Military Times GearScout » UCP

It’s official: Army adopts MultiCam for use in OEF

Rob Curtis — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:00:05 +0000

Updated: Now with more details from our Friday morning interview.

According to Matt Cox at Army Times, the Army announced Friday morning that it will begin fielding MultiCam ACUs to forces flowing into Afghanistan as soon as this summer. Program officials told us explicitly that we would begin to see MultiCam fielding in August. The Army plans to begin the fielding in two overlapping stages.

The initial push will be to get MultiCam on 4th Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, at Fort Polk, La., and the Iowa National Guard’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division, both deploying for OEF this summer. Once that effort is underway, the Army will then concentrate on getting new ACU-MultiCam and selected OCIE to currently deployed OEF-A soldiers.

Boom.

According to the Army’s test results, MultiCam was the only camo pattern to rank first in all three categories of the Army’s photosimulation evaluation.

… UCP-Delta did well in the detectability, not as well as MultiCam, but pretty well. UCP-Delta did perform significantly better than UCP and it would have been cheap, but we didn’t want to go ‘cheap Charlie’ on the soldiers. If we can give them an edge, we wanted to give them an edge even if that meant spending some extra money.

Colonel Bill Cole, Project manager for Soldier Protection and Individual Equipment, U.S. Army, PEO Soldier

The MultiCam uniforms will have a few other improvements that are already headed for future ACU contracts. OEF-A bound soldiers will receive about $4,000 worth of gear including four sets of MultiCam uniforms, four combat shirts and matching combat equipment.

CSA approves MultiCam for OEF

Rob Curtis — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:58:19 +0000

Soldiersystems.net is reporting Gen. George Casey’s approval of a plan for the immediate fielding of MultiCam to soldiers in Operation Enduring Freedom. We haven’t yet gotten the official word but have no reason to doubt the report after confirming it with our own sources. We expect an announcement from the Army shortly.

UPDATE: This one is going all the way to the Secretary of the Army, the Honorable John McHugh, for approval. So even though General Casey has signed off on the recommendation, the fat lady hasn’t sung yet. We hope to have the final word tomorrow.

I wonder why the Secretary of the Army is weighing in? I don’t know if it’s a rubber-stamp sort of thing, but it seems like the chief’s signature would normally be enough to approve a uniform regulation. Perhaps it’s a play to put some political capital behind the request. The Army will need it if it goes up to the Hill to ask for help funding the camo change introduced by the recently deceased Rep. John Murtha.

PEO Soldier updates camo briefing status via Twitter

Rob Curtis — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:00:50 +0000

Someone posted this update to PEO Soldier’s Twitter feed via a mobile phone text message. I wonder if this was a meant for another recipient since all other posts to PEOSoldier’s account were made either from Twitter’s Web site or an iPhone application.

The latest (as of last night) we’ve heard is that Gen. Casey is now mulling it over.

Twitter via Soldier Systems

The tweet, for all of you that can’t see the graphic: “F1 – working briefing cycle for senior leadership decision WRT OEF alt camo.Completed 3 stars and VCSA – next up CSA. Presenting data a … 7:11 PM Feb 12th from txt“

F1= ?
WRT= “with regard to”
OEF= “Operation Enduring Freedom”
VCSA= “Vice Chief of Staff of the Army”
CSA= “Chief of Staff of the Army”

The Backside of Natick Labs- Camo Calendar Edition

Rob Curtis — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:19:26 +0000

Here are the twelve contenders that went up against UCP in Natick’s 2007-2009 Photosimulation Camouflage Detection test. The five patterns at the bottom didn’t make the cut because they didn’t perform well enough to be considered, or were too similar to other patterns in the test. The Spec 4 patterns were specificaly DQ’d because their desert variant was available for the test.

With a little creativity, Natick could have made a badass photo calendar. All they needed was a set of well proportioned female models holding guns and the study would have paid for itself.

Army’s Own Test Punks UCP

Rob Curtis — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:33:32 +0000

Matt Cox is reporting at ArmyTimes.com that the Army’s Natick labs performed a two-year study in 2007 that ranked UCP as the least effective universal camo pattern of the five patterns they tested. He FOIA’d the government for the Natick’s Photosimulation Camouflage Detection Test report and got it after PEO Soldier refused to provided it.

While it’s great programmatic drama, I have to wonder what would happen if someone at PEO Soldier actually just came out and admitted that they chose the best camo pattern that branded soldiers from the other services while providing adequate camouflage without going broke.

Deathmatch- Multicam vs. the Army’s Ego

Rob Curtis — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:11:37 +0000

Mirage, nope. All-over-brush, nope. AOR, nope.

Matt Cox is reporting the Army has come up with a new camo pattern to address the deficiencies identified by congress and soldiers serving in Afghanistan. They’ve added coyote brown to the UCP pattern. The Army will test “UCP Delta”pattern, shown above, left, along side Multicam, right, in theater within a month.

Why Multicam? Because Natick already tested it (twice) and declared it a superior option to UCP. How do we know? Check out armytimes.com.

Deal$cout- Mystery Ranch Unloading ACU Packs

Rob Curtis — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 03:32:18 +0000

It’s weird. I really thought this ACU UCP pattern would catch on. I mean if my neighbors are prancing around in Multicam bathrobes, why am I having such a hard time finding a UCP Speedo?

At least I’m not alone in overestimating the longevity of the Army’s latest fad. Mystery Ranch, like Arc’teryx last week. is selling off their stock of UCP gear beginning today.

Head over to MysteryRanch.com and stock up.