
In October 2012, Australian troops about to deploy to Afghanistan were photographed wearing unifoms in the new pattern. In 2011, a contract was awarded to Crye to design a camouflage pattern with Multicam's effective colours but with a pattern changed to resemble the original DPCU.
#Australian multicam camouflage uniform trial
A trial of MultiCam was undertaken and the decision made to broaden this trial for Australian operations in Afghanistan. Australian special forces operating in Afghanistan have been seen wearing Crye's Multicam camouflage. One criticism was that the new camouflage used colours that were still too biased towards desert operations. Trials however, showed that in most areas the original DPCU performed more effectively than the new Midpoint camouflage and it was not adopted. The new variant was designed to overcome issues associated with operating in and around the "green belt" areas of Afghanistan (particularly in corn fields) where the DPDU was too light in colour but where the DPCU was too green for open areas. The pattern remained the same as that used for the DPCU and DPDU but with a light lime-yellow base colour, light grey, sand, olive-green and red-brown.

Army chief Ken Gillespie toured Afghanistan showing off the new uniform.

This the current type issued to all ADF personnel serving overseas in arid/desert regions such as Iraq.Ī new DPDU variant known as 'Mid Point" was to be progressively introduced into selected service in Afghanistan (2010). Changes to the uniform include repositioning of shoulder straps to the chest, the changes of the chest pockets and cargo pockets from the button-fastened flap of the pocket to zips and minor changes to the sleeve pockets. The colours remain the same as the previous DPDU. This was replaced in 2006 by the current-issue DPDU. The cut was changed in the shirt with the bottom pockets being omitted and placed on the sleeves. This was followed by a third issue in: brown, grey, very light blue and purple on a yellow background. This was again issued to SASR in Afghanistan after the first version was found to be too light in colour for the terrain. A second version from a year later used 5 colours: brown, lime green, grey, and a very light ight blue on a tan background. The first version, from 2001, was printed in 3 colours (brown and grey on a tan background) with 1/3 of the normal pattern missing and rushed into issue for the Australian Special Air Service Regiment deployed to Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Officially named DPDU (Disruptive Pattern Desert Uniform), a DPCU variant designed for desert conditions using different colours, was first tested in 1998 at the Woomera Missile Test Site in South Australia. He utilises the current version of the DPDU uniform.
#Australian multicam camouflage uniform zip
Since the finalisation of the colour scheme, the Army uniform was modified to the standard NATO format, with a single rank slide in the centre of the shirt, zip pockets on the shirt and pants instead of the button-flap original, and larger sleeve pockets to fit unit patches on.Īn Australian soldier wearing DPDU in Afghanistan. The standard DPCU works in areas from arid bushland through to tropical jungle all over Australia. While a mid-grey tone was included in early test uniforms, this was omitted in later unifoms in favour of a second brown tone.


The selected five colour pattern consists of a greenish sand coloured background with randomly arranged spots of orange-brown, mid-brown, leaf-green and dark green overlaid. DPCU was developed following aerial photographs of the Australian terrain to determine which colours and patterns would be most suitable for camouflage uniforms. It is influenced partly by early US Jungle Camouflage patterns, such as "Duck Hunter"/"Frog-Skin". In 1986 the final production version was introduced with a number of changes. The first uniforms using the disruptive pattern camouflage (called Disruptive Pattern Camouflage Uniform – DPCU) were issued in 1983 for test purposes.
