Well, it appears that the waiting, wondering and speclation is over. Beginning next month, two battalions’ worth of uniforms will be evaluated in Afghanistan next month.And what have the Army decided to test? Well, Multicam is in the running – and so is a new version of UCP created by the PEO Soldier program at Natick. So, it would seem that the Army just can’t/won’t admit that they got it wrong with UCP. Instead, the boffins at Natick put on their thinking caps and came up with the pattern pictured below – “UCP-Delta”.
Yup, that’s it. All that collective brain-power, experience and technology and the best they could do was add 30% of Coyote Brown to the existing P.O.S. UCP pattern. Looks more like “Coyote Ugly” to me.Its also rather disappointing that the test is limited to just these two patterns; i.e., that Mirage Camo from Bulldog Equipment wasn’t included as well. On the other hand, it might be that the Army can’t really be bothered about it and are making it easy for MultiCam to win. In addition, it seems that the choice of this pattern may also be motivated by the fact that it blends well with existing field gear in UCP (see below).
And here’s a close-up of the material:
Well, I still say that either MultiCam or Mirage would be better.
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Beyond the obvious fact that the colors could be improved, I think the delta _pattern_ – not the colors – could actually really be an improvement.Looking at the new red-brown ‘coyote’ areas, they seem to me to not be random but actually follow an S-shape down and across the body. This, at least according to O’neill/cramer/et.al. is optimal for breaking the human form, something missing so far in most of our digital patterns including Mirage.If they recolored it so that the colors actually matched natural colors, and so that the new elements were really distinct from the rest of the pattern and brought out that sort of snakey motif I think I’m seeing, it might break up the body even better than the M-to-the-C.Just food for thought…
That shades remind me of the old NVA (east german, not VC) “Flower Camo”
Ah, so that’s what Blumentarn means, Walter. I’ve always known it as Potato Pattern, though I don’t know why it was called that either. I’ve got a couple of shirts made from it, and TBH, it’s probably a better camo pattern for SW Asia than this new Ugly Coyote Pattern (UCP)!
I was thinking along those lines as well, it does look a lot like the old East German camo, not the ‘rain drop’ style, but the one before it. As for the Army’s ‘Atariflage’ they got it wrong from the start. I’d wager that you couldn’t give the leftovers away if they change to MC or something else.
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Hi Dom,normaly its the “Blümchenmuster” (Blümchen is the “cuddlyfied” word for Blume) or “Blümchentarn”, but as far as I know it was introduced as “Flächentarn” (Panelcamo).Between the 50s and late 60s some very intersting concepts were made, and somehow they aint as “old and forgotton” as some might think. Recon, that german Flecktarn was developed in 1976, and the new “2005 scheme” of it was already introduced in 1978), theres some serious nostalgia gooing on!Regards,Walter
very similar to the royal Thai air force camouflage(still in experiment too)