Chocolate-chip camouflage

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These BDU pants have the chocolate-chip camouflage pattern.

Chocolate-chip camouflage (sometimes called cookie dough camouflage) is the common name for the camouflage used by the United States Army during the Gulf War in the early 1990s. The camouflage is so named because it resembles chocolate-chip cookie dough. It is officially known as Six-Color Desert Pattern - 48 and 60 inch Pattern, Drawing No. 2-1-1884 and is made up of Light Tan, Tan, Brown, Dark Brown and Black.

Although the chocolate-chip camouflage became well-known during the Gulf War, it was developed in the 1960s. The Army, believing that it might become necessary to intervene into the Arab-Israeli conflicts, developed a test pattern using the deserts of southwestern United States as a model. When the hostilities in the Middle East wound down, the test pattern was mothballed. The six-color desert pattern would be used in limited numbers in the U.S.-Egyptian military exercise, Bright Star 82, but did not achieve full mass-production and popularity until the Gulf War.

Following the Gulf War, FORSCOM soldiers in the Sinai Desert found that the addition of the black and white rock patterns also increased the amount of contrast, preventing the camouflage from blending in effectively. This, in addition to the printing cost of pattern and the need for a camouflage that would be suitable for use in any desert, resulted in the six-color desert pattern being replaced with a newer three-color desert pattern (Light Tan, Light Brown, Light Khaki) developed at the Natick Soldier Center in 1990 and issued as the Desert Camouflage Uniform.

In the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US Military used the three-color camouflage and also the desert pattern of the MARPAT design.

However, the chocolate-chip pattern is still in use. US surplus uniforms of the pattern have been issued to the Iraqi National Guard and other Iraqi security forces. South Korean forces have used, in limited numbers since 1993, a variant with brown replacing the black in the US design; this Korean design has also been tested in the United Arab Emirates. The National Guard of Oman wear a pattern mixing choc-chip with 'amoeba', while the National Guards of both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait use a grey variation on the choc-chip design. The Saudis also use a grey, black, and white 'urban' variation and the police wear a blue version of the same design; Palestinian police also use a blue choc-chip. The South African "Soldier 2000" pattern is similar to the US design, even being sometimes called 'South African choc-chip.'

See also

• Battle Dress Uniform
• Camouflage
• Military camouflage
• List of camouflage patterns

George H. W. Bush & Thomas Mikolajcik in desert camouflage

External links

• [A picture of chocolate-chip camo]
• [kamouflage.net > North America > United States of America > U.S. 3-color desert battle dress uniform camouflage]
• [kamouflage.net > North America > United States of America > U.S. 6-color desert camouflage]
• [Additional historical background]

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