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Army uniform officials have narrowed the search for the ultimate camouflage uniform from 12 possible patterns to two:

•the urban track pattern, a blend of gray, tan and black.

•The “scorpion” pattern, a muted version of the current woodland design.

The two patterns are the top candidates in an effort to find a single camouflage that can meet all the Army’s needs. Uniform officials caution, however, that it’s possible neither will make the cut, and the service will expand and continue its search for the right BDU pattern.

“The two patterns we are looking at at this point and time represent the best attempt to give us a multi-environment camouflage. We are not there yet, but these two are in the best direction,” said Dave Geringer, an assistant product manager for Product Manager Clothing and Individual Equipment.

Army officials concede that finding one pattern that works as well as the current woodland and desert patterns has been an elusive goal. They say settling on a new BDU pattern could take another 18 months or longer.

The camouflage search is part of a larger effort to create the Advanced Combat Uniform — a multi-layered outfit that, as envisioned, would one day take the place of foul-weather gear and nuclear, biological and chemical protective over-garments.

In the short-term, the ACU would be a standard cotton-nylon blend but would include functional design changes such as more accessible pockets and a color or pattern suitable for all battlefield environments.

Changes like these have been incorporated into a “close-combat uniform” that will be tested beginning this fall by two Fort Lewis, Wash.-based Stryker brigades.

One brigade will wear a desert camouflage version on deployment to Iraq, and the other will test different patterns at Fort Lewis, including the urban track and scorpion designs.

“They have not come up with a camouflage that is as good as these patterns,” said Barry Hauck, another assistant product manager for Product Manager Clothing and Individual Equipment.

The current woodland pattern was fielded in the early 1980s. Today’s desert pattern emerged after Operation Desert Storm. It’s a variation of the Army’s first desert camouflage, also fielded in the early 1980s and dubbed the “chocolate chip.”

The Army began looking for a new camouflage design in early 2002, when a team from the Soldier System Center in Natick, Mass., contracted a designer to create patterns using decades of research data.

The 12 patterns created fell into four design and color categories reflecting different combat environments — woodland, desert, urban and desert/urban.

Each color category had three designs. The shadow line pattern featured horizontal lines that score across the material like a shadow. The track pattern sported vertical lines that resemble tire tracks. And the all over brush pattern had swirling shapes that resemble patches of grass and brush.

The patterns were tested by soldiers at Fort Benning, Ga., in August 2002; at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, Calif., in October, and at Fort Polk, La., and NTC again in February.

Uniform officials threw out all patterns except the urban track and picked up the scorpion pattern as a possible BDU replacement. The scorpion and urban track patterns were selected, they said, because those uniforms performed best in field testing of “observability” — meaning they concealed better than the other patterns.

The Army also considered, but rejected, the possibility of adopting the Marine Corps’ camouflage uniform, which proved the second most popular pattern in an unscientific poll of Army Times readers. The woodland “all over brush” design ranked first in an unscientific poll of Army Times reader opinions of the proposed patterns. Urban track came in at 11th.

The poll provided sample images of the patterns under consideration, which is little to go on if trying to gauge effectiveness. That was the purpose of the Army field tests.

Once the Army settles on a new BDU pattern, service leaders will have to decide whether to issue a new uniform to every soldier or just to recruits. A wear-out date will also have to be determined for phasing out existing woodland and desert uniforms.

Whatever is decided, changing the appearance of the Army’s current combat uniforms will be anything but easy, said Dave Nelson, deputy product manager for clothing and individual equipment.