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The Army’s senior leadership has approved the Army Combat Uniform as a replacement for battle dress uniforms, desert camouflage uniforms and black combat boots.

The goal is to start fielding the new wash-and-wear uniform to deploying soldiers in the spring of 2005 and have every active, National Guard and Reserve soldier wearing it by December 2007.

“It’s a warrior’s uniform; it’s a uniform designed by soldiers for soldiers,” said Sgt. Maj. of the Army Kenneth Preston. “I’m excited about it. The more you see this uniform — the more you are around it — the more it grows on you. I think all the soldiers out there will be excited about it.”

The slated wearout date for BDUs and DCUs also is December 2007.

The core of the combat uniform is still a blouse, trousers and boots, but beyond that there are few similarities with the Army’s current battle attire.

“The goal was not to change the look of the Army,” said Lt. Col. Dave Anderson, who heads Product Manager Soldier Clothing and Individual Equipment. “The goal was to find a more functional uniform.”

the most striking feature of the ACU is the Army’s move to a digital camouflage pattern, a mix of green, tan and gray that uniform experts say will help soldiers blend into woodland, desert and urban environments.

The ACU design includes 31 key changes from the BDU, including wrinkle-free fabric, redesigned pockets and a permanent switch from black combat boots to no-shine, desert boots.

Several Velcro insignia attachment points eliminate costly trips to sew shops. In a significant cultural shift, officers will not wear branch insignia anywhere on the ACU.

“The Army really wants to create an atmosphere where everyone is a soldier first and their military specialty second,” said Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Myhre, PEO Soldier’s Product Manager Soldier Clothing and Individual Equipment NCO.

Taking the next step

The bold move comes after a whirlwind effort that began in January 2003 to create a more useful combat uniform that far exceeds what soldiers currently wear into battle. The uniform would replace the BDU, adopted in 1980. The DCU was developed after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Soldiers in the Fort Lewis, Wash.-based 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, helped design the ACU prototype before being certified as the Army’s first Stryker Brigade Combat Team.

The soldiers sat down with engineers at the Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass., and helped craft a uniform that borrowed ideas from a number of different military uniforms, such as individually modified special operations uniforms and the Army’s BDU-style flight suit.

The suggestions were refined during training exercises at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., and the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La. In the fall, the unit deployed to Iraq wearing these modified uniforms, dubbed the Close Combat Uniform, in the standard desert pattern.

PEO Soldier continued to refine the new concept based on feedback from Stryker soldiers in Iraq and with the help of soldiers from the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division at Lewis during training to become the Army’s second Stryker Brigade Combat Team.

Another critical part of the uniform design was selecting a new pattern.

The Army began looking for a new camouflage pattern in early 2002 to narrow the design to a single look and shed the need for woodland and desert styles.

The patterns were tested by soldiers at Fort Benning, Ga., in August 2002; at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., in October; and at Fort Polk, La., and NTC in February 2003.

Uniform officials found what they were looking for with a digitized version of the “urban track” pattern, minus the highly visible black shade.

“Black is not a pattern found in nature except for the shadows,” Myhre said. “It was originally put into the BDU … to separate the other colors and to help with shadows. What we have found is, no matter what color you make a uniform, if black is in it, and you are not standing in front of something black, as soon as you move, the eye immediately picks up the black.”

Testing also found that a digitized pattern worked better in more environments than the BDU’s large color splotches, which tend to work well around large objects such as thick vegetation and trees, Myhre said.

“Now the colors are small and blend into what is around much easier,” said Myhre, who before going to work at PEO Soldier, was a member of the first Stryker Brigade Combat Team and was highly involved in development of the prototype.

The Army also considered, but rejected, the possibility of adopting the Marine Corps' digital camouflage uniform.

“We were looking for a universal camouflage [uniform],” Myhre said. “The Marine Corps has two uniforms” — woodland and desert.

The Marines also wear a solid-color vest for Interceptor body armor and other combat gear. For now, the Army is still pondering whether to go with a solid, neutral color or go to a digital pattern for the IBA, the MOLLE packs, ammo pouches and other field equipment.

April 2005 combat debut

Uniform officials first presented the new concept to the senior Army leadership in December 2003. Following a second review in April, Preston and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker approved the design and directed the new uniform to be to fielded to units deploying to combat theaters in April 2005.

New recruits are scheduled to begin receiving four sets of the new ACUs in October 2005. The rip-stop fabric for each uniform will be treated with a wrinkle-free finish and come in a blend of 50 percent cotton, 50 percent nylon.

But the ACU won’t be issued to everyone. Soldiers who have already completed training before October 2005 and are not deploying to a combat theater will have to buy the more expensive uniform.

BDUs average about $56; the new combat uniform is slated to cost about $88 a set.

“It will cost more because it’s a more complex uniform to make,” Anderson said.

But certain aspects of the uniform will help soldiers save money over time, Army leaders and uniform officials say.

Soldiers will save on dry cleaning because the uniform’s wrinkle-free treatment and full-length zipper on the blouse were not designed to handle that process or starching, Anderson said. “It can’t go to the dry cleaners,” he said. “If you send it to the cleaners or press it with an iron, it will screw up the zipper.”

Plus, soldiers won’t have to pay for the trip to the sew shop to attach items such as name tags, rank, unit and combat patches and skill tabs — which will be attached to the ACUs by Velcro.

“It’s expensive to sew patches on,” said Col. John Norwood, Project Manager Soldier Clothing and Individual Equipment, who said it’s common for soldiers to pay $16 to $20 to prep a new uniform for wear.

The Army, however, intends to offset the costs of the required four ACUs by boosting the annual clothing allowance for enlisted soldiers. Officers receive a one-time clothing allowance upon entering the Army.

For now, the Army’s senior leadership is pushing to have skill badges be pin-on instead of sew-on, so everything on the uniform is removable.

Anderson said he’s confident most soldiers will like the ACU based on the positive reaction uniform officials received when they presented it to the command sergeants major for each of the Army’s major commands.

The ACU will be available in stores beginning in the spring of 2006, and everyone will have to be wearing it by December 2007.

The cost

ACUs are estimated to cost around $88 a set compared with BDUs, which run about $56. But uniform officials say the increase will be covered by a planned boost in clothing allowances, and will be offset by savings in sew-on patches and dry cleaning the uniforms. In addition, uniform costs will include:

• $103 for temperate-weather desert boots.

• $88 for hot-weather models.

• $4.85 per moisture-wicking T-shirt.

• $5 for matching patrol cap.

• $4 for improved combat belt.

Wearout date

Soldiers will be allowed to wear the current combat uniforms and black boots until December 2007.

The pattern

The search for a new pattern began with 12 patterns that fell into four design and color categories — woodland, desert, urban and desert/ urban.

From there, researchers went through several “urban track” versions, right, and tested them with soldiers.

The Army also considered, but rejected, the possibility of adopting the Marine Corps' digital camouflage uniform. An informal Army Times poll in the winter of 2002-2003 had soldiers picking it as their second favorite — capturing 22 percent of 3,565 votes. A “woodland” style pattern came in first.

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