NATICK, Mass. -- The Army is changing clothes.Over the next year, America's largest fighting force is swapping its camouflage pattern. The move is a quiet admission that the last uniform -- a pixelated design that debuted in 2004 at a cost of $5 billion -- was a colossal mistake.
Soldiers have roundly criticized the gray-green uniform for standing out almost everywhere it's been worn. Industry insiders have called the financial mess surrounding the pattern a "fiasco."
"Essentially, the Army designed a universal uniform that universally failed in every environment," said an Army specialist who served two tours in Iraq, wearing UCP in Baghdad and the deserts outside Basra. "The only time I have ever seen it work well was in a gravel pit."
The specialist asked that his name be withheld because he wasn't authorized to speak to the press.
"As a cavalry scout, it is my job to stay hidden. Wearing a uniform that stands out this badly makes it hard to do our job effectively," he said. "If we can see our own guys across a distance because of it, then so can our enemy."
The ArmyÂ’s camouflage researchers say the story of the universal patternÂ’s origins begins when they helped develop a similarly pixilated camouflage now worn by the Marine Corps. That pattern, known as MARPAT, first appeared in 2002 after being selected from among dozens of candidates and receiving plenty of input from Marines on the ground at the sniper school in Quantico, Va. The Marines even found one of the baseline colors themselves, an earth tone now called Coyote Brown.
For a decision that could ultimately affect more than a million soldiers in the Army, reserves and National Guard, the sudden shift from Program Executive Office Soldier was a head-scratcher. The consensus among the researchers was the Army brass had watched the Marine Corps don their new uniforms and caught a case of pixilated camouflage envy.“It was trendy,” Stewardson said. “If it’s good enough for the Marines, why shouldn’t the Army have that same cool new look?”
“Brand identity trumped camouflage utility,” Graves said. “That’s what this really comes down to: ‘We can’t allow the Marine Corps to look more cool than the Army.’ ”