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Since the dawn of warfare, armies have sought advantages over enemy forces. One such advantage is camouflage. The enemy can't kill you if they can't see you, goes the thinking. While the nature of warfare has evolved from skirmish lines facing off across open fields (think Braveheart) to smaller squad-based combat such as jungle warfare and special ops, the combat uniform has also evolved as armies discovered new and better ways to blend in with their surroundings, gaining a tactical edge.
here is a breief summary of the evolution of US military camouflage from world war I to the present.
Individual soldiers painted their new steel helmets in patterns to break up the lines, an idea taken from the Germans. This was especially useful in trench warfare where only a soldier's head was exposed.
In 1 1942, 15,000 jungle camo uniforms designed by horticulturist Norvell Gillespie were sent to the Marines in the Pacific Theater. The "frog skin" pattern featured 5 colors.
Olive (OG) Shade 107 became the dominate uniform color with camo helmet covers. Soldiers added native jungle foliage to break up the helmet outline.
Special Forces introduced "tiger stripe" camo to hide in the jungles.
The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Laboratory (ERDL) developed "woodlands," a general purpose jungle camo consisting of mid-brown, black, and grass green organic shapes.
Made famous in Operations Desert Storm in 1991 and Restore Hope in 1993, the Desert Battle Dress Uniform (DBDU) camouflage used a 6-color scheme known as "chocolate chip" because it looked like cookie dough.
To better blend into the desert landscape in Iraq, the Desert Camo Uniform (DCU) was developed and nicknamed "coffee stain" due to its large, 3-color pattern.
Commonly called "digital camo" thanks to its pixelated appearance, Universal Camo Pattern (UCP) blended tan, grey, and green to standardize one camo pattern for all environments.
The Navy Working Uniform Type I, introduced in 2009 and quickly nicknamed the "blueberry pattern for obvious reasons, is being replaced with a green variant closer to land-based camo patterns.
Operational Camouflage Pattern (OCP) was designed as a replacement for UCP and supersedes Multicam. It has been adopted by The U.S. Army and The U.S. Air Force as the official combat uniform pattern after positive feedback from soldiers deployed to Afghanistan.
See Propper's complete line of authentic OCP uniforms here.
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