The Pentagon's Convoluted Search for Better Camouflage

The Pentagon is used to being accused of wasting time and money on ineffective weapons, but this time its clothes that are catching flack. The Army announced earlier this year that it was ditching plans for a universal battle dress uniform, despite the fact that it sunk years and billions of dollars into developing a single uniform for all Army personnel.

The current uniform brouhaha dates back over 10 years, when there was just one type of camouflage for all the military's branches: The Army's Battle Dress and Desert Camouflage uniforms. But in 2002 the services embarked on separate paths, each developing its own camouflage. The results have been, to put it mildly, mixed. Here's a rundown of what worked... and what didn't:

Army: The Army's ambitious effort to develop a camouflage pattern that would work for all environments failed on a single, seemingly obvious principle: What works in the jungles of Southwest Asia probably won't work for deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan. A recent report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, found that, incredibly, the Army chose the Universal Camouflage Pattern?a digital olive green?gray pattern?before formal testing was completed by experts at the Army's Natick Soldier Systems Center.

In fact, according to the GAO, the Army started outfitting soldiers in the new camouflage in early 2005, even though later that same year a formal evaluation concluded that a desert brush pattern would be far better. In 2009 another study pointed out that the Universal Camouflage Pattern was putting soldiers at risk by making them more visible to the enemy. This year the Army finally decided to drop the idea of a universal camouflage in favor of a more traditional approach to camouflage uniforms tailored for different environments.

Air Force: In 2002 the Air Force decided to go with a tiger stripe, a choice that has been openly mocked for having its roots in the Vietnam War. The GAO offered a more measured critique but noted that the Air Force, weirdly, used "test results of a desert pattern in a woodland area." The fabric also ended up being something of a disaster, with airmen complaining of heat (one makeshift solution was to cut out the internal pockets).

In 2010 the Air Force grew worried that tiger-stripe camouflage would make airmen more visible when standing next to better camouflaged Army personnel, so it allowed some personnel to instead wear the Army's Operation Enduring Freedom camouflage pattern, which was itself a stop-gap solution to the now-rejected Universal Camouflage Pattern.

Navy: The Navy has a new desert uniform called Type II that sailors started wearing last year. But not all personnel actually get to wear it, only those in Naval Special Warfare and those who support that mission. This created an illogical situation in which some Navy personnel deployed to a desert environment, such as Afghanistan, ended up wearing a woodland uniform. The reason for this limitation? The Marine Corps apparently was concerned the Navy desert uniform too closely resembled its own.

Marine Corps: Unlike the other services, the Marines went through dozens of different camouflage patterns before narrowing the field down to two basic choices: Tiger Stripe and Canadian Disruptive Pattern, a digital camouflage pattern. After testing, the Marines chose the Canadian design and called it Marine Corps Pattern, or MARPAT. The GAO was actually complimentary of the Marine Corps' choice, saying the service pursued a sound testing and acquisition plan before buying the new uniforms.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/the-pentagons-convoluted-search-for-better-camouflage-14073910?src=rss

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