The US Army’s Universal Camouflage: A Terrible Mistake
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- čas přidán 14. 10. 2022
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The idea of the US military having copyright disputes with itself over camouflage patterns is both dystopian and hilarious
I kind of still refuse to believe it
Do you know what dystopian means?
About as American as it gets
"Lol fuck your uniforms pay us or make your own"
Cue the Michael Nelson as Uncle Sam saying, "I'm The Government!" MSTK clip!
Think these digital patterns are identical? Maybe they are like fingerprints to track soldiers. UN gives the orders...
Probably just as bad was the US Navy's blue camouflage uniform which worked great at making a sailor that fell overboard blend very well into the ocean.
it didn’t even blend into the ocean is the absolute worst part, it was actually just a suckier overall
Well considering most Sailors are not going to be an environment where they need camouflage and it actually doesn't blend into the ocean all that well it's more of a fashion statement.
@@clonescope2433 more for stains
And it melted
@@clonescope2433 except sailors are in environments where they need camo all the time, land
nwu type ii and iii fix this atleast
As a Canadian, I’m shocked by the idea of two military branches of the same country working so separately that one copywrited technology in order that the other didn’t get it.
You shouldn't be. It all started because Canada did this exact thing to the USA, its closest ally.
It sounds dubious and probably isn't true, no matter how authoritatively the video declares it.
There is a reason the US Army didn't use it, and its not copyright issues.
@@skat1140
Of course it isn't.
The issue wasn't copyright, it was the first 3 letters in CADPAT.
As in: CAD - Canadian. Of course the US military would never allow themselves to have their soldiers wear Canadian made camo pattern on duty.
If CADPAT wasn't copyrighted, they'd just make bare minimum changes to it so it wouldn't be blatantly the same (rearrange pixels just a litte bit, maybe change colours so slightly the eye wouldn't even see a difference), slap a fancy US name on it to make it technically American, and call it a day.
At least they aren't mortal enemies like Japan's army and navy.
@@poppers7317The CIA has knocked off field members of the NSA and other US agencies before to protect illegal black ops.
I was an instructor at the Special Warfare Center in the aughts. I wore the UCP uniform on the patrol exercises because I literally glowed at night compared to my students wearing old woodland camouflage. It was easy for the students to find me at night for change of leadership briefings since I stood out like a sore thumb. Being a FOB bound staff officer in multiple Iraq and Afghanistan tours, I took comfort that the pattern did blend in with the gravel used throughout the bases and I could dissappear by going flat on the gravel deck.
I appreciate you, thanks for sharing your experiences.
You cracked me up thinking about an officer laying still in the gravel while some grunt is looking for him.
Woodland is goated
I contend that the best all around camo is Woodland, that I believe was last issued in the eighties to our military (U.S.). It's all I buy for hunting and it was all that I used as an urban police sniper, that I used in that capacity from 1994 until 2004. Authentic U.S. military Woodland camo ( on U.S. issued uniforms) is getting very hard to find in surplus stores nowadays. The one exception, in my opinion, is a snow camo pattern, that is mostly white with black branches on it. I'm not sure if that was an official U.S. pattern but I use it for winter varmint hunting when their is a back ground covered in snow..Without getting into the fine details of how and what camo patterns are supposed to do, this is my belief based on my own observations and experiences.
Wow never thought of gravel as a background. How cool!
The fact that the U.S. military is paid for with taxes and yet the different branches are scamming each other with patents on effective military designs is so beyond stupid and frustrating
Yeah honestly, you would think that they should be working together. Greed has truly taken over and it’s really sad
I mean, we dump taxpayer dollars into pharmaceutical and petrochemical patents that are wholly owned by corporations too. Welcome to America.
Yup... 800 billion dollars a goddamn year, and they do this shit.
And yet, they still have the damn NERVE to say universal healthcare would be too expensive.
@@justseffstuff3308 well, you don't expect politicians to secure votes against universal healthcare by telling their voter base that voting in favor of it would likely reduce the profit margins of the big pharma corporations, do you? 🤔🤨🤐
To be clear, many comments mention J-SOC or SOF. They are funded by Congress 🏛 & the DoD from a completely separate budget, procurement system. $$$. SEALs, MARSOC, Army SF-ACE-Rangers etc have a lot of choice, input on what, how they wear uniforms. Some don't even use or wear regular military camo. They might dress or use what the "host" nation or area is wearing.
We’ve actually made really good camouflage, we just can’t find where we left the designs.
HAHAJHHA
The US designed a great camo then issued to the British army instead.
Dang bro your fashion statement really has sting
@@engineeringvision9507 no, we design our own stuff thanks very much.
The current multicam we wear works pretty well, and we understand now that there is no such thing as "universal". We have artic, woodland, desert, and I'm pretty sure even an urban camo. Though I wish our uniforms didn't fade as fast.
I was sitting in my helicopter waiting for two soldiers to take a leak in nearby woods. One was wearing the ACU flight uniform, the other the new flight uniform. I could easily see the guy in the ACUs, the other guy I could not see unless he moved. Seems it would have been easy to see that pattern was crap before buying.
They don't care about operational viability. When you're running an inflated defence budget costs must be kept as low as possible.
There was a total lack of field testing.
The Army decided to change the colors within the pattern at the last moment--in Feb '05 my platoon sergeant was still wearing the experimental ACUs (prior to anyone calling it "UCP") and they had a very distinctly green and tan color scheme--none of this "foliage green" bullshit. Less than 90 days later, the whole 101st Airborne Division was fielded the UCP-colored uniform. There's no possible way they made a color change AND tested it in multiple climatic environments within that short time frame. Some fuckbrain at the Pentagon just said "ship it!" and in US govt fashion, the decision stuck and cost many billions of dollars and too many lives.
2:25 lmao that's a crazy ass line 💀
glad im not the only one who noticed it
the US Army not being able to use the US Marine's Camo because of copyright is possibly the most American thing I've ever heard
And the US Marines put their anchor and globe logo throughout their camouflage pattern as a water mark of sorts too. No really.
More American than a hamburger with bullets
@@MechakittenX I have the uniforms to confirm your assertion.
It is so incredibly bizarre. Like how can one branch on the armed forces patent something and prevent the other branches from using it. WOW! One single branch of the armed forces can patent something! How can this be? All armed branches are under control of the Department of Defense and US government.
@@birdstwin1186 " All armed branches are under control of the Department of Defense and US government."
most likely because eacjh branch of the service has their own individual budgets i bet and the marines pattern was researched with their budget.. Im probably pretty close to the reason why
What I've learned is that the different branches of the US military operate like giant individual corporations
The worst thing is, right now it's not even nearly as bad as it once was. Read up on any military operation between WWII and The Gulf War and everything was either a failure or way harder than it needed to be because of basic interservice squabbling, lack of cooperation, communication or inability (or desire) to be on the same page about anything. And I'm including the ENTIRE Vietnam War. The fact that we won the Cold War isn't just a miracle with all the infighting and bungling going on behind the scenes but the fact we didn't blow ourselves up along the way too. 🤣
Yes it is a huge fucking flaw please send missiles to liberate us from this tomfoolery
I can understand arrogant generals, mutiny, conflicting interests and even blood money, but inter-branch copyright affecting ACTUAL COMBAT?! Copyright is a joke and so is America. They certainly earned that failing camoflauge
actually I just read a wikipedia article that said it wasnt copyright but arrogant marines that want everyone to know they're big scary marines so they wont let anyone else use it for that reason. Better than copyright I guess
@@Thespikedballofdoom copyright is indeed not a joke. But quite useful, however the government being able to copyright things and then charging the government to use said copyrighted thing is stupid as hell.
Copyright insures that if you do something that benefits society that you can profit off of it too. It's a great idea in a capitalist system.
It's interesting to me they would create a camouflage pattern uniform yet cut clothing to include straight lines and sharp corners. Straight lines and sharp corners are very rare in nature so tend to catch the eye.
Word. They should adopt those funky camo mu-mu's they wore on Endor in The Return of the Jedi.
@@tedwojtasik8781 Pancho?
@@tedwojtasik8781cowboys did
@@GeneralChangOfDanang poncho*
Man, why is it spelled "camoflage" instead of " "?
I'm surprised they didn't mention the Navy's camo attempt, nicknamed "the blueberries". They felt left out and developed their own camouflage uniform. This wasn't for their Seals. It was the standard working uniform. You know, the ones walking around on giant ships that you can see miles away. But if a man falls overboard, then, yes, he's going to be hard to find.
Didn't they fix that by having the uniforms turn orange? This was a possible rumor going around in 2009. I don't know the actual veracity of it.
@@HistorysRaven I don't think so.
Nah.
While we did have the blueberries, most Sailors deployed on Ships wear the Coveralls. Which is still a dark blue color lmao. So that blueberry argument holds no water. Pun not intended.
I liked the blueberries, while yeah they didn't work as effective camouflage, it was unique and good looking uniform in my opinion.
LMAO
@@stardude289 how are the uniforms unique when it's literally a copy
My friend in the navy wears green camo on his boat. Kinda funny. I asked him about it one time and he said “the thing about boat camo is, they already know we’re on the boat”
I've seen hunters dress in head-to-toe camo and drape their green aluminum boat in com netting. And then they expect really big boats to be able to see them on a muddy river against a forest background as the sun is setting.
No, he doesn't. He wears a blue fire retardant coverall (the FRV). NWU Type I (blueberries) and Type III (guacs) were both banned as an underway uniform several years ago due to their tendency to melt to your body in a fire. The reasoning behind the replacement had nothing to do with their color.
Komrad I see a capitalist ghost ship with no crew!
@@JohnDoe-on6ru Underrated comment
@@nghtwtchmn129 Morons doing crap like that and then having the gall to act indignant and get mad at others for not seeing them is a tale as old as time.
Army: "This camo pattern works. We want to use it."
Marines: "You can't. We have copyright on the pattern. If you use it we'll sue."
Army: "Aren't....we on the same side?"
Me: "Also, isn't anything made by the US government automatically public domain?"
Marines: There are teams?
"... trick the enemies eyes more better."
Goddang, Cledus, that thur sure is some much gooder speak you'z got!
This channel single handedly keeps the stock footage industry in business.
And they apply the wrong stock footage at the wrong times. @1:01 hes talking about woodland bdus and then splices in some multicam. Well done guys!
At least two shots the guy was wearing modern Russian digital camo.
What do you expect from these content farms?
Today on Weird History.... "The History of Stock Footage"
Jesus Christ loves you so much. Never forget that. Repent your sins and turn your life to Him. Have a great day bro. ✝️❤️🕊️
The Swiss army has really good snow camo. We drove past a field full of little snow hummocks and didn't think anything of it. Scared the crap out of us when one of the "hummocks" stood up and waved to us.
@John Opalko Swiss solders uniforms look like cows grazing in an alpine medow.
They are everywhere.
The reason Switzerland is always neutral is because if they actually went to war they would conquer the world.
It's a snow poff
They get regularly run over by their comerades while training.
@@davidpaprika5976 That's why Swiss solders also wear cow bells. " Herd " but not seen.
When I joined the Army over a decade ago, we were told MARPAT was actually offered to the Army first, but they declined because it would be too expensive to field 1.2 million soldiers two camo patterns. The Marines who are less than 1/4th our size took it. I don’t know how true this is because I never researched it.
If that's true, that was a terrible decision. Marpat is one of the best patterns out there.
That honestly sounds like the army logic and it’s thinking so I would believe that more than the video
It's funny that the Marines would spend that kind of money on uniforms even though our infantry weapons had been outdated as shit for a long time. We didn't get rid of the SAW until just a few years ago. All army guys were rolling with shiny new M4's with their fancy collapsible stocks while tons of lcpls in the Marines were stuck with busted m16a4s that were made in the 90s.
Not true, Marines were testing 3 different patterns ( true camo, tiger stripe, and digital). All Marines at the time could vote on which pattern they liked. Basically, every part of the uniform was voted on by Marines (myself included, active duty 1996-2004).
The Marine Commandant General Jones specifically copyrighted the pattern to ensure enemies knew Marines were on the battlefield. The previous jungle camo pattern was created by the Marines, but then given to all branches. Eventually became "Army" camo. And as soon as the Marines launched MARPAT all the other branches wanted it
I remember a very specific instance when the UCP's camouflaged a soldier perfectly. We had a couch with a UCP cover. A soldier fell asleep in uniform on it & his NCO was looking for him. It took the NCO awhile to find him there as the soldier's boots were out of sight.
The BN CSM ordered the UCP cover removed but it was replaced after he retired.
I was in the Marines during the first rolloutof their digital camouflage, it was shocking how well the green version worked compared to the older version. I was walking on a sidewalk and there was a Marine with his back towards me pissing into some trees and I was nearly on top of him when he turned around scared the crap out of me. I am glad they got some recognition in this video.
Yeah in a environment like the Pacific Northwest woodland marpat is king.
Now that’s a story 👍
Him pissing, you pooping. That was a messy encounter.
I remember when those older uniforms got phased out. My brother in law was in the Marines and I saw that new marpat uniform in the recruiting office
The new Marpat is legit if it ain’t salty asf😂
When we arrived in Afghanistan I was in a quick response unit. Which meant that we spent a lot of time standing by on some random hill hiding from the enemy until we were called. Eventually we realized how easy we were to spot, so what we started to do is to dip our uniforms into a mixture of dirt and water which helped change the ACU (our digital uniforms) into a different color and something less visible in the afghan terrain.
Dirty ACUs were invisible to everyone but sergeants major
I got told of commanders ordering their soldiers to essentially roll around in the dirt and mud before movement for this exact reason. UCP actually works really well when you can't see the UCP pattern cause it's covered in the local soil
@@Beardman74 i did this exact thing in 07, after a soldier got smoked we all realized it worked better dirty and stained by the environment, only problem is 1sg and SGM flipped shit every time they saw us.
UCP was designed that way (to be effective when dirty) but a majority of the Army didn’t know that.
@@wyatt6721 lol I laughed way too hard at that it's so true.
The Marines’ refusal to share its pattern with the Army is as astonishing as the Army’s failure to produce an effective pattern.
Totally agree with you bro, UCP was a complete DISASTER. The only time I’ve ever seen it work effectively was with a soldier in a gravel pit lol the ocp/multicam clone is not bad though… definitely a huge step forward but I still think that woodland and desert marpat slaps in certain environments. Also the older desert 3 color works AMAZINGLY well in the area I live in the southern cali desert area close-ish to Death Valley I go out shooting a few miles outside of town adjacent to some canals and this pattern is hands down above ocp so really it’s down to the specific environment except in the case of UCP that shit sucks lol
1:30 "They call me...*dramatic pause* ...Tim"
Meet Sam, the one guy on earth who googled 'camouflage bikini' and it actually was legitimate job-related research.
Aren't camouflage bikinis supposed to be invisible? So why aren't they in different skin colors?
@@tessjuel Or just transparent, for that matter.
It wasn't really job related.
You mean Sam's writer and editor? Sam just read the script.
Actually I know this one guy whose job is writing NSFW stories, he has looked up plenty of stuff like this as genuine job research.
Actually, my favorite is the pixelated blue pattern that the Navy adopted.
Makes really stand out against the gray paint of Navy ships, and makes them completely invisible if they fall overboard.
Sailors don't really need camouflage; they'd be better off wearing International Orange.
That’s why they got rid of that camo
i mean to be fair if they did fall overboard they have what? less than three minutes to live just from the cold water
Yeah maybe an Orange camo pattern would've made more sense since it doesn't matter anyways...or some cool colors like Red or green or idk.
supposedly the blue camo was actually supposed to turn orange in contact with salt water
why not just make it orange @@elapidpython4378
"Adopt one camouflage set for all military branches"
China goes one further: all government branches use the same camouflage set, whether military, highways, telecommunications, water and sewage, etc, they all use the same uniforms simply with different "flair". Saves a bundle of money, and if they ever need uniforms for their reserves, production capacity is already there.
The Marine Corps had been buying BDUs through the Army at very high prices. The development cost and production costs for Marpat was about 1/2 the cost of BDUs. Natick Labs (the Army's gear and MRE development center in Natick MA) refused to help the USMC develop Marpat which is part of the reason the Marines said "FU" and slapped a copyright on it.
Costa Rica has the best Army Camou. I've never seen a soldier in service.
Hee hee, that is great joke. Since Costa Rica has no army.
@@mardiffv.8775 thanks captain
Someone should write that down
@@jaimedawg8
No army
No camo
No sight
100% effective!
@@mardiffv.8775 no army that you can see… o_o
A decade of research between 2002 and 2004 is pretty impressive
5 guys working for 2 years
@@vichkar3680 you sound like a manager!
@@vichkar3680 math adds up
Also using "more better" in a sentence... Someone never watched the movie, 'Idiocracy." (1:10)
@@williamyoung9401 bro, you don't need grammar if the other person can understand what you mean lol
also, rule 3 of stupidity: a stupid person is someone who causes loss (emotional or physical) to others while not doing anything or losing to themselves
are you really sure you _had_ to compare a simple grammar mistake no one else will notice to the circus that is Idiocracy?
The biggest real-world advantage camo patterns have vs. plain olive drab fatigues is that oil, grease, hydraulic fluid, gravy, ketchup, and other stains aren't as noticeable on camo fabric.
"In commemoration of the skin color of the people they hoped to bomb" had me rolling. Well said sir!
I got to work with one of the guys who was on the selection committee and he confirmed the same thing: the Army chose literally the worst pattern possible for their uniform.
And people want bigger government lmao
Sometimes the Army gets it really really right, and sometimes... we get ACU's. So glad I had desert BDU's on my 1st and 2nd rotations. On my third, I was in a tank, which was way better camouflaged than I was.
They fixed it now, OCP is a huge improvement
@@hammerfist8763 imagine a camo so bad that a metal cube of the size of a house can hide better than you
Nanaflage
One time at a training event I was “killed” because it was kind of dark and the enemy combatant wearing ACUs was laying in a pile of gravel. The only time I’ve seen it actually work as camouflage.
During a training event a single Op4 took out almost an entire platoon by playing in gravel next to a train track. He was invisible! He wrapped the rifle and had netting in front of his face that was acu. He was basically in a gravel ghillie
@@ninjafirst4579the mention of a training event, the quotation marks, and the fact that I’m posting wasn’t enough context clues for you to realize I wasn’t saying I died in real life? And so you called me a clown? How ironic.
UNDERSTOOD 👍👍🥷
@@unknownnln9172 the difference between a good soldier and a bad soldier
a bad soldier only does what he is told to do and doesn't use his brain
a good soldier is creative around achieving his goal and tries to use the things at hand to the greatest effect
and that plays itself into what differentiates good and bad leadership
bad leadership wants orders to be done exactly the way they told them to
good leadership gives a general order and let's the people actually doing it figure out how to achieve it in detail
@@kuhluhOG in escence, Russia military is bad, western country militaries are good. 😬
"Some call him the father of modern camo design, and others call him 'Tim'."
😂😂😂 God, I love this channel!
Imagine reversible uniforms, so that soldiers can have camo for 2 environments:
- blue and desert for navy doing operations against desert areas, like the gulf wars.
- forest and snow to for northern europe, covered year-round.
- forest and desert for vast land-based operations like US mainland or China.
You would get nowhere in the Military with Actual Smarts like that ...
Don't try to give ideas to the US Military, they'll probably laugh at you and make three different kits out of it, all of which would fail.
Bomber jackets are reversible and bright orange on the inside so that if they crash, they can turn their jacket inside out and be rescued.
Slight correction, when talking about the Battle Dress Uniform at 1:01, BDU only refers to the uniform itself, the camouflage is itself known as 'U.S. Woodland', or, colloquially, 'M81' in Woodland variant. Also the stock footage used while describing its effectiveness is actually displaying the Army Combat Uniform which is using OCP, or the Operational Camouflage Pattern*, which was the successor to UCP.
* Props to TheHatersalad for pointing out that it was actually OEF-CP (MultiCam) being used by the Army Combat Uniform in the clip noted, not OCP proper.
I noticed other errors too. Maybe the channel should be called Half Accurate. Also, the narrator can fuck right off projecting his racism on the Marines.
At 2:25 he said the brown matched the color of people they wanted to bomb.
Too little training in Airsoft Camp.
That's actually OEF-CP or "Multicam". OCP was developed by the Army to get around paying Crye royalties on the Multicam pattern. Easy way to tell the two apart is OCP doesn't really have any vertical lines. It's also interesting how the Navy came up with their own version of Marpat for the NWU II/II in AOR1/AOR2 Desert/Woodland. His next video should be on the Air Force's digital Tiger Stripe pattern. The history behind why/how that came to be is so ridiculous.
@@TheHatersalad
good catch on the OEF-CP.
That camo saved countless lives, it just so happened to be the enemy lives
That camo saved a lot of oil resources
I've seen the argument that it was still effective in reducing casualties. Since the big killer in an actual fluid firefight was friendly fire (mostly fighting *relatively* untrained opponents helps with that), wearing a uniform that no one with a choice that was interested in actually hiding would wear means you stand out to FRIENDLY forces too, so you're less likely to get shot by them.
This is compounded by both BDU and DCU being so widely used around the world that basically anyone could be wearing it.
@@chrisc1140
I have also heard that said ages ago.
Always wondered when the camouflage became so square and 'digital'...
My favorite (not really) thing about this whole matter is that copyright led to deaths.
Camouflage is just one more thing that doesn't make sense to copyright except in our dystopian present. Not just from Canada to the US, but even between the different branches of the military.
But hey, our system breeds innovation, right?
Did the marines who are on the same side as the army really prevent them from using the same uniform pattern?
Yes, the Marines wanted their Marpat pattern exclusive for Marines only. So the enemy could see they are dealing with the US Marines.
Government should not be allowed to copyright anything, it should be public as it was developed with public (our) money
I think they could really just develop the German grey green camo from WW2 atleast when it comes to army,
would also probobly be good for the navy
That sounds exactly like something the Navy's Army would do.
@@jcrowley1985... there goes all government secrets then?
Trump probably agrees with your position. But the idea of confidential information isn't going away anytime soon.
It is literally key to military success
The Australian navy decided their sailors needed a cam uniform, and so took the army 'Auscam' pattern and recreated it using blues and greys (more nautical) and then added hi-vis reflective tape to the legs, arms, shoulders and hats - so a cam uniform that is meant to keep you hidden (on a massive ship?) and hi-vis reflective tape so they would stand out. The mind boggles. It's a cruel world.
The entire concept of camo on a ship is counter-productive. You're more likely to fall off the boat then get targeted by a sniper at sea. You rather WANT someone to be able to see you bobbing around in the water.
ex Australian army here. I occassionally see navy people wandering around in their cam. It baffles me. Youd think theyd keep this safely in their lockers ready to be pulled out whenever the navy feels the need to storm a beach (which it has done - never...)
@@Kelnx I don't know, those sea snipers are pretty dangerous.
@@Kelnx *than
Yeah, well: it's Australia. They have fvcked up EVERY major procurement project they've undertaken in the last 30 years. The only constant they've managed is complete incompetence.
You missed the best part: as a part of UCP development the Army created Scorpion W2 pattern, which Crye Precision modified and made into MultiCam (or OCP according to Army) and sold to the Army for billions of dollars, and then Army realized its mistake so it went back to Scorpion W2 (now called OCP, while original OCP was renamed OEF-CP). So we wasted billions of dollars and possibly killed hundreds by issuing faulty camouflage, then spent billions more to get proper uniforms, then went back to the design we had all this time and just adopted it under new name.
4:37 This clip is actually a perfect example of the isoluminance, since I had to freeze frame, and lean in and squint to be able to tell they were wearing anything but a solid color. So props for good editing (where the "B-roll" actually matches the point in the discussion)
I had a cat, that was orange and brown and ivory dotted all over. One time she lay on a pile of fallen leaves. I couldn't see her until she meowed at me, and she was within arm's reach. That's camouflage.
Well put sir. Reason being, your cat was designed by God/Natural selection (depending on your beliefs), instead of a commitee.
@@ignaciogomis272 Reason being that the cat decided to lay on a pile of fallen leaves, probably the only circumstance where it was camouflaged.
@@grootsyt You spoilsport 😂
BREAKING NEWS: The U.S. military has just adopted *Kitteh Kamo* as their standard. We now return you to your regular broadcast. 😁
Would totally buy calico camo😂
The ACU was so easy to spot when doing field training exercises. When the OCP was only starting to circulate, the guys wearing it disappeared into the woods as soon as they were out a good distance. ACU stood out like a sore thumb no matter where they were, unless it was a really dirty uniform lol
Works great for hiding out in the motor pool.
The Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP) and the Operational Camouflage Pattern (OCP) are the camouflage patterns. Both uniforms are The Army Combat Uniform (ACU).
acus worked really good if you layed down in a pile of that blue gravel lol
So you’re saying ACU should be the standard pattern for spring break bikinis?
I remember my drill sergeant say "the camo is gonna work better the darker it gets" but I was pretty sure he was full of shit or just an idiot everyone else hated it.
I never thought that the marines would copyright something that would be so useful to its peers. They're on the same side?? Why wouldn't they just let the army use it?
If it’s not copyrighted everyone can use it, including the enemy, don’t want the enemy looking just like you and being well camouflaged
@@halbert5707 And everybody follows copyright law.
Marine here. Part of the reason why we have our unique camouflage pattern is for psychological reasons. When I was in training I was listening to a speech a Colonel gave us, and he said that as Marines, we are respected by our allies and feared by our enemies and we want our allies and enemies to know that we are U.S. Marines.
They copyrighted a blotch of paint. Imagine two armies at war, but one having a worse camouflage because they don't want to overstep the other side copyright.
It's not that they just didn't test ucp before sending it out. They did rigorous tests on many different camo patterns and found some really effective ones. They just ignored every single one and rushed ucp through despite it not even being one of the patterns tested
A big part of that was not wanting to pay the top winners for their design. The decision got people killed. I’m surprised this video doesn’t talk about how it was selected.
What do you expect?
This is the Army we are talking about.
- Slaughtering/Wounding innocent U.S. citizens at Kent State
- Endless slew of combat embarrassments, like the STAGED "rescue" of Pvt Lynch and the FRIENDLY FIRE killing of all-American poster boy, Pat Tillman.
- The Abu Ghraib "naked prisoners pictures" scandal
- The only branch with a history of MASS SHOOTINGS
- The branch at the CENTER of ALL the increased awareness, NJP, and UCMJ crackdowns on SEXUAL ASSAULT and other sec crimes within the U.S. military.
- And the branch known for always doing LESS (good for this country) with MORE (of the military budget) than, for example, the Marines.
Army is what warfighting troops would look like if the military was privatized and you shopped around for the "lowest bidder" on the contract.
They are the Allied Universal Security of the U.S. military.
They are the last minute clown found on Craigslist, for your son's forgotten birthday party.
They are the story you hear about on the news about guys that shoot their own kids in the face - while cleaning their firearms.
They are the drunk driving, high on Spice and Fentanyl, child molesting Florida trailer trash domestic violence suspects you wish didn't live near you in the mobile home park.
Army. Nasty, undisciplined, weak civilians playing military dress-up.
😅🤣😂🤢🤮💩🤡🖕🤦♂️🤦♀️🤦
Probably the designers were addicted to minecraft.
Simple answer. Some brass wanted a promotion.
@@j007taylor2 simple response: ok, stupid civilian looking for attention and making a lazy oversimplification that shows you have NO idea how the implementation works in the military.
Wanker
The whole notion of one pattern that would serve all branches in all environments shows that the decision-making process is in the hands of people who keep their jobs by making promises that other people want to hear, but who have no responsibility for the results of their decisions.
Oof, that's well said.
The best and brightest have never resided in the halls of government.
That is just standard Manager-in-anything-but-a-small-company Behaviour (if you add in 'get rid of anyone below me who looks like they could do my job better than me').
Nothing is impossible to the person who doesn't have to do it.
While feeding ego and hubris. Who wants a bunch of dudes one-upping each other protecting you?
Also, in practice, the UCP/ACU uniforms when wet would turn very dark and contrast of the dark uniform stood out a lot during reconnaissance.
3:26 *once you pop..*
*..THAT'S GREAT!*
As a former infantry guy who was in during the ACU era/transition to multicam, I can speak for every single soldier that we ALL questioned why we had such a worthless camo. I even started to think that our government WANTED me to die. Absolutely horrendous. I’d like 5 minutes with whoever proposed the idea of ACU…
No shit I deployed late 2010-December 2011. First round of multicam in theater. Today my wife and I went through boxes and I told her how shit the acu was and the multicam was right beside it and even she could tell it sucked. Also, my phone is definitely listening to me cuz how the fuck did this come up
US wartime camo looks really great, top tier. You might be right on your government wanting you dead.
@@89medic I don’t even know how this video came up. The universe just brings us together…that, or our phones are listening and our lives are governed by the powers that be; the same powers that creates ACU.
Here, put on this neon green vest, soldier 😂
You can have an hour.
short answer:
someone got a very very very very very very large paycheck and suddenly UCP was effective and approved
😂😆
thats actually what happened lol.
I remember my first time seeing it was when I was a 19 year old joining the Army in 2006. My recruiters weren't wearing it yet, and when I was shipped to Fort Benning, it was my first time seeing it. It was an awkward phase where we wore the new pattern, but certain gear like vests still had the BDU pattern. I immediately thought the new design looked cool -- like something from a sci-fi setting, but also acknowledged it seemed impractical as a camouflage in all but certain urban city environments. My platoon peers also were confused by it. I do wonder how many of them may have perished because of this design in the following years.
While you were in basic, I was down range with a combo of ACU, BDU, and DCU gear...we didn't blend in for anything. Fortunately, that was when we were getting issued MRAPs and other explosion-resistant vehicles (which also didn't blend in), so at least our guys were better protected until more EFPs reached the roadside bombs we'd been encountering.
@@0num4 Interesting. Thanks for sharing!
Now this is military efficiency at its finest
I really hated the ucp, it felt like I could only somewhat blend in with either gravel or old couches from the 70s or 80s. This comment was written even before watching the video
@Caleb OKAY What is the best military uniform?
@@SaveznaRepublikaJugoslavija none. go naked. be wild. be uncontainable
@@linkly9272 The colour of skin stands out in most military environments and offers no protection from bullets.
@@SaveznaRepublikaJugoslavija depends on the environment
Well, if you're in oldcouchistan...
Every other branch copied the Marines (who copied the Canadians), and then they all changed their uniforms
Typical Americans copying our good systems which later ended up bad
And spent a lot of people’s money!
Gotta keep those defense contractors profit margins strong. They aren't going to make massive bank if everyone has the same uniform and they keep it for 50 years, then people could just buy used ones.
Might paying a license to Canada for copying their pattern cost less than $5,000,000,000?
@@lordhosk -
Part of it was (a) the amount of desert uniforms we gave out from Desert Storm to Operation Iraqi Freedom, and (b) the fact a decent enough copy could be purchased via other sources. The military used that as a reason for the need to come up with another style of uniform to distinguish itself from others.
But it's true to an extent about the contractors, but you also have to factor in that the Dept. of Defense and each branch of the military are under a "Use it or lose it" protocol. If they don't spend the money, it will affect their budget request and allocation the following year.
I think the branches haveing different camos is a good thing so you can tell he difference between them on the battlefeild but at the same time it shouldnt be copy righted against the other branch
My understanding of the camo adoption was because during the Afghanistan war there were issues with insurgents just buying the the older Army camo in civilian markets and blending in with ANA or US forces, The new design was not widely avaliable yet. The camo was designed for near pear military foes, as it was harder too see you on optics
At the time the americans deployed the ACU no one had advanced optics except for the Americans themselves
The fact they didn't factor in shadows is amazing. Manipulation of shadows and lighting is a fundamental part of camouflage
Edit: Vietnam Tiger Stripe is the best camo, change my mind.
Agreed. Everyone always says, no blacks aren't good they aren't in nature. DUH yeah, it's shadows! Perfectly placed black or dark colors break up the silhouette.
You can't expect to get everything for just $5,000,000,000, you know.
@@michaelrullis7501 Have they never seen a Zebra or a Tiger?
@@AzureDrag0n1 cosplaying as a zebra or a tiger is an A+ survival strategy if one wants to avoid being seen👍
It's probably harder than it looks. Also, if shadows are a literally everywhere. It's naturally occurring. What is even the point.
5:07 the video when your parents walk in
fr
Our MOP4 gear was woodland green camo. For deployment to the desert.
Never thought Sam would ever say "Desert Child Soldier" 💀
I was a cadet in the old BDUs just as this was coming out and the cadre started wearing it. We were doing a field training exercise, and I was only able to spot the other cadets in BDUs by having my eyes drawn to the evaluators in the ACUs first, then to the cadets they were monitoring nearby.
LOL, I actually buy that. Makes perfect sense.
ACUs only work on like gravel near train tracks.
@@unknownnln9172 That would have been perfect for a lot of places in Afghanistan, just not all of them.
There were a lot of flat gravely places where in the low light of the evening everything had a bluey-grey gravel look to them, but fr they would have been better off wearing multicam or some shit.
- Private! I did not see you yesterday at camouflage training!
- Sir! Thank you, sir!
Dumb overused joke.
@@0deepak Thank you! ☺️😘
@@JanStrojil he means it sucks,I agree,it’s everywhere and not original.
@@Sapphiregamer8605 I understood what he meant. Sorry you had to read it again. I did not mean to cause you any trauma.
LMAO
The UCP looks like marpat if someone didn't compile the lighting properly and it just defaulted to fullbright instead of adjusting itself to the maps lighting
At one point, the US military used "Tiger Stripe" camo. It was a massive failure because the stripes were horizontal, while most jungle foliage (and stripes on real tigers) are vertical.
A classic case of "by trying to do everything, you end up doing nothing right."
well put Onyx1916
Bit like the F35
The F35 program was turned around and is now massively successful, believe it or not. The US gov’t put in place a new acquisition method that was successful in twisting Lockheed’s arm in getting cost and performance under control. Now the modularity afforded by the platform is paying huge, huge dividends. This is the same reason why, during the B-21 raider unveiling, they spent more time talking about boring sounding things like modularity and digital engineering than they did “super stealthy sexy go fast blow up enemies bomber!!! See you in COD MW69!!”
For example, a software upgrade released in the Block 2/Block 3 build now allows the F35 to track, lock, and fire on multiple targets at once. This is a significant tactical feature, which in years past would have required a whole new aircraft or aircraft variant to support.
The F35 has a lot to recommend it, and no one who understands modern combat should say otherwise. But it still should have been a family of 3 closely-related planes, NOT 3 separate capabilities built onto “one” airframe.
@@DAOzz83 I'm an Aeronautical Engineer and my uncle is also, he worked on F-35 since the early 2000s. Putting three planes into one is a slap in the face to physics, I agree, and most politicians and bureaucrats don't understand. But there is more to life than just engineering optimization - logistics, supply chain, modularity, etc all play a larger role than anyone realizes. In reality, is it possible to rack and stack and account for everything to determine if F35 was a good idea or not? No, I don't really think so. I'm not entirely sure, but regardless "what's done is done" and at least the decades of work is starting to pay SOME dividends. The program could have ended in complete and utter failure, i'm sure.
To clarify my earlier point: F35 sought commonality across the Joint Services, and I believe they eventually reached points where they had to diverge the aircraft into their own more service-unique platforms. That said, there probably is still quite a bit of commonality between parts and tooling, etc. It's entirely suboptimal compared to the original goal, but some commonality is better than none. Where on the spectrum does the F35A/B/C lie? No idea... it could be virtually useless or pretty good. No clue. Not sure anyone could tell you with how huge and dilapidated the program has gotten.
The US uniforms in the 2000s was basically a cringe fashion statement. Every branch wanted to look cool and different than each other. They though it was lame they used M81 Woodland and 3 color desert, which are still top tier camos to this day. Oh and worst thing too is that the army did propper trials, had the rights to the Scorpion camo (predecessor to Multicam, that was the commercial stop gap camo), and scorpion is now the issued camo with some tweaks, but they went for UCP because of cringe fashion reasons and some sprinkled corruption.
Those camo patterns DO work, but the problem with them is that they work best from a distance. At closer range they become noticeably less effective, especially when compared to modern camo patterns other than UCP.
M81 is the best camo, change my mind.
now you mention it, it's possible that "looking cool" had a higher priority when the US was fighting lopsided wars in the early 2000's but, as everything went pear shaped and troops became mired in endless tours of iraq and afghanistan, that hubris steadily got less appealing
4:03, Urban Track is a completely different camo pattern than UCP. It has a similar color chooice but the pattern itself is completely different and predates UCP itself by a few years.
I must say, cadpat is pretty damn good. I remember joking about seeing floating heads on FTXes in cadets
One thing not mentioned in this video is how the Army came to choose the 3 colors it did in creating UCP. According to an article that I had read, they chose the best light, medium, and dark colors for night vision and didn't seem to particularly care how they worked in regular daylight. So basically, they chose colors that, when viewed in IR light, would still show up as a camouflage pattern and not just blend in with each other and look like a solid color or something that barely showed up as camouflage pattern.
Cause insurgents use night vision. Makes sense.
Even with those colors they still could have used actual camo
Sounds like an IFF idea....not bad, if the whole thing had been handled better.
There`s a few videos on that subject also, testing witch kind worked better than others in hiding from different night vision devices.
@@theneef174 The pattern is fine, the Army used essentially the same screens used for CADPAT & MARPAT, it's the colors that were the problem. They worked well under IR light/night vision but sucked in visible light.
I was sailing in the Swedish archipelago when I suddenly heard voices coming from a cliff. I was maybe 100 metres away when I saw some movement and coming about 50 metres closer realized that it wasn't a cliff. It was a big camoflaged ship full of marines. Well done, Swedish navy!
Are you sure it wasn't a large floating IKEA? 😂
@@duckduckgoismuchbetter were they actually vocalizing instructions or just doing confusing pantomimes?
@@stein1919??🤷
Sweden have the worlds best camo
Why do the Swedes put bar codes on the bows of their ships? So when they come back to port, they can scan da navy in.
"some call 'the god father of modern camo' and others call tim'" 🤣
This is a cool video. When I left the military in 2005 they had just started using the new ACUs. I believe the Navy was the first one to field test them. There was a hell of a lot of problems with the "DigiCam" style at first. I'll be honest, I still like my old fashioned BDUs. They work great for being out in the woods. Unless you have a set of "RealTree" camo. That would be the most ideal.
I wore that uniform in urban combat overseas and it works a lot more than you think in a urban setting. It’s obviously not the best for open desert land or jungle warfare but for urban it’s not bad at all. The biggest problem was that all our accessories like ammo pouches and vests were still the BDU woodland camo versions, cause the military decided to release the new uniforms before making all the right accessories for it.
What made my desert BDU's work well in Baghdad was getting a plate carrier, backpack and camelback in desert bdu pattern. A tan strap for my 240B helped it blend in as well. Didn't have much black or any green breaking up the pattern.
Was the killing and spoliation good ?
I still have ACU pattern stuff with my OCPs.
2005 OIF3 Ad Dawar Iraq, we wore desert with green gear. For us it did not matter, we wanted the locals knowing we were there. The locals actually spray painted on walls of the towns in Arabic," The Green Monsters are back." During night raids we would sometimes wear BDUs to confuse the insurgents thinking they were hit by Special Tier Units. Well thet were almost right since most of the time were were working conjunction providing assistance to some type of Secret Squirrel unit or agency. At least the Sunni Triangle was primarily desert with a few cities.
@@JorgeCruz-mi5gc I hope your civilian kills yielded massive oils for our bosses
2:25 Holy shit that joke was brutal lol
ACUs blend perfectly with a pile of gravel. I’ve seen firsthand, walking through the woods standing out like orange vet but when they crossed the gravel parking lot they were very hard to pick out lol
They did test UCP...it was hated. They actually had a good idea but implemented it in the most army way possible and thus killed the idea. The idea behind UCP was that once deployed to an area, you stain the camo with local natural colors. You could do this by cooking it in a big pot with local dirt and then rubbing it with leaves.
Here is where the army comes in. They kept that idea top secret so that no one, not even the soldiers, would figure it out. Then they ordered a bunch of gear made out of material that wouldn't stain in the pattern.
I would have preferred that cool brush pattern they had but scorpion isn't that bad either.
2:30 "Coyote brown to match the skin-tone of the people they're going to bomb" the absolute no chill from the writers/narrators! Probably not a far off assessment though
MARPAT works very well, the only digital camo that does. My buddies and I always make jokes saying we could put a random marine 10 feet in the tree line and we wouldn't be able to see him. In fact I've laid my cammies in grass to dry, and after about 30 minutes I went to go check on them, it took me about 10-15 seconds of scanning my eyes across this small patch of grass until I saw them.
...Until you _recognized/spotted_ them, that is. You saw them before that. The light reflecting from them still entered your eyes.
@@HelloKittyFanMan. So what you're saying is that you understood exactly what they were trying to convey with their comment, but still wanted to needlessly "correct" them to make yourself feel superior.
You seem insufferable.
@@JayJonahJaymeson (part 1): No. 1. You're not a mind reader. 2. It wasn't "needless." 3. Your quotes around "correct" were pointless. 4. Only an idi(YT censorship)ot ASSumes that this is about trying to "make [my]self feel superior." (Cont.)
@@JayJonahJaymeson (part 2): 5. It's not even your thing to be talking to me, because I wasn't talking to you. So why should you even care? 6. That makes _you_ the insufferable one; not me.
@@HelloKittyFanMan. Only people who agree with you are allowed to reply to your public comments in order to avoid hurting your feelings. Got it.
There is no "I" in "team", but you better believe there's one in "Marines"!
Thank you for the video! Hilarious and information.
Okay now you’ve gotta make a video on the Navy’s blueberries and our whole uniform fiasco
Ngl, as much as I make fun of those uniforms, they did scream Navy and looked REALLY good in that battleship movie lol
haha as a Coastie we knocked those so much cause they are on water and dont need cammo
@@markbollinger1343 surely a bright colour would make more sense incase of falling overboard?
@@markbollinger1343 it's more for stains
@@cleanerben9636 but that just means more uniforms which is bad because they are expensive and not all sailors are on ships
And still, after all the billions of dollars put in the different programs, the classic woodland and desert camo still works just as good.
There's no money to be made off of the old BDU patterns. There were a million soldiers who had to march on down and use their clothing allowance at the PX to replace all of those old uniforms and boots.
The one thing the UCP was good for was when fighting IR capable enemies. Something that later patterns were much better at.
One additional terrible design flaw of the UCP is the fucking velcro pocket closures which never stayed closed. There's nothing like the sound of tearing velcro to give away your position to the enemy.
Angry cops
The best part about UCP is they were actually really good at adopting the colors of the environment they were in and blending in, it only took about 6 months of use in that environment. Unfortunately, most deployments are around 3 to 5 months long
For officers maybe. The Air Force used to have 60-90 day deployment for enlisted. No longer. 179 days is the standard. Because at 180 they gotta give you enhanced benefits. Army/Marines get a lot of 364s, but I'm sure 179s are also available. Source: am USAF veteran
The ACU pattern worked VERY well in one specific environment, grey rock with lichen. up in the mountains of west point (and perhaps in the STAN) the uniform blended in perfectly. I had always assumed it was designed for the war in STAN since we were there at the time. But in the woods itself, the stuff was garbage. The best cammo is just browns. Look at a deer. If a deer is standing still in the woods you would never see it.
yep. you don't need to match the greens in an environment; you just need the possibility that dull brown things are common. where i live it's kangaroos ... i can see them, but to any dog i have with me they are totally invisible unless they move
You had me at "trick their eyes more better."
When we were issued these to replace BDU, It was actually called ACU for advanced camouflage uniform
Trying to create one camouflage for all environments, I'm sure nothing could go wrong.
@Phil Lister Scorpion W2 which is basicly MultiCam modification. As i know MultiCam should be chosen insteed of UCP. But generals decided not to pay for it license.
We used potassium permanganate used for water treatment and soak our patrol uniforms which left them with an old dirty look and more brownish. This worked really well with the uniforms, not quite as well on assault packs and such, which was fine because we'd have to turn those back in typically. We would let the body armor and nylon stuff just get really dirty, some guys word use oils so the dirt would stick better. Between the potassium permanganate and local dirt we had a very functional and adaptable camo because of the light acu coloring. Unfortunately these practices were frowned upon by many unit regular army commanders and garrisoned units. We called the called the modified uniforms ding... Like dingy or dirty... Never actually saw the word written so I don't know how we spelled it. I thought the "dingy" uniforms and gear worked marginal better than the USMC desert digi especially at closer range, I think because it used local natural camo.
I read somewhere that the USMC pattern was designed by the Army or at an Army facility, but that could be wrong.
All the f...ing Velcro is what I hated the most. Everything came out of the dryer in a big wrinkled ball, socks and t-shirts would get ruined by the Velcro that was supposed to help save solders money. The funky camo we could work with. The Velcro was part of the design so you couldn't easy cut it out and put in a button. The army I joined wasn't the army I left. It's obviously changed for the worse and the I ain't talking the uniforms.
The Marines deff had better camo
Apparently the British Navy had done some studies during WWII that concluded the color that blended best at a distance is solid hot pink, so they actually painted a bunch of their ships hot pink.
Has anyone suggested this to the US Marines?
It's fun to be in the U S Marines the U S Marines.🏴☠
The UCP was pretty comfortable at least and had some nice features. It was designed with night vision in mind as well where a greenish pixelized pattern blended better when observed through such devices, the problem was though that most of the time we owned the night and enemies fought in the daylight hours. The OCP was a much better improvement.
Just a couple hours ago I watched a video of a guy making ACU actually look good. He dyed it with walnut husks. The resulting dark camo was REALLY good in the forest, almost perfectly matching the tree trunks around him.
I used RIT Brown dye on mine. Worked well. I only have one blkwnt tree so it would've taken me a while to get the amount needed. 2-3 hrs. Of stirring but the result was like his.
In the last 12 years of owning ACU I actually did find myself on a cliff face with what I'd call a 100% match. Other than that it's just been my grandmothers couch.
Me too. @@Eric-om9dw
@@ericb9931 Is your grandmothers couch copyrighted??
@@casinodelonge 😂😅 good question
I was in the Air Force at the time and we had what they called ABUs…a tiger stripe version of the Army UCP. We had to make sure we didn’t use certain types of laundry soap or fabric softeners because it could make the uniform literally glow under certain light conditions (or lack thereof/night vision.)
I remember the switch and the proposed designs but I got out before we switched and were still using the old BDU camo. Did you guys think that blueish grey tiger stripe was ridiculous too because I remember most of the other guys on my base, myself included just wondering what they were thinking, like what were we supposed to blend into with that? On deployment we had the old school camo but in desert colors. I think the one advantage with the new BDUs was not having to spend all that time ironing them.
@@dickJohnsonpeter
That benefit quickly went away as soon as some asshat e8 bucking for chief ironed his, and leadership said "that looks good".
I still think the old OG 507’s were the most practical fatigue uniform (USAF here). Cool, comfortable, easy to wash and wear. Cheap too. If you deployed to a combat area they issued us the relevant camouflage uniform anyway.
I love old woodland camo - it is one of the best looking camos ever, and I agree that it did the job.
If they had a material that was mirror like but not able to reflect light as a sharp glare you'd wind up with an adaptive camouflaged that takes colors from the environment around you.