By digging around in the character_f.pbo I noticed there were additional textures for the rebreather including one for OPFOR. Looking at the config (\characters_f\a3\characters_f\config.bin) it appears V_RebreatherIR was intended to use the OPFOR texture (diver_equip_iran_co.paa).
V_RebreatherIR uses V_RebreatherB as a base class which states the hidden selections as "camo2". When I put this in my own config version I didnt work. However when I removed the 2 the texture works fine.