UCP-Delta pattern in Kandahar province, Afghanistan
Defense Tech has the first exclusive look at the Universal Camouflage Pattern — Delta being worn by US Army personnel in the field in Afghanistan.
Also check by at Soldier Systems for additional pictures, including the MultiCam competitor in the field trials.
MultiCam in Kunar province, Afghanistan
Finnish M-05 snow camo on Strike-Hold!
Over at Strike-Hold!, Lawrence has been as busy as Santa’s elves collating a wish-list of currently available (although how available might depend on who you are!) snow camouflage. Have you written your letter to QM Claus yet? If not, check it out!
This article from a government website explains the rationale behind the choice of new camouflage for the Ministry of Defence:
** EDIT ** Updated December 22nd with new images from the final DSTL press release
TESTING THE NEW MULTI-TERRAIN CAMOUFLAGE
The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), the Ministry of Defence civilian scientists, working with the MOD Defence Clothing Project Team, has tested and trialled new multi-terrain camouflage clothing that has been proven to improve mission effectiveness across a range of different backgrounds.It is the first time in 40 years the Armed Forces have changed the camouflage pattern. George Philpott, Land Battlespace Systems, Dstl, says: “Dstl scientists researched and tested whether a mixed multi-terrain camouflage pattern would improve mission success and basically keep soldiers hidden for longer during ambush operations or when on patrol. It is not just a question of colours; we looked at texture and tone of patterns, how the light reflects and how well it disguises the wearer when observed both close up and at a distance.
“Dstl‟s work is all about creating battle-winning technology for UK armed forces on current operations, and we‟re proud we were able to cram all the work in to just six months, with extra people working a lot of extra hours to get this research and testing complete.”
Troops in Helmand, Afghanistan, operate in a mixed landscape: desert, woodland, mountainous, urban etc. Dstl assessed whether a multi-terrain camouflage was better than the standard army woodland camouflage disruptive pattern material (DPM) or the desert DPM and if so what is the best pattern, or balance of colours. The two current camouflage schemes were tested alongside an existing off-the-shelf multi-terrain camouflage to see which performed best across various backgrounds that soldiers are likely to encounter across the landscape in Afghanistan.
Computer modelling was carried out across representations of the green zone, desert and transition backgrounds. Soldiers operated in various scenarios in a simulated set of environments to test how the different camouflages performed in situations where staying undetected was important.
Overall the multi-terrain performed best, supporting the theory that a multi-terrain camouflage offers improvements when soldiers move between different places and backgrounds. Dstl also conducted interviews and subjective testing with service men and women to understand and evaluate whether they would actually be happy to wear the new camouflage and whether the concept of a multi-terrain camouflage was desirable and effective.
As a result of this work, it was determined that a multi-terrain camouflage could improve mission success so Dstl set about testing available multi-terrain patterns and creating new ones for testing.
Christopher Jones, Air & Weapons Systems, Dstl, adds: “In addition to existing aerial photography, Dstl sent cameras to Helmand for soldiers to take specific scientific photographs of the various backgrounds and landscapes they operate in.”
Dstl teams in the UK, at Fort Halstead, near Sevenoaks in Kent and at Portsdown West, near Portsmouth in Hampshire, measured the colour properties for each image and identified seven major background types. These colours were then used for Dstl‟s camouflage optimisation and testing programme.
Christopher Jones continues: “The colours and backgrounds in Helmand are similar to those found in parts of the UK, so we used the colour data from Afghanistan and used it to identify places where there was a good colour match, to allow us to run large scientific trials.”
The Afghanistan background colours were used to generate new multi-terrain type camouflage based partly on the shapes and patterns of the existing UK woodland DPM. These were tested against the current army woodland and desert uniforms, to act as a baseline, and a commercially available pattern from Crye Precision.
Ten camouflage suits were trialled in five tests to assess overall performance with pilot trials held before the final main testing. The trial team developed experimental techniques, which were initially established through collaborative research with other NATO countries.
Lt Col Toby Evans, military advisor, Dstl, adds: “The detailed tests and trials looked at everything from how easy is it to spot these camouflages in different terrains and backgrounds to simply asking the soldiers who helped on the trial, which one do you like best and would feel happy wearing?
The tests
Observer assessment – a live trial with military personnel asked to judge the performance of each suit at 50m, 100m and 150m. The trial was carried out at Stanford Training Area, Norfolk and at RAF Donna Nook, Lincolnshire as they contained areas with similar colours and backgrounds to Helmand. Additional testing was also carried out at night to test low light performance.
Statistical assessment – using a computer model of how camouflaged objects are detected, each suit was tested for its match to the seven identified different backgrounds.
The following three trials took place at Catterick Garrison and included a large number of army personnel:
Order rank – soldiers ranked how well close-up images of the suits performed against the seven backgrounds.
Time to detect – Dstl measured the time it took soldiers to detect the 10 different camouflage patterns in the seven backgrounds using a computer-based assessment.
Personal preference – soldiers were asked which their favourite three patterns were based purely on appearance and any patterns they wouldn‟t like to wear.
The results
The results showed the Crye Precision Multicam performed the best, on average, across all the trials. The final camouflage has a pattern that is similar to the current woodland DPM as it allows for easy identification between soldiers and this type of pattern consistency proved popular during the research.
Dstl is currently looking at future research into army camouflage clothing, optimising the camouflage to perform well in a variety of landscapes and backgrounds around the world to support wider operations. If this is successful the outcome could become the standard camouflage for all UK armed forces.
Some details have emerged via Army Times of the environmental trials to find the US Army’s new camouflage pattern, including a group photo of the contenders. As you can see below, the patterns being tested are (from left): AOR II, UCP, Multicam, Desert Brush, UCP-Delta and Mirage. Confusingly, two trials are ongoing – one is a battalion level camo face-off between Multicam and UCP-Delta, with the winner supposedly then immediately becoming the in-theatre camouflage for US Army soldiers deployed to Afghanistan. The other trial (shown here) is much more like the traditional army camouflage evaluations carried out by the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center, where a few soldiers, or even mannequins, are dressed in the patterns being tested and photographed against various backgrounds, real and artificial. This evaluation is purportedly intended to select a new ‘universal’ camouflage that in the near future will be worn at all times in all operational areas.
At the moment, with only this shot to go on, it is difficult to call any of them, but I’d say that UCP is obviously by far the worst, and the Delta version doesn’t seem to have improved it much – the coyote and grey blend together, and too little of the tan element remains to create the contrast necessary for texture and pattern.
AOR2 is seen to be a vertically oriented pattern after all, which ought to work well when troops are prone, but is a mockery of the science that went into its creation when worn upright like this: Landscapes – especially arid landscapes – break down into bands of horizontal elements, which is why many digital camouflage patterns have a somewhat stripy appearance. The colours look as though they could work well though (it is noticeably greener than Multicam, despite using a similar colour palette).
Multicam, Mirage and Desert Brush all blend better than the rest in this photo, but Desert Brush is the only one in which I can detect a useful macro-pattern. This feature is important for reducing long-range identification of the wearer, and was a key aspect of the design of the superlative Canadian Cadpat ‘temperate’ and ‘arid’ digital patterns. Further photo’s may reveal macro-patterns in some of the other designs, so we ought to reserve judgement until we have more information.
The Strike-Hold! blog brings you news of the ANA (Afghan National Army) and their new digital camo. Apparently, they don’t want to be camouflaged effectively for arid regions: more important to them is to look unlike any of the multinational forces in the region.
Some readers may recognise the pattern as Hyperstealth’s Spec4ce Forest. Click to read more of Lawrence’s post at Strike-Hold! or the blurb from Guy Cramer at Hypersteal
Interesting news from Canada this week – a sole-source tender has been announced for the development of an experimental urban camouflage (CUEPAT – Canadian Urban Environment Pattern) based on the metropolitan environments of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. The tender makes mention of CBR (chemical, biological and radiological protection) in one sentence, though there is no indication as to whether this prototype camouflage is being developed solely for use on CBR clothing.
Urban environments are notoriously difficult to design effective human personnel camouflage for, as not only is the vertically oriented, rounded, organic shape of a person out of place amongst the hard edges, flat planes and bulky volumes of the man-made environment, but there also is no such thing as a typical urban colour scheme. Any number of greys, browns, creams and greens will be found in the typical city, not to mention all the hues of the spectrum that appear on advertising space, doors, façades and shop fronts, cars, trucks and buses – you name it.
My prediction is that without some pretty clever thinking by the design team, the outcome of this program will be a FAIL for effective camouflage, but a WIN for Army fashionistas and the B.S. brigade, just like UCP (Universal Camouflage Pattern) was for the US Army.
The sole-source tender is effectively a no-bid offer to Guy Cramer and Tim O’Neill of Hyperstealth Biotechnology Corporation, stating as it does that there are
no alternative sources of supply for this
requirement as no other Canadian source exists that has the
capability to design and develop digital, non-repeating
camouflage patterns using state-of-the-art fractal algorithms
and feed back loop technology, with concomitant IP protected
access to approximately 8,000 copyrighted patterns that can be
used in full support of meeting the requirement.
Although the terms of the tender allow competing companies to submit a bid, that bid must contain at least 80% goods and/or services of Canadian origin, and be submitted in writing before November 6th. Few, if any, of the other players in the digital camouflage industry are placed to take advantage of such a tightly constrained offer, meaning that however ineffective the design(s) submitted by Hyperstealth might be, the Canadian government will have no choice but to accept them.
There’s more on this story at Soldier Systems, and you can read the original tender as a pdf via this link.
The long and sorry saga of the US Army’s camouflage uniform woes in Afghanistan opened on a new chapter today. Readers will recall that the States’ Special Operations soldiers were dissatisfied with their current uniform, and are transitioning to new digital camouflage schemes. Then just 10 days ago my colleague at Strike-Hold! created a photo-shoot comparison of some likely candidates. Now the Army Times reveals that a trial is under way to compare Crye’s MultiCam with a new colourway of the Army’s existing, and much-maligned, Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP), featuring Coyote Brown as a fourth colour. Coyote is currently a popular shade for plain coloured clothing and personal equipment; especially with those users who are employed in the Middle East or in South West Asia, and is also a component of the US Marines’ temperate MARPAT digital four colour camouflage.
The pattern apparently looks something like this (although I’m of the opinion that this particular image, which accompanied the Army Times article, has been faked using computer graphics software):
Is this the new U.S. Universal Camo?
According to the same Army Times piece, the pattern is called ‘UCP Delta’, and will be issued to a single battalion serving in Afghanistan in October, at the same time as another battalion there receives MultiCam. I don’t know how long the trial is expected to last, but I assume that the best performer will then go on to equip most Army units deployed in that theatre (although the recent history of US camo development shows that it is not always the case that the ‘winner’ officially wins).
But, surely, the whole point of issuing a universal camouflage is that you only need the one scheme? One scheme to rule them all! Whatever the outcome of this trial, with the Army on record as being satisfied with UCP in Iraq, and the Marines using their own Desert MARPAT, and now with SOCOM wearing variously MultiCam or their own take on MARPAT, is it still justifiable to even aspire to, let alone refer to, a universal camouflage pattern?
Over on Strike-Hold!, Lawrence has put together a bunch of photo’s showing how Bulldog’s Mirage camouflage compares to MultiCam and the US Army’s Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP). The States are re-evaluating their ground-troops’ camo uniform in the light of a less-than-satisfactory performance from their grey* toned UCP in Afghanistan. It’s expected that Crye’s MultiCam will participate in the contest, and maybe some other recently developed patterns will be in the running too. Lawrence’s photo shoot gives some idea of how these likely contenders appear side-by-side in the same light and environmental conditions.
Mirage, MultiCam, UCP side by side
*UCP’s colours are officially Desert Sand, Urban Gray and Foliage Green. To all intents and purposes that’s cream, light steel grey and medium slate grey.
A rumour came to my attention today. The rumour has it that James Cameron, director of classics such as The Terminator and Terminator 2, Aliens and the Abyss, as well as True Lies and Titanic, has been wearing my company’s PenCott digital fractal camouflage on the set of his latest film project: Avatar. The rumour appears to have grown from a photograph in the latest edition of Empire magazine, showing Cameron demonstrating how to man the door-gun of a troop transporter, wearing a pair of trousers in an unusual digital camouflage.
NOT gunning for PenCott. Copyright: Empire magazine
Much as I would love one of my movie idols to be wearing PenCott in association with a futuristic film, sadly he is not. His lower half seems to be clad in a commercial camo (note the bigger, more obvious pixels and the black areas). Should James Cameron like some genuine Hyde Definition trousers in our cutting-edge PenCott pattern, he is welcome to get in touch and I will happily furnish him with a pair or two, plus shirts and hats to boot. Someone pass the message to him, eh?
