Purpose -This paper seeks to report an experimental investigation on the tearing and tensile strength behaviour of military khaki fabrics from grey to finished process. Design/methodology/approach -Uses three different types of military fabric (3 up 1 down twill), differing in type of constituent yarns (ring/rotor) in order to test their tearing and testing strength behaviour. Findings -Tearing strength of fabric is found to be very much susceptible to change due to the process variation, while fabric tensile strength is relatively less sensitive. Ring spun yarn fabric shows higher tearing strength compared with rotor spun yarn fabric. However, the difference in their tearing strength reduces substantially as the process approaches towards the finished state. On the other hand, rotor spun yarn fabric exhibits higher tensile strength along the warp. Tearing strength along bias direction is in between warp and weft wise tearing strength; whereas tensile strength is lowest while tested along the bias direction. During the grey to finished process, tear strength falls at bleaching and dyeing, and particularly drops in strength is being more at the dyeing stage. Originality/value -This study has investigated the tearing and tensile strength behaviour of military khaki fabrics from grey to finished state, developing understanding of the impact of different processes on the tearing strength, so that fabric of the required tear strength can be developed with process modification.