Desert Night camo

A pattern for night vision

Desert Night was drawn for what an enemy would see through a night vision scope, which makes it the odd one out among the patterns we make. During the Cold War the U.S. Army set out to hide soldiers from Soviet-made night vision devices, and the answer it came up with was a grid. The First Division Museum explains the thinking: images in the night vision devices of the day showed a grid of their own, and a grid on the clothing was expected to disappear into it. Irregular dark blotches, called rubble in the specification, were printed over the grid to break up the wearer's outline.

The military specification gives just two colors: a Light Green 426 ground with the grid and rubble in Dark Green 425. That is why a pattern made for the desert has no sand in it at all. Seen in daylight, the result is a pale green checkerboard with dark smudges, nothing like the ground around it.

From test to the Gulf

The earliest known photos of the pattern date to 1972 and sit in the photo collection of the Army's Natick Soldier Systems Center. In 1976 the Army field-tested it, including at the desert trials at Fort Bliss, Texas, where a night parka was tried alongside the new six-color day uniform that became Chocolate Chip. Limited distribution followed from 1981.

The kit was a parka and a pair of overpants, cut loose to go over the six-color desert uniform for night operations. Wikipedia notes the parka was based on the M1951 fishtail parka. It stayed a rare sight until the Gulf War of 1990 to 1991, when soldiers and Marines received it in far larger numbers. One of those parkas, worn by a specialist with the 548th Engineer Detachment of the 1st Infantry Division in Desert Shield and Desert Storm, is now in the collection of the First Division Museum in Illinois.

How well it worked

Against the night vision of the 1970s, the pattern was considered effective. By 1990 the technology had moved on. During the Gulf War a Marine Corps scout sniper section compared the night clothing with the six-color day uniform and with winter overwhites, and through an AN/PVS-5 night vision device the night pattern was more visible than both. The First Division Museum puts it bluntly: soldiers stood out more in the night camouflage than in standard desert camo.

Retired, then rediscovered

Better night vision made the pattern obsolete, and the military stopped using it soon after the Gulf War. Its look outlived it. The museum notes that the pattern became popular in fashion and is still used in the clothing industry, and Wikipedia credits its unusual appearance for the interest it still draws. For the other patterns we make, see our guide to every Woobie camo.