Patterns may be licensed only with permission.

HyperStealth DESTEX (Desert Texture) Camouflage
and new MCU (Military Combat Uniform) design

(January 28, 2006, Vancouver, B.C.) HyperStealth Biotechnology Corp. reveals their newest digital camouflage pattern - DESTEX (Desert Texture). This pattern is currently under an exclusive country evaluation license to the United Arab Emirates and is not available to any group or person outside of this license. 

On first glance the pattern may appear similar to the U.S. 3 color Desert, and while the colors are similar, DESTEX is quite different on both the Macropattern (Large Blotches) and the addition of the Digital (Micropattern). DESTEX is probably more similar to CADPAT AR (Canadian Disruptive Pattern - Arid Region) than to U.S. three color desert. A number of features in DESTEX improve the disruption and concealment over CADPAT AR, MARPAT (Marines Pattern) Desert and ARPAT (Army Pattern).

HyperStealth has been contacted by U.S. Special Forces requesting information on CADPAT AR as they had witnessed firsthand the effectiveness of CADPAT AR in Afghanistan in the past few years. CADPAT AR was designed by the Canadian Department of Defense after in-depth research on desert environments. 

HyperStealth's goal was to make the best better and they took their internal confidential research to apply it to the DESTEX pattern. This research is from the design team of Lt. Col. O'Neill, Ph.D (U.S. Army. Ret.) who is a widely recognized authority on applications of vision science and visual perception, including camouflage, concealment, and deception.  He previously served as founder and director of the engineering psychology program at the United States Military Academy, including over a decade of directing USMA faculty and cadet research in human performance and Guy Cramer, CCD (Camouflage Concealment and Deception) leading designer with over 1000 digital patterns developed by this pair. 

The DESTEX pattern, unlike the omni directional CADPAT AR, uses a horizontal disruption in both the Macro and Micropattern elements to disrupt the human shape and mask horizontal movement. The darkest color was also strategically used to create a boundary luminance gradient between the two dominant color layers which creates a better disruption element between the two similar hues.

U.S. digital patterns such as MARPAT and ARPAT use a smaller size Macropattern (Spatial Frequency - blotches) which tend to blend into one color at tactical combat distances. CADPAT AR uses a larger Macropattern designed to disrupt in Desert environments where background texture is more sparse than temperate regions. DESTEX uses this larger Spatial Frequency with the extra human symmetry axis disruption element factored in.

New MCU (Military Combat Uniform) design

The DESTEX uniform design is also improved in the form of the MCU-V1 Military Combat Uniform - Version 1, based on recommendations of former Green Beret's, a Special Forces Instructor and a Navy SEAL. There are no zippers on the MCU-V1, the buttons are concealed. Velcro is only used in the mandarin collar, the chest pockets and the calf pocket, all other pockets use concealed buttons. There is a large pleated back, If you raise your arms or move them far forward in firing position the pleated back expands and your sleeves remain in place. Elbow and Knee pad insert points are internal to stop sand and dirt from making their way past outside closures as used on the ACU (Army Combat Uniform). The removable pads inserted at the factory are made of a conformable foam which takes the loose shape of the users knee and elbow and are thin enough to be used in conjunction with hard shell pads. The Boonie cap is narrow brim to increase peripheral vision which can be impaired by the drooping effect of the large brim boonies. The Calf pockets are larger and expandable to allow for the hand to reach in unimpeded. Velcro was used on this pocket due to the increased movement of this region of the pocket.

In the late 1990's Canada changed military camouflage standards by issuing their proprietary "pixelated" CADPAT uniforms as a result of a DND research program based on research from Dr. O'Neill from the Dual-Tex (U.S. Army) program of the late 1970's. CADPAT's improved performance in NATO exercises helped smooth the adoption of the related MARPAT for the US Marines and its ARPAT derivative for the US Army. DESTEX is the newest digital camouflage, however, both Timothy R. O'Neill and/or Guy Cramer have been involved in the previous military digital camouflage pattern development:    

DUAL-TEX - U.S. ARMY - Late 70's (O'Neill)
CADPAT - Canadian Forces Developed 1996 (O'Neill's work sited at basis) Issue began in 1998
MARPAT - U.S. Marines Developed 2001 issued 2002 (O'Neill's work is sited as basis)
KA2 - Jordan Armed Forces Developed October 2003 issued 2005 (Cramer)
Gen II MARPAT - Developed 2004 - Still under research (O'Neill/Cramer)
ARPAT - U.S. Army developed 2004 Issued 2005 (MARPAT Derivative)
SpecAm - Special Operations Camouflage developed 2004 - Delivery 2006 (O'Neill/Cramer)
DESTEX - Desert Texture developed 2005 - United Arab Emirates Evaluation 2006 (O'Neill/Cramer)
SPEC4CE - Special Forces Camouflage Equipment developed 2006 (O'Neill/Cramer)
SOPAT - Special Operations Pattern developed 2006 - Still under research (O'Neill/Cramer)

In 2005 the team co-wrote the paper "Individual Soldier Camouflage: What the Sniper's Eye Tells the Sniper's Brain. Timothy R. O'Neill, US Army Defense Consultant, & Guy Cramer, Hyperstealth, Inc. and it was presented to APA Div 21 Annual Symposium on Applied Experimental Research George Mason University, Fairfax, VA,  - the paper itself is still considered defense proprietary but public papers on digital camouflage and why it works have been provided by the team (located in the references).

For more Camouflage news go to the HyperStealth® Home Page

References:

http://www.hyperstealth.com/specam/science/index.html

http://www.hyperstealth.com/digital-design/index.htm

 Patterns may be licensed only with permission.