Desert Camouflage Uniform

Desert Camouflage Uniform

A U.S. Navy SEAL officer's folded and buttoned DCU blouse, on display at the CIA Museum in March 2008.
Type	Uniform (hats, blouse, and trousers)
Material	Nylon and cotton
Place of origin	United States of America
Manufacturer	Propper

The Desert Camouflage Uniform (DCU) is an arid-environment camouflage uniform that was used by the United States Armed Forces from the mid-1990s to the early 2010s. In terms of pattern and textile cut, it is nearly identical to the U.S. military's Battle Dress Uniform (BDU) uniform, but features a three-color desert camouflage pattern of dark brown, pale green, and beige, as opposed to the beige, pale green, two tones of brown, and black and white rock spots of the previous Desert Battle Dress Uniform (DBDU).

Developed in the late 1980s and first issued in very limited quantity in 1990 as experimental test patterns, the DCU and its camouflage scheme, officially known as the Desert Camouflage Pattern, and also known as "coffee stain camouflage", was developed to replace the six-color desert camouflage "chocolate-chip camouflage" uniform, which was deemed unsuitable for most desert combat theaters. As opposed to the original six-color DBDU, which was meant for a rockier and elevated desert battlefield that was often not encountered, the DCU was created primarily for a lower, more open, and less rocky desert battlefield space which became a common sight throughout the Persian Gulf War. As a replacement pattern, this meant a new arid region had to be utilized to test the effectiveness of the DCU. Desert soil samples from parts of the Middle East, namely Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, were used as testing locations to find the appropriate color palettes.

Though the DCU did exist during the Persian Gulf War, the vast majority of U.S. military personnel in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq wore the DBDU during the entirety of the war, with the exception of some select U.S. Army generals who were issued the DCU a month following the air campaign in Operation Desert Storm. Norman Schwarzkopf, then CENTCOM commander, and leader of U.S. forces during Desert Storm, was issued an M-65 field jacket as well as coat and trousers in the new DCU color pattern shortly before the war ended.

By 1992, the first wide scale batches of DCUs were issued first by the United States Army, and within a year to the United States Air Force, and replaced the majority of the DBDU by 1993, with the United States Navy and Marines replacing their older six-colored desert fatigues from 1993 through 1995.