out all of our past reviews at our Reviews Page, and a few more images of the Rothco Special Ops jacket below.