The Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP), also referred to as ACUPAT (Army Combat Uniform PATtern) or Digital Camouflage ("digicam") is the military camouflage pattern currently in use in the United States Army's Army Combat Uniform.[1] The pattern was chosen after several laboratory and field tests that occurred from 2003 to 2004.[2] Its digital pattern is a modification of the United States Marine Corps' MARPAT camouflage and research into Dual Texture (Dual-Tex) Camouflage conducted in the 1970s.[3][4]
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Three patterns were developed, called All Over Brush, Track, and Shadow/Line.[5] 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.[5] The three remaining colors were green, brown, and black for the Woodland pattern, dark tan, khaki, and brown for the Desert pattern, light gray, medium gray, and black for the Urban pattern, and dark tan, light gray, and brown for the Desert/Urban pattern.[5]
There were a total of fifteen evaluations, which took place at Fort Benning, Fort Polk, Fort Irwin, Fort Lewis, and Yakima, WA.[5] The camouflage patterns were then rated on their blending, brightness, contrast, and detection by US Army soldiers, during the daytime, and also at night using night vision devices.
Following testing, the Shadow Line pattern was eliminated entirely, along with the urban and desert/urban patterns of All Over Brush. All four of the Track patterns were accepted along with All Over Brush's woodland and desert patterns.[5]
The patterns were then modified and tested alongside a newly introduced "Contractor-Developed Mod" pattern, MultiCam. Near Infrared testing determined that black, medium gray, and medium tan were the only colors that gave acceptable performance.[5]
All four remaining patterns, desert Brush, MultiCam, Woodland Track, and Urban Track were then tested alongside each other in urban, woodland, and desert environments.
The desert Brush design received the best overall mean daytime visual rating. Contractor developed 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, and Urban Track.[6]
The color scheme of the Army Combat Uniform is composed of a gray (officially named Urban gray 501), tan (Desert sand 500) and sage green (Foliage green 502) digital pattern. The pattern is noticeable for its elimination of the color black.[7] Justification for the ommission of black was that black is a colour not commonly found in nature.[8] Pure black, when viewed through night vision goggles, appears excessively dark and creates an undesirable high-contrast image.
The US Army reported to the media that the basis for the UCP was the Urban Track pattern, which had been modified through the removal of black from the pattern and digitized. Why the Urban Track pattern was used given it had received the poorest ratings in visual detection from the Natick Soldier Center's testing[6] was unexplained. The US Army's public explanation of UCP's origin has been shown to be incorrect, as visual comparisons of pattern samples have shown the UCP to be simply a re-coloured version of the US Marines MARPAT scheme, which in turn was based on the earlier Canadian CADPAT camouflage pattern.
The omission of black in the colour palette has been the subject of much debate. The US Army's reasoning that it is not a colour commonly found in nature did not stop it from adopting an artificial pixellated design. Square pixels are also not found in nature. Black is generally perceived in camouflage schemes as shadow and a degree of black, or an alternative dark colour (e.g brown in desert patterns), invariably enhances a pattern's disruptive effect.
Soldiers have reported that the pattern is marginally effective in an urban or desert environment, and wholly ineffective in most others, particularly jungle and tropical terrain.[9][10] As the U.S. Army is currently involved in the Middle East, the uniform may have been biased towards the current operating environments.[11][12]
If passed by the Senate, House of Representatives Bill 2346 would require 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.” The Army is currently evaluating alternative camouflage patterns to determine if this is a necessary action.[13] In recent tests conducted by the U.S. Army's Natick Soldier Center, results indicated that three other patterns did significantly better than UCP in desert and woodland environments.[14] The US Army has been unable to say why UCP was adopted over better performing patterns.