Today, Things Change For The Better. This photograph was originally published on 13 August, 2009. Unfortunately, the issue it depicts didn’t get fixed until today, almost six years later.
Today finally marks the beginning of the end for the poorly named Universal Camouflage pattern which has afflicted our Army for the past 11 years. You can see it in this photo, worn by the Soldier who seems to glow, even in daylight. On the other hand is the future, seen in the picture on the properly camouflaged Soldier who is wearing MultiCam, which the vast majority of Soldiers will be wearing for the near term in the form of FRACUs in the Operation Enduring Freedom Camouflage Pattern.
(US Army Photo by Staff Sgt. Gina Vaile-Nelson, 133rd MPAD)
Should have included the photo of the UCP-clad soldier hiding on a sofa. It’s the best example of someone actually blending into their environment I’ve ever seen with that pattern.
SERIOUSLY, WTH were they thinking when they designed that stuff? Were we going to be fighting in the matrix? Were we going to assault funeral homes? What was with that junk? I was one of the first classes through Sand Hill that was issued that pattern, and even back then we realized that it was complete crap. Yeah, you would blend in with the mirrage effect on a hot road at 100 yards, but that was it. (and you could seriously hide an entire army on the pavement as long as it was 95 degrees or better. Completely invisible. Take one step off the road however, and you’d be spotted instantly.)
http://www.popularairsoft.com/files/images/acu_sofa.jpg
Have you seen Restrepo?
They seemed to blend quite well there on the hills with UCP. Sure they got their asses kicked once they moved into woodland area which could have been they UCP’s fault.
Also UCP works very well to break up silhouette and at longer distances in any environment really than most pattern I have seen.
That said it is the worst pattern ever in woodland areas. However Multicam is not really that great either in woodland areas. It is basically too much khaki and the greens are not right. Only reason it works is because there are a lot of colors in the pattern and thus looks like something that could be in nature.
Hey just look at the picture in this SSD post, it proves my point. The UCP officer sticks out, but the multicam on the sniper also sticks out. Just not as much.
It would have been better to give up the universal types of patterns completely and just go for a good woodland pattern that is just not too dark like M81 woodland is and is tweaked for NIR. In urban operations you collect dust anyway on the uniform and will blend in better as you go on.
The only reason why they blended in is probably because their ACU were so filthy by that point they could be wearing snow camo and still not stand out. Still, blending in is not the purpose of camouflage, it’s to break up your outline and being so dusty and dirty the pattern was probably no longer distinct and it no longer broke up their outline so that anybody might notice them because they see a human shaped blob out there. But that doesn’t matter when you’re manning a base, the bad guys already know where you are anyway. Besides, you shouldn’t have to roll around in the dirt and sand in order to get your cammies to blend in with the environment better, a light dusting maybe but not to the point that you have to do with UCP.
The uniforms weren’t dirty to the point that they became effective. Rocky type environments like the area they were working in on Restrepo are actually appropriate for UCP. There are photos of UCP donned troops climbing Afghan mountains that blend in.
http://meroveo.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/acu-mountain.jpg
Not saying UCP was good. Universal patterns never are (ironic, Scorpion/Multicam is presently the army’s universal solution). Sometimes the highly emotional (not you riceball, you’re pretty level headed) response to UCP creates faults in an already very faulty camo pattern.
As for the ACU development, I was working in the Battle Lab at Benning during its development. We were very involved in looking at FCS and one of the environments we were directed to “wargame” was an urban area in a former Soviet republic (think drab GRAY Soviet style construction). The intel assessments at the time (and for quite awhile before) were predicting dramatic increases in urban environment fighting. I was told (unverified) this had an impact on color selection. Who knows.
The story I’ve heard that they examined woodland, a desert pattern, and an urban pattern under night vision and picked the color from each that worked best and applied it to a CAD/MARPAT screen and got UCP from that.
We were sold that it was green, gray and tan, and that “black is not found in nature”, but that was justification after the fact.
Best guess for the palette is that it was pulled from the Urban Track Pattern, consisting of dark gray, medium gray, black and white.
The pattern was pixelated and black was deleted due to high contrast in NIR, but was not tested before adoption.
I’d love a computer generated UCP pattern sample large enough to get the repeat rate for fabric printing, and substituting actual green and tan.
If anyone knows a source I’d appreciate it.
I still don’t see how that camo was approved and how thise responsible aren’t in jail. Were they even on our side. And the pt belt WITH UCP was just like oh my god what was the point?
There are a lot of people that should be in jail (or at an absolute minimum held responsible). They all aren’t in the Army.
The PT belt is a symptom of our now strategic weakness, casualty aversion.
There was a time the enemy had to defeat us on the battlefield. Today all they have to do is fight for headlines. That creates an almost insurmountable mountain for us to climb to achieve victory. It drives the cost of weapon systems to stratospheric levels. It encumbers or even stratifies our decision making at every level. At the soldier level it’s why soldiers look like the Michelin man on a dismounted patrol and at the highest level we put all our faith in defeating ISIS with airpower.
Long live OCP!
UCP
2004-2015.
Rot in hell.
Now if someone could just pass word to CSAF that the ABU should be next…
Unfortunately, it still has a shelf life until 2019
Donned a pair of OEFCP ACUs for PCS clearing today.
Arrived on post about 0730 and saw a like halfway around the block outside the Ft. Campbell MCS.
Same here overseas but here the PCs still have not arrived so those that are purchasing OCP are still SOL. Still, many were getting their name tapes sewn onto their OEF-CP. It feels good to be wearing the good boots as well.
Funny that you put yours on with your last few weeks in the Army.
Everything is already available at Campbell including boots and rank. However within an hour they’d sold out of Small Reg and Large Reg Tops.
I am particularly disapointed by the small regs.
Ft Campbell is sold out of all SR, SL, MR, and ML as of 0915 today…
Actually, Ft Campbell MCSS still had those sizes as of 1300, they just were opening boxes upon boxes of them and directing Soldiers to the box with the size they wanted. However, they did put a limit of four items per Soldier on them, but they still went incredibly fast. I went to try on the coat so that I know what size to ask for in December when I get it issued on the trail.
Really? I was there at 0915 and asked the lady if they had any more. She said if it wasn’t on the shelf or in a box, they didn’t have any. Would be nice to pick some up on leave seeing as I usually only make my way over there about once a year.
I was there at 1100 and they still didn’t have any SR or LR coats. Mediums were good though. Guess I’ll check again tomorrow. Wonder if they’re any on eBay yet?
Wooooo National Guard! We’ll get them in like another decade, but at least there won’t be any long-ass lines or size shortages.
some guard members here in CT are still wearing the old BDUs, drive by their offices few times a week
R.I.P. UCP!
No. No peace for that pattern.
rest in pieces?
How many soldiers got dead and wounded because of that napoleonic age camoflage? Anyone taking heat for that or just sliding it under the carpet and calling it even…someone made a lot of money again…
Nobody is going to touch that or why we went from two common patterns to eight but it’s a great question.
Given the nature of recent combat in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters, I would say not very many explicitly due to camouflage. IEDs for example wouldn’t really care what one is wearing, as long as they know there is a general target, and those were the main cause of casualties.
Yeah, about that. BD CSM sent out a email yesterday saying new uniform is not authorized for the indefinite future.
Yeah. About that. Your BDE CSM is gonna be effectively outvoted when the first new litter of pups shows up from the Replacement Detachment.
We got the same thing 3 weeks ago when we started AT, “the new uniform is not authorized”. And that was my first though of what will happen when we get some new guys and all the have is OCP?
Our state CSM suggested that for uniformity sake UCP remain until the first soldiers start receiving it as their basic issue. However, it is up to the individual CSMs as to what their policy for duty uniforms will be until that time.
I’m wearing my RFI until I get yelled at.
+1
That is acceptable under the ALARACT.
Any E-9 (even a person annointed “State CSM”) who gives two sh!ts needs to swap his UCP blouse for a Wally World greeter vest.
Change of Command ceremonies are gonna cause aneurisms because the new meat who’s ALWAYS pressed into service to compose the bulk of those formations will have been OCP from jump. So it will be the salty folk who have been saving a serviceable set of OCP for this day and the FNGs. And then the SNCO community can get to work on Stuff That Matters.
SMA Dailey said it best when he expressed confidence that the most lethal Army in human history can still fight in mismatched belts and t-shirts.
So the recent memorandum on OCP stated leaders can’t force their troops into the new uniform before the wear-out date; but there’s nothing stopping them from banning its usage once introduced? That’s puzzling…
If petty tyrants didn’t have anything to do, well, they wouldn’t have anything to do.
+1
The Sergeant Major of the Army released a guidance letter, and DA G1 released a policy letter on this.
ACUs, OEF/OCP, and OCP are all authorized through 2019. Commands should not dictate which one a Soldier can wear.
Your BDE CSM is “taking away from the standard” on this one.
THIS……………. is going to be a major point of friction. Just watch.
Jon, OPT
I’m seeing SMA Dailey as someone capable of holding to principle.
I’d be hesitant to ping him on this if I wasn’t 100000000000000000% sure I could produce a full sheaf of training schedules, orders, work plans, 705s (with remediation plans for healthy fatbodies and rehab plans for troops coming off injuries), 2166-8-1s (with good plans for slugs AND studs) for every hard stripe in my command and good 4651s for everyone else. Yeah I know, it’s just paper. But it’s still a record of effort. Of what we do.
From what I heard, he excels at finding that one E-5 who’s NEVER been counseled (even informally) or properly indoc’d into the NCO Corps and bringing him to your NCODP.
Given the choice, I’d follow his guidance and stay out of his way.
His guidance was wear what you want.
That’s the Army policy as well. If you burn your ACUs today and wear OCP, you are not wrong.
Unless your CSM says otherwise… See 3d CHEM BDE and FLW for proof…
While he might be able to make your life uncomfortable, there is no real punitive action that they can take in this case.
Its policy. Being reprimanded, singled out, harassed, given extra or unfavorable duty, or outright punished for wearing the uniform authorized by the chief of staff of the army is great fuel for a hell of an IG complaint, one that will actually stick.
CSMs the world over love to talk about “the standard.” These ad hoc policies by senior NCOs are not the standard, and actually violate published policy.
Funny how these same local commanders and senior NCOs will cite regs and policy when it suits them. Apparently, they feel entitled to negate policy that has been reviewed and approved by the Secretary of the Army, Chief of Staff, and the Sergeant Major of the Army.
I cannot wrap my head around why anyone would want to prolong the UCP debacle. In light of all these “petty tyrants” issuing pointless edicts, I’m hoping that Army senior leadership puts out some firm guidance that reminds local leaders that the policy is that we are authorized to wear any of the three uniforms until the 2019 wear out date.
Most of those petty tyrants care more about “uniformity” than doing the right thing for the troops
Remember it’s about their egos, not about the real rules
I can see command concern for ceremonies and such. Wearing mix and match looks like crap (hated the BDU PC with the OG109’s back in the day, would have been happy to buy an OD PC).
I’d wear UCP as much as possible in non operational missions (e.g. garrison, routine training) to get my money’s worth out of that kit.
We go through this every time we switch uniforms. It’s not a first.
Out here in Germany, 12th CAB put out instructions, despite the ALARACT message, that only UCP is to be worn until October of this year. Who comes up with these ideas? Yeah, lets keep wearing the “shame of NATO” camo pattern longer, why not.
Saw a documentary on SF selection some time back. They were doing some mongo land nav drill and evaluators were catching candidates taking a quick snooze on the course which was forbidden. This looks like such a moment.
Yeah, UCP was a head scratcher.
Ah, just saw the caption pop up. Sniper course. My bust.
3rd CHEM on FLW de-authorized OCP already. Wife wore it for less than an hour this mornin. No policy letter was pushed out prior to.
I’m sorry but I can’t understand the huge excitement. Yes, UCP is gone. However, what replaced it? A pattern that is better than UCP, but not so great compared to other patterns and what can be made today. Now I do realize that I sound like Mr. Buzzkill, but step back and look how low our standards and expectations have become.
“You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time,” Mr. Rumsfeld said.
With the allowance of this new camo for standard wear, the “army we have” just got quite a bit better… there’s enough of a quality gap between UCP and OCP to generate excitement.
Is it the absolute best available? Debatable, but even if it’s not, it’s still light years better than UCP. Did you see the pic at the top of this post?
The quote is not applicable. We are not discussing something similar to how an Army designed around fighting a convential foe ends up having to fight a different type of foe with what it currently has. We are talking about the incompetency of the Army to provide a high quality product.
The Army spent 6 years and all we got was a low quality product we essentially had for over a decade. Now, low quality (W2/ocp) is better than crap ( ucp), but it’s not something worth celebrating.
Btw, i saw the pic at the top as well. I do not see how it helps your argument though. You could actually say that it works against your argument since both patterns sticks out in the picture greatly.
Either you’re a fanboy of some other wonder camo or you really need to get laid.
Multicam and OCP are significant improvements that will make us more effective and more importantly will save lives. Yes, it would’ve been much better had the Army adopted this in 2005 and the bookends to follow, but to call it “low quality” shows either a massive bias or ignorance. Multicam is the world standard for modern camo, especially in elite units because it works and works well in many environments.
This is a positive thing for us for once, so lighten up Francis.
Fanboy towards a “wonder camo”? If I was, then I would already have mention the camouflage pattern I’m biased towards. Ignorance? That is funny, I design camouflage during my free time, using science as the basis of my work. So I know a few things about camouflage to say the least.
I do not understand why you brought up multicam. When did i ever critized it?Nowhere…..
Anyways, try not to confuse multicam with the OCP the Army just adopted. This new OCP is the scorpion w2 pattern and it has already been shown by previous testing by natick to be inferior to multicam. So while OCP has the same colors and styling as multicam, it doesn’t neccesarily give you the same performance…
On a side note, let me share some technical reasons on why OCP/Scorpion W2 is low quality. First of all, it has no macro for disrupting the human symmetry axis even at short distances. 2nd, it does not have a texture matching micro pattern. To not have this is like saying: “hey, let’s just ignore one of the biggest advancements in camouflage design”. So in other words, all that OCP has going for it in peformance is the colors. That by itself is not much…
Oh yeah, let’s not forget how the Army got to this point. They ignored the results of the CIE, refuse to pay for MC, took a pattern they essentially had for over a decade, and adopted it under shady reasoning. All it took was around 6 years….
As you can see now, the adoption of scorpion W2 is not much to celebrate.
To conclude, let me just say the following. I am not hating on the Army. I am just being critical of it because I care about it. I want our Army to be the best and thus i hold it to a high standard.
So far no guidance from the CA ARNG CoC other than a memo sent out from GEN Haskens (sp?) which was basically verbatim repeat of the ALARACT and accompanying memo from the SGMA. So I’ll be wearing my OCPs to July’s drill.
I’ve not heard anything saying we can’t wear OCP from any of the CSMs here at Drum. 1SG has a huge poster up on the wall in the COF detailing how all three are authorized and in what combinations. I’m optimistic. As to all the jackasses banning this, I can’t wait until a new litter is delivered to Staff Duty with nothing but OCP in their bags. It’s coming weather you want it or not.
Stewart is a good mix of OEF and UCP, as well as the buck private who was in complete OCP at 0930. I think he changed in the px bathroom.
All the excitement is great; we’ve moved up to ten years behind in our camouflage capabilities. Next upgrade, Windows Vista
Sets are already on eBay for sale.