After eight years and $5 billion, the U.S. Army is quietly abandoning its Universal Camouflage Pattern uniform:

http://tinyurl.com/7eon55g

The reason why is simple enough: it simply doesn't work. According to the above-linked article from Stars and Stripes, "troops in the field have been given a greenish, blended replacement called MultiCam."

This should greatly simplify painting of figures of contemporary U.S. troops --- or will it? According to a related story, U.S. troops in Germany are testing a British-style "Multi-Terrain Pattern" camo there:

http://tinyurl.com/7ylkskt

Fred great article i think the british MTP camo may become standard for most armies now that are in iraq etc one thing i have found is that the special forces are also using the MTP camo and they aprove of it ive read somewhere sorry cant get link as its on home pc. though it maybe an easy camo to paint specialy for those experienced modellers whove painted the U.S digital camo before.il try and get link up tonight.

Tony

I have seen photos of troops in Afghanistan wearing the new multi-cam and I have to say it blends in with the terrain very well. Honestly I don't know what they were thinking when they issued UCPs. The two MARPAT schemes look pretty effective, however. I think it was the colors that decided the fate of UCP, not the pattern itself.

I'm Kim of glad thy are phasing out UCP because it's very hard to paint!

Thoughts?

After several visits on US Army Stryker FTX/STX exercises, It became obviouls that UDP is not suiting to the German forest/meadow/agricultural environment. Or as one soldier said:
"the only place where this uniform works is the surface of the moon".
Should have been clear from the start that NO single camo pattern work EVERYWHERE on this planet.

Not to mention the ACU’s had a crappy service life of maybe 6 months at best. I remember mine started to fade real bad or the Velcro would not work right, or just fall apart. Thank god they are getting rid of them, the cost alone sucked. Older set of BDU’s, top and bottoms if I remember right would be up to $20 at clothing sales, but the ACU’s could be up to $40. Not a good thing for the lower enlisted especially with have to replace a set every 6 months.

This is the only time I've seen the ACU work well in an environment.

http://cal50ae.de/40054.html

I kind of agree with the article and it's odd because the U.S. Army has a center solely dedicated to Soldier Systems and they've been testing camp patterns for years (no secret as it was shown on PBS's NOVA many years ago). Surely the center came up with effective camo patterns many years ago, but I doubt it was one pattern works for all environs...probably explains the $5B spent because I think the $5B isn't all for ACU research and fielding.

Great for house-to-house fighting.

I just hope they keep the cut. While virtually EVERYTHING about ACUs stinks, from the velcro to the pattern to the pockets, they are comfortable!

Very light weight. Part of the problem why they fade and fall apart so fast I would imagine. Either way, cant wait to get Multicam uniforms !

Multicam is the standard issue for Army soldiers in Afghanistan. Currently, soldiers revert back to UCP/ACU when back in garrison.

There is currently a design/pattern evaluation in progress. However, it will be several years before we see UCP/ACU phased out of US Army service. It will be even longer before UCP is phased out of Army National Guard or Army Reserve units.

Peter, I'm going to keep a copy of that photo. If there is ever room-to-room fighting in a discount furniture store, we've got what it takes!

Wasn't ACU developed specifically for Urban Combat with slate gray buildings? I seem to recall that urban warfare exercises (back then urban warfare was all the rage) played a major role in the ACU color choice.

Lo and behold the urban centers of the Middle East aren't slate gray.

This was brought up on a different forum I visit which has current and former soldiers as members. All of them hated this uniform and refused to purchase it.

Not sure what you mean, but while most if not all of us do hate it, we don't really have a choice in what we wear, and that includes buying replacement uniforms. I have to buy new ACU's in about two weeks, I'm very unhappy about this.

The new Multi-Cam uniforms are better (though MTC is not the same as Multi-Cam FYI). The new things like combat shirts, combat pants, various combat gloves etc... they are all useful. The big thing that needs to get fixed, I don't care about the pattern anymore, my ACU's got so dirty in Afghanistan that they actually blended pretty well, not as good as my Multi-Cam plate carrier, but not bad. They need to fix the damn crotch, I am so tired of my ACU crotch's ripping out.
So there I was, a few days out from going home and was at Bagram at the Post Office with a few big tough boxes to mail home full of my stuff. It's really hot out so I happened to be commando as I had my silkies on earlier for the convoy in and dressed down once we hit BAF as the sun was out at that point. Sure enough, I wait in this line for an hour that is predominantly O4-06's and I pick up my boxes and my pants ripped... damn near all the way to the knee. Thank god I had an extra pair in my box and the postal clerk lady let me go in back and change. Just fix that and I'll be happy, oh, and make the Combat Shirts more durable, the USMC's combat shirts are much better than ours with the exception of the padded elbows, which are absolutely awesome.

I agree. I HATE the pattern and velcro, they're so much more comfortable and user-friendly than the BDUs were. I had Multicams in Afghanistan. The only real difference was buttons on the pants cargo pockets, but they LOOK like an Army uniform!! Not some Robocop nonsense. Oh, and the camoflage actually works.

Did the crotch still blow out? I heard they were reinforcing them with the button upgrade.

I guess they fixed the problem, I didn't have any problems with the crotch. Thank God. Even my DCUs had blowouts. Like you pointed out, it's embarrassing when you're going commando.