Defense Tech has the first exclusive look at some Joes wearing Natick's own Universal Camouflage Pattern - Delta in the field in Afghanistan.
Below is a trooper from the 3rd Squadron of the 61st Cav wearing the UCP-D while teaching Afghan troops how to break down an M-16.
Now, the next two photos is where DT is breaking some news. Take a look at this one:
Notice the patches ...these are not troopers from the 3rd of the 61st, are they? In fact, the caption reads they are from the 5th SBCT 2nd Battalion of the 508th PIR down in Kandahar province. Hmmm, funny. We were told the UCP-D was going to the 3rd of the 61st and MultiCam was going to the 2nd Battalion of the 12th Infantry Regiment (still haven't seen any photos of them in action).
We pinged PEO Soldier on this discrepancy and learned that while 1,200 UCP-D ensembles were sent to the AO, the 3rd of the 61st has far fewer than 1,200 Soldiers. While accounting for spares and all, "a significant number of UCP-D uniforms were left over," officials told us last night. So Combined Joint Task Force-82, the US command there, made a decision to field the remaining uniforms to other units, which obviously included some troops in the 508th.
Here's a shot of a 5th SBCT Joe wearing the tactical accessory pouch in UCP-D:
All Soldiers who were issued the UCP-D uniforms (and the MC ones for that matter) will be required to submit feedback on the effectiveness of the pattern in their AO. So now it looks as if the Army is getting a lot more bang for its buck on their Af-Cam evaluation that they might have planned.
-- Christian
