Interesting news and we will see how this goes. I have personally thought that UCP was a terrible pattern for the areas of operation we are in right now. It works great for sage brush country though, and I highly recommend it for coyote hunting here in Boise, Idaho. It is also great for hiding on sofas. lol But for Iraq or Afghanistan, I just don’t see it.
Overall, my favorite pattern is the Desert MARPAT uniform for desert stuff. It looks like that is one of the top uniforms according to the Natick study as well. I own a combat jacket that is Desert MARPAT and it is great for work. Although I would probably suggest getting a jacket with the quick dry shirts built in the main body of the shirt. Those work great for body armor, and it looks like there are some fire resistant models coming out that will make that uniform even more sensible. (check out the Propper story below this one at the SS blog)
If I was to match a pattern to our AO’s, I would say Desert MARPAT for Iraq and maybe Multicam for Afghanistan. But having one pattern for the troops, for all environments we fight in is just stupid. Bravo to the Marines for at least recognizing the need for regional camo patterns for their troops and that is taking care of your people.
One thing I would be interested in, is if Natick studies patterns that have been washed out over time? Soldiers and Marines wear their uniforms for awhile out there, and the color contrasts change and get lighter on the uniforms. Combat and field use tends to do that to a uniform. So a study on what uniform works best when aged would be very cool. I know UCP gets really light blue looking when it gets old.
I highly suggest putting Soldier Systems blog on your RSS reader, or whatever you use to track blogs and websites. They are definitely equipment mavens and thanks to Matt for giving me the heads up. –Matt
——————————————————————
From Soldier Systems Blog
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or failing to read Soldier Systems Daily, you know that in response to Congressional calls for a new camo pattern for operations in Afghanistan, the Army announced that they would test two patterns in October. The Army Times obtained a Natick test report for a camouflage study conducted from 2007 – 2009 of 18 different patterns. This report has now been released by the Army to the press and Soldier Systems Daily has extracted some of the major points from this test report. This is the first in a series of reports that attempt to make some sense of the report and cut through much of the conjecture and hyperbole found on the internet.
Check out the blog and story here.