US Universal Camouflage Pattern Being Replaced

Jawgap

An expensive mistake.......



The Army’s $5 billion New Uniform Already Being Replaced

In 2004, the Army decided to scrap the two traditional camouflage uniforms that had long been used by the military—one meant for woodland environments, another for the desert—and claimed to have come up with a universal pattern that could be worn anywhere and blend in with any environment. The $5 billion dollar experiment with the universal pattern is over as the Army is phasing out the uniform after less than a decade of use. But many soldiers and observers are wondering why it took this long and cost this much to replace an item that performed poorly from the start during a period when the money could have been spent on other critical needs, like potentially life saving improvements to military vehicles and body armor.
Less than a decade after the so-called Universal Camouflage Pattern, or UCP, was introduced the Army is back to the drawing board, set to announce a new camouflage pattern and standard uniform to be worn by the more than million members of the active duty and reserve forces.

Tabnabs

Lots of cheap army surplus on the way...

the_syco

From the article;

“People in the military associate certain projects with nepotism, a Good Old Boy network,” Pelak said. “Maybe someone’s brother owns the company that designs the uniforms, or he’s on the Defense Appropriations Committee. No one knows exactly, but there are a lot of theories that all involve some sort of cronyism or backhand deal.”

Agreed 100%!

discus

It looks ****e too. I'm just back from Ex Joint Warrior 13, and honest to god whatever the US marines were wearing looked dog****. The 5 billion should have been spent on, oh I dunno, teaching them basic radio procedure.

Mr. Tezza

Does this mean they will be replacing Multicam eswell?

odin_ie

Multicam was a stop gap for operational units in Afghanistan IIRC. You might see them adopt it as a replacement though, or go down a similar path as the BA

Mr. Tezza

odin_ie wrote: »

Multicam was a stop gap for operational units in Afghanistan IIRC. You might see them adopt it as a replacement though, or go down a similar path as the BA

Fair point, if it works then they might just keep it as a limited issue for people going to Afghanistan? Be interesting to see what they do with it, also what ever happened to the MARPAT pattern?

Doctor14

Mr. Tezza wrote: »

Be interesting to see what they do with it, also what ever happened to the MARPAT pattern?

MARPAT is still used by the only people allowed to use it - the USMC, hence the name MARine PATtern.
But seeing that a lot of pics of Marines nowadays are from Afghanistan, they tend to be wearing the arid version of MARPAT. But the Green version is still used where appropriate.

c-90

Multicam aka ocp has been awarded the contract.

http://soldiersystems.net/2013/10/12/us-army-camouflage-improvement-effort-us-army-awards-contract-to-crye-for-ocp/

Manic Moran

Link says 'a contract', doesn't say for what, and indicates it's not a large one.

Balaclava1991

Shades of tans, browns and blacks rather than green should be the predominant colors on uniforms.
When was the last time you saw a green colored bear or lion or tiger or mountain lion?

Some patterns used by hunters for many years are very effective in many different environments.

Jawgap

Balaclava1991 wrote: »

Shades of tans, browns and blacks rather than green should be the predominant colors on uniforms.
When was the last time you saw a green colored bear or lion or tiger or mountain lion?

Shows how well green works then, doesn't it :D:D

Balaclava1991

Jawgap wrote: »

Shows how well green works then, doesn't it :D:D

Wait...are you saying there are green animals out there which we can't see????:eek:

Jawgap

Balaclava1991 wrote: »

Wait...are you saying there are green animals out there which we can't see????:eek:

Are you saying there aren't?

syklops

“People in the military associate certain projects with nepotism, a Good Old Boy network,” Pelak said. “Maybe someone’s brother owns the company that designs the uniforms, or he’s on the Defense Appropriations Committee. No one knows exactly, but there are a lot of theories that all involve some sort of cronyism or backhand deal.”

I know of one particular situation where this is exactly the case, only the company designs hardware not uniforms.