ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

**Universal Camouflage Pattern**
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The Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP) is a digital military camouflage pattern that was formerly used by the US Army in its combat uniform, specifically the Army Combat Uniform.

**Development and Testing**
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In an effort to design a uniform pattern that would hide the wearer in all seasonal environments, technicians at the Natick Soldier Systems Center conducted laboratory and field tests between 2003 and 2004. The tests showed that a pattern called All-Over-Brush (MultiCam Contractor Developed Mod) offered the best concealment among the designs tested. All-Over-Brush was selected from 10 other patterns.

**Limitations of Universal Camouflage**
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However, it was observed at the time that the universal disadvantage of an all-in-one pattern meant compromise and less efficiency in all environments compared to more effective coloring for each environment. In other words, while the UCP provided a good level of concealment overall, it did not excel in any single environment.

**Final Selection**
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Despite being selected as the top performer among the tested patterns, All-Over-Brush was not chosen as the final UCP. Instead, US Army leaders used pixel images from the Canadian CADPAT and MARPAT of the U.S. Marine Corps, then recolored them to create a unique pattern based on three universal colors.

**Use in Military Uniforms**
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The UCP was used by the US Army as standard camouflage for the ACU military uniform from 2004-2019.