By: Hoaseng Thao
You may remember the US Army’s digital camo pattern known as the Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP), which, despite its name, was not a camo pattern that could be universally used anywhere. Despite the camouflage being ineffective anywhere around the globe, unless it was a modern urban environment, or your grandmother’s couch, it was able to remain in service from 2004-2019 before it was replaced by the more universal camouflage pattern known as the Operational Camouflage Pattern (OCP).
In the year 2004, The US Army announced the adoption of this brand new digital camo pattern the Universal Camouflage Pattern, which had a sparklingly resemblance to the US Marine Corps’ own digital camouflage pattern known as MARPAT (Marine Pattern), which was actually a copy of the Canadian military’s own digital camouflage pattern known as CADPAT.
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The reasoning behind the UCP’s adoption was to eliminate the need of having two separate camouflage patterns for desert and woodland environments. Before the adoption of the UCP, members of the US Army were wearing the famous M81 Woodland Camouflage Pattern for woodland environments, and for desert environments they wore the Desert Battle Dress Uniform (DBCU). To make a good universal camouflage, you would have to have it blend in both desert and woodland environments, but the UCP on the other hand, had a weird color palette of gray and greenish colors that did not blend in any environment the US army was currently fighting in.
The UCP saw combat in many wars but are most commonly associated with the 2003 Iraq War and the Afghanistan War (2001-2021), but something that may surprise you is that the camo saw service in many other nations such as: India, Serbia, and Malaysia.
In the year 2010, some US army soldiers were given the opportunity to wear a different camo pattern known as Multicam by the Crye Precision Company. The reasoning for this was because the US army wanted to replace the UCP for a better alternative. By 2015, they would announce the Operational Camo Pattern (OCP) to replace the old and ineffective UCP camouflage pattern.
Despite the ineffectiveness of UCP, it remained as an icon of American soldiers serving in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as well as the infamous photo of the “Grandma Couch”.
For more information about the UCP camo pattern, please visit this website:
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