There were fifteen evaluations, which took place at Fort Benning, Fort Polk, Fort Irwin, Fort Lewis, and Yakima, Washington. 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. 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. Three patterns were developed, called All Over Brush, Track, and Shadow/Line. The wear-out date for the Air Force ABU was 1 April 2021. Īdditionally, after having used the OCP for several years as their own deployment uniform, the United States Air Force also decided to adopt the OCP as their sole utility uniform for all Airmen, both in-garrison and deployed, to replace their current pixelated utility uniform, the Airman Battle Uniform, which was similar in appearance to UCP. However, UCP does remain in service in limited capacities, such as on some cold weather overgear and older body armor. In July 2014, the Army announced that Operational Camouflage Pattern would replace all UCP-patterned ACU uniforms by the end of September 2019. The Army then conducted several studies to find a modification or replacement for the standard issue pattern. Soldiers in Afghanistan questioned the effectiveness of the all-terrain pattern. Its pixelated pattern is similar to the MARPAT and CADPAT camouflage patterns used by the United States Marine Corps and the Canadian Armed Forces, respectively. It beat ten other patterns (though UCP may still have been adopted without field testing against other patterns because senior military leaders liked it). The pattern was chosen after laboratory and field tests from 2003 to 2004 showed it to provide the best concealment in many different operational environments. The Universal Camouflage Pattern ( UCP) is a digital military camouflage pattern formerly used by the United States Army in their Army Combat Uniform. Two soldiers in 2005 wearing the Army Combat Uniform in the Universal Camouflage Pattern

Digital camouflage