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Universal Camouflage Pattern

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Universal Camouflage Pattern
A sample of the UCP pattern
TypeMilitary camouflage pattern
Place of originUnited States
Service history
In service2005–2019 (U.S. Army)[a][b]
Used byState Defense Forces
See Users for non-U.S. users
Wars(In U.S. service):
War in Afghanistan
Iraq War
(In Non-U.S. service):
Mexican drug war
Insurgency in Northern Chad
Second Nagorno-Karabakh War
Syrian civil war
Yemeni civil war
Myanmar civil war[3]
Russo-Ukrainian War
Production history
Designed2004
Produced2004–present
VariantsUniversal Camouflage Pattern Delta (UCP–D)[4]

The Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP) is a digital camouflage pattern formerly used by the United States Army in their Army Combat Uniform.[5][6]

Laboratory and field tests from 2003 to 2004 showed a pattern named "All-Over Brush" to provide the best concealment of the patterns tested.[7] At the end of the trials, Desert Brush was selected as the winner over 12 other experimental patterns.[note 1][note 2][note 3] [8][9][10] [11] The winning Desert Brush pattern was not used as the final Universal pattern. Instead, U.S. Army leadership utilized pixelated patterns of Canadian CADPAT and U.S. Marine Corps MARPAT, then recolored them based on three universal colors developed in the Army's 2003 to 2004 tests, to be called UCP with significantly less disruptive capability than either of its prior familial patterns.[7][12][13] The final UCP was then adopted without field testing against other patterns.[7]

Soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan questioned the UCP's effectiveness as a concealment method. Some felt that it was endangering their missions and their lives.[7] In response, the U.S. Army conducted several studies to find a modification or replacement for the standard issue pattern.[14] In July 2014,[15][16] the Army announced that Operational Camouflage Pattern would replace all UCP-patterned ACU uniforms by the end of September 2019.[17][18] However, UCP remains in service in limited capacities, such as on some cold weather overgear and older body armor.[1]

Selection

[edit]
Main article: U.S. Army universal camouflage trials

In May 2001 to June 2004,[8] the United States Army's Universal Camouflage For The Future Warrior trials were a uniform camouflage enhancement program, to at first make environment-specific patterns, to then later make a pattern that would mask the wearer in all environments.[8][9][10] The disadvantage of an all-in-one pattern is that it has to account for too many factors at once, such as amount of visual clutter[19] (disruptiveness–Woodland dark and high contrast, dense foliage branches,[20][21] Desert sparse, bright and low contrast terrain and Urban close-range geometric straight-edge terrain of buildings and houses[22]), and at nighttime specifically, high reflectance variation when viewed through night vision devices (Woodland environment's leaves extremely high reflectance versus Desert's grains of sand and rocks' lower reflectance).[20][21][23]

Development

[edit]

In 2002, three patterns were developed, called All-Over Brush, Track, and Shadowline. For each pattern, there were four color combinations, which corresponded to a specific type of terrain, however, all four patterns used tan as their base color.[9][10]

There were 15 evaluations total, which took place at locations across the contiguous United States.[9][10]

Phase I

[edit]
A 2002 U.S. Army pattern popularity poll, unrelated to scientific data used during the trials

In late 2002, the camouflage patterns were rated on their blending, brightness, contrast, and detection by U.S. Army soldiers, during the daytime, and also at night using Near-Infrared (NIR) night vision devices. During Phase I of testing, only daytime evaluations were conducted. Due to the more time efficient and cost-effective method of printing via inkjet sprayers, colors of the patterns were adjusted to how they would be viewed when under NIR conditions.[note 4] [10] Inkjet reactive and acid dyes[24] are not NIR compliant. For the remainder of the phases, production printing with regular dyes and mechanical rollers were used.[9][10][24] Scorpion (Unmodified) was included in Phase I of the trials.[note 5][20][21]

Following testing, the Shadowline pattern was eliminated, along with the urban and desert-urban colorways of All-Over Brush. All four of the Track patterns were accepted along with All-Over Brush's woodland and desert colorways.[9][10]

Phases II and III

[edit]
Finalized Urban Track (4th place), prototyped first between late 2002 to early 2003
Finalized Desert Brush (1st place)

In 2003, the patterns were then modified and tested alongside a "Contractor-Developed Mod" pattern, Scorpion, developed in conjunction with Crye Precision. Phase II's near-infrared nighttime testing determined that black, medium gray, and medium tan were the only colors that gave acceptable performance.[note 6][9][10]

Phase IV (System level)

[edit]
UCFW trials Phase IV contenders (not ordered by placement) in early 2004. To the right is Urban Track II, predecessor of UCP

In 2004, all four remaining patterns, Desert Brush, Woodland Track Mod, Scorpion Mod, and Urban Track were then tested alongside each other in two sets of evaluations in woodland, desert, and urban environments. Full Future Force Warrior ensembles were fabricated for testing.[9][10]

Results

[edit]

The Desert Brush design received the best overall mean daytime visual rating. The Contractor-Developed Mod pattern received highest rating in woodland environments, but low ratings in desert and urban environments. Urban Track was generally the 3rd or 4th worst performer at each site, but was the best performer in nighttime environments. Infrared testing showed negligible differences in the performance of the four patterns. Natick rated the patterns from best to worst as: Desert Brush, Woodland Track Mod, Contractor-Developed Mod (Scorpion), and Urban Track.[8][9][10]

Color selection

[edit]
Two soldiers in 2005 wearing the Army Combat Uniform in the Universal Camouflage Pattern

The color scheme of the UCP is composed of tan, gray, and sage green (officially named Desert Sand 500, Urban Gray 501, and Foliage Green 502).[25] The pattern is notable for its elimination of the color black.[26] Justification given for the omission of black was that black is a color not commonly found in nature.[27] Pure black viewed through night vision goggles can appear extremely dark and create an undesirable high-contrast image.[citation needed]

Controversy

[edit]
U.S. soldiers in May 2017 wearing the ACU in UCP
U.S. Army soldiers in May 2006, wearing the Universal Camouflage Pattern in Kunar Province, Afghanistan

The U.S. Army incorrectly reported to the media that the basis for the UCP was the Urban Track pattern,[citation needed] which had been modified through the removal of black from the pattern and pixelated and then reverted in the interest of effectiveness.[7] Pattern comparisons subsequently established that the information provided by the U.S. Army was incorrect, and that the pattern was simply a three-colored version of MARPAT, a derivative of the Canadian CADPAT scheme. No evidence has been presented by the U.S. Army that the new UCP pattern had undergone proper field testing.[7] In later tests conducted by the Natick Soldier Center, results indicated that UCP did not fare well against other multi-environment patterns.[28][29][30][permanent dead link‍]

Following building criticism of the poor effectiveness of the pattern in most terrains in the Afghan and Middle Eastern theaters of operations, the use of the pattern was discussed within the U.S. Congress. A bill passed by Congress in 2009 ordered the Department of Defense to "take immediate action to provide combat uniforms to personnel deployed to Afghanistan with a camouflage pattern that is suited to the environment of Afghanistan."[31][32][29]

In the interim, the Army conducted a brief in-country test of replacements for use in Afghanistan that included "UCP Delta", a variant of UCP that added coyote brown, and the commercial pattern MultiCam,[33] which had been created by Crye Associates and was based on their original Scorpion pattern from 2002. MultiCam was quickly selected and issued to all troops deployed to Afghanistan.

Replacement

[edit]
Main article: Operational Camouflage Pattern

In 2014, the United States Army announced the replacement of UCP.[34] On 31 July 2014, the Army formally announced that a modified version of the original Scorpion pattern, Scorpion W2, had been chosen as the new Operational Camouflage Pattern (OCP), which would begin being issued on uniforms in summer 2015. Authorization of UCP uniforms ended on 1 October 2019,[17][18][35] though still sees some limited usage on other gear such as some body armor and cold weather overgear.

As the Army began phasing out UCP, many state defense forces began adopting it as their uniform.[36][37]

Users

[edit]
Indian Air Force camouflage uniform adopted in 2022
Serbian gendarmes wearing UCP-patterned BDUs

Current

Former

[edit]

See also

[edit]

Other CADPAT-derived digital camouflage:

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ Some limited usage from 2004 to 2005 for prototype testing.
  2. ^ Discontinued on uniforms in 2019, now only remains in service in limited capacities such as on some cold weather equipment, overgear, and older body armor.[1][2]
  3. ^ Some limited usage from 2004 to 2005 for prototype testing.
  4. ^ Discontinued on uniforms in 2019, now only remains in service in limited capacities such as on some cold weather equipment, overgear, and older body armor.[1][61]
  1. ^ EXPERIMENTAL PATTERNS BY ENVIRONMENTAL CATEGORY ONLY - Desert Brush won over 12 other experimental patterns; Desert Brush beat: (BRUSH): (1)Woodland I-II, (X)not Desert I-III, it won, (2)Urban I, (3)Desert-Urban I, (TRACK): (4)Woodland I-III, (5)Desert I-II, (6)Urban I-IIIA/B, (7)Desert-Urban I-II, (SHADOWLINE): (8)Woodland, (9)Desert, (10)Urban, (11)Desert-Urban, (SCORPION): (12)Transitional/Multi-Environment I-II; – (dugas.ppt slides 7, 14,15, 19)
  2. ^ EXPERIMENTAL PATTERNS BY EACH COLORWAY, MINUS PHASE I INKJETS - Desert Brush II won over 15 other experimental camouflage pattern colorways; Desert Brush beat: (BRUSH): (1)Woodland I-II, (X)not Desert I-II, it won, (2)Desert III, (3)Urban I, (4)Desert-Urban I, (TRACK): (5)Woodland I-II, (6)Woodland III, (7)Desert I-II, (8)Urban I-II (9)Urban IIIA/B(both look super similar), (10)Desert-Urban I-II, (SHADOWLINE): (11)Woodland, (12)Desert, (13)Urban, (14)Desert-Urban, (SCORPION): (15)Transitional/Multi-Environment I-II; – (dugas.ppt slides 7, 14,15, 19)
  3. ^ STANDARD PATTERNS IN ADDITION TO EXPERIMENTAL PATTERNS BY EACH COLORWAY, MINUS PHASE I INKJETS - Desert Brush II won over 19 (20 w/ experimental MARPAT Urban, 19 w/o) other patterns; Desert Brush beat: (BRUSH): (1)Woodland I-II, (X)not Desert I-II, it won, (2)Desert III, (3)Urban I, (4)Desert-Urban I, (TRACK): (5)Woodland I-II, (6)Woodland III, (7)Desert I-II, (8)Urban I-II (9)Urban IIIA/B(both look super similar), (10)Desert-Urban I-II, (SHADOWLINE): (11)Woodland, (12)Desert, (13)Urban, (14)Desert-Urban, (SCORPION): (15)Transitional/Multi-Environment I-II(no idea whats different from mod vs unmod); (Std): (16)US Woodlands, (17)Tricolor Desert, (18)MARPAT Woodland, (19)MARPAT Desert, (? 20)MARPAT Urban – (dugas.ppt slides 7, 14,15, 19)
  4. ^ "From Phase I to II, inkjets were printed to incorporate NIR attributes." - (dugas.ppt slide 16 in speaker notes)
  5. ^ "“Crye” (Scorpion) is the camouflage intended for all environments that... was included in evaluations." - ln 54-56 of Better blend (The Warrior article) website archive, not PDF, Nov 2002 (before start of early 2003 tests) full: "“Crye” is the camouflage intended for all environments that’s now being modeled by Objective Force Warrior and was included in evaluations."
  6. ^ (dugas.ppt slide 16)

References

[edit]
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  18. ^ a b "New OCP Uniform Fielding Update". Archived from the original on 1 July 2016. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
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  22. ^ "Urban Camouflage". The Warrior Magazine (-!-) (Webarchive = Less Ads) (-!-). NSC Public Affairs Office. May 1996. Archived from the original on 11 February 2011. Retrieved 29 August 2024 – via Global Security Website.
  23. ^ Cramer, Guy (11 June 2013). "Why US4CES?". www.hyperstealth.com. (See Spectral Varieties Over Land data chart nearly half way through the article). Archived from the original on 22 June 2013. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
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  25. ^ "Update of Army NSC Airdrop/Air Delivery Equipment Color Transition". Natick Soldier Center (NSC) website. Archived from the original on 12 November 2005. Retrieved 26 December 2024.
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Bibliography

[edit]
  • Larson, Eric H. (2021). Camouflage: International Ground Force Patterns, 1946–2017. Barnsley: Pen & Sword. ISBN 9781526739537.
[edit]
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