Universal Camouflage Pattern

The Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP) is a digital military camouflage pattern formerly used by the United States Army in their Army Combat Uniform. Technicians at Natick Soldier Systems Center attempted to devise a uniform pattern that would mask the wearer in all seasonal environments. Laboratory and field tests from 2003 to 2004 showed a pattern named "All-Over-Brush" to provide the best concealment of the patterns tested. All-Over-Brush was selected as the winner over ten other patterns. The disadvantage of an all-in-one pattern is that it is a combination of what is effective in many different environments and is less effective in a particular environment when compared to a specialized coloration designed specifically for that environment. The winning All-Over-Brush pattern was not used as the final UCP. Instead, U.S. Army leadership utilized pixelated images taken from Canadian CADPAT and US Marine Corps MARPAT, then recolored them based on three universal colors developed in the Army's 2002 to 2004 tests, to be called the UCP. While the pixelated pattern of the UCP is similar to the MARPAT and CADPAT camouflage patterns used by the United States Marine Corps and the Canadian Armed Forces, its coloration differs significantly. The final UCP was then adopted without field testing against other patterns.

Soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan questioned the UCP's effectiveness as a concealment method. Some felt that it was endangering their missions and their lives. In response, the US Army conducted several studies to find a modification or replacement for the standard issue pattern. In July 2014, the Army announced that Operational Camouflage Pattern would replace all UCP-patterned ACU uniforms by the end of September 2019. However, UCP remains in service in limited capacities, such as on some cold weather overgear and older body armor.

Initial patterns and colors
Three patterns were developed, called All Over Brush, Track, and Shadow/Line. For each pattern, there were four color combinations, which corresponded to a specific type of terrain, however, all four patterns used tan as their base color. The three remaining colors were green, brown, and black for the Woodland pattern, dark tan, khaki, and brown for the Desert pattern, light gray, medium gray, and black for the Urban pattern, and dark tan, light gray, and brown for the Desert/Urban pattern.

Test sites
There were fifteen evaluations, which took place at Fort Benning, Fort Polk, Fort Irwin, Fort Lewis, and Yakima, Washington. The camouflage patterns were then rated on their blending, brightness, contrast, and detection by U.S. Army soldiers, during the daytime, and also at night using night vision devices.

Elimination of patterns
Following testing, the Shadow Line pattern was eliminated, along with the urban and desert/urban patterns of All Over Brush. All four of the Track patterns were accepted along with All Over Brush's woodland and desert patterns.

Phases II and III
The patterns were then modified and tested alongside a newly introduced "Contractor-Developed Mod" pattern, Scorpion, developed in conjunction with Crye Precision. Near infrared testing determined that black, medium gray, and medium tan were the only colors that gave acceptable performance.

Phase IV (system level)
All four remaining patterns, desert Brush, Scorpion, Woodland Track, and Urban Track were then tested alongside each other in urban, woodland, and desert environments.

Results
The desert Brush design received the best overall mean daytime visual rating. Contractor developed pattern received highest rating in woodland environments, but low ratings in desert and urban environments. Urban Track was generally the 3rd or 4th worst performer at each site, but was the best performer in nighttime environments. Infrared testing showed negligible differences in the performance of the four patterns. Natick rated the patterns from best to worst as: Desert Brush, Woodland Track Mod, Contractor-Developed Mod (Scorpion), and Urban Track.

Color selection
The color scheme of the UCP is composed of tan (officially named Desert Sand 500), gray (Urban Gray 501), and sage green (Foliage Green 502). The pattern is notable for its elimination of the color black. Justification given for the omission of black was that black is a color not commonly found in nature. Pure black viewed through night vision goggles can appear extremely dark and create an undesirable high-contrast image.

Controversy
The U.S. Army incorrectly reported to the media that the basis for the UCP was the Urban Track pattern, which had been modified through the removal of black from the pattern and pixelated. Pattern comparisons subsequently established that the information provided by the U.S. Army was incorrect, and that the pattern was simply a three-colored version of MARPAT, a derivative of the Canadian CADPAT scheme. No evidence has been presented by the U.S. Army that the new UCP pattern had undergone proper field testing. In tests conducted by the Natick Soldier Systems Center, results indicated that three other patterns did significantly better than UCP in desert and woodland environments.

Following building criticism of the poor effectiveness of the pattern in most terrains like the Afghan and Middle Eastern theatres of operations, the use of the pattern was discussed within the U.S. Congress. A bill passed by Congress in 2009 ordered the Department of Defense to "take immediate action to provide combat uniforms to personnel deployed to Afghanistan with a camouflage pattern that is suited to the environment of Afghanistan." In the interim the Army conducted a brief in-country test of replacements for use in Afghanistan that included "UCP Delta", a variant of UCP that added coyote brown, and the commercial pattern MultiCam, which had been created by Crye Precision based on the Scorpion pattern from 2002. MultiCam was quickly selected and issued to all troops deployed to Afghanistan.

Replacement
In 2014, the United States Army announced the replacement of UCP. On 31 July 2014, the Army formally announced that a modified version of the original Scorpion pattern, Scorpion W2, had been chosen as the new Operational Camouflage Pattern (OCP), which would begin being issued on uniforms in summer 2015. Authorization of UCP uniforms ended on 1 October 2019, though still sees some limited usage on other gear such as some body armor and cold weather overgear.

As the Army began phasing out UCP, many state defense forces began adopting it as their uniform.

Current

 * 🇦🇷 Argentina: Used by the Grupo Especial Uno.
 * 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan: Used by the Azeri Ministry of Interior's Kobra Special Group.
 * 🇧🇴 Bolivia: Regular UCP used by the Bolivian Police's UTARC and GICE units; dark UCP used by the UTOP.
 * 🇧🇦 Bosnia and Herzegovina
 * 🇹🇩 Chad: UCP clones used by some Chadian commando units and by Chadian Gendarmerie anti-poaching units.
 * 🇨🇱 Chile: Used by the Chilean Air Force as uniform for airmen.
 * 🇨🇾 Cyprus: Used by Cypriot special forces.
 * 🇭🇺 Hungary: Used by Counter-Terrorism Center operators.
 * 🇮🇳 India: Used for urban operations only by MARCOS commandos and Paras. The Indian Air Force adopted a similar pattern in 2022.
 * 🇮🇷 Iran: UCP clones used by the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy Marine Command and some Basiji special operations forces.
 * 🇰🇿 Kazakhstan: Used by almost all branches of the Kazakh ground forces. Their version of UCP is similar to UCP-D but with a light green inlay instead of a brown one. Called "KazTcifra" it makes not just an interesting blend for the wearer but also actually manages to fit the terrain well.
 * 🇱🇧 Lebanon: Lebanese Marine Commandos use both local copies and surplus UCP ACU uniforms from U.S. Army.
 * 🇲🇾 Malaysia: Supplied and used by the Special Task and Rescue unit.
 * 🇲🇽 Mexico: Used by the Sinaloa State Police's Special Anti-Kidnapping Unit.
 * 🇲🇪 Montenegro: Used by the Montenegrin Special Anti-Terrorist Unit.
 * 🇲🇩 Moldova: Known to be used by operators of the Posebna Jedinica Policije.
 * North Macedonia: Used by the Rapid Deployment Unit.
 * 🇵🇾 Paraguay: Used by Paraguayan National Police's Grupo Lince unit with dark colored palettes.
 * 🇵🇪 Peru
 * 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia: Used by Royal Saudi Air Force personnel, which has a darker color palette.
 * 🇷🇸 Serbia: Used by the Serbian Special Anti–Terrorist Unit only in operations inside cities/towns with UCP-patterned BDUs. Also used by the Gendarmery.
 * 🇹🇯 Tajikistan
 * 🇺🇦 Ukraine: Used by some divisions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from special forces to airborne units.

Former

 * 🇰🇷 South Korea: Was worn by KATUSA units.
 * 🇬🇧 United Kingdom: Formerly used by United Kingdom Special Forces personnel of Task Force Black/Knight during the Iraq War and also worn ACU uniforms during the War in Afghanistan.
 * 🇺🇸 United States: Former standard-issued camouflage of the U.S. Army from 2005 to 2019.
 * Vests, webbing, gear and helmet covers remain in use for training reserves.
 * Utilised helmet covers, vests, armor, webbing and gear from U.S. Army to collaborate with former Airman Battle Uniform.
 * Uniforms and equipment utilised by Navy individual augmentees attached with Army units.