After spending $5 billion dollars to develop the Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP), the US Army is abandoning the grey-green pixelated camouflage because it has routinely failed to hide soldiers from view in nearly every environment it has been tried in, and considers adopting the UCP “a colossal mistake” and a “fiasco”.
Its adoption in 2004 was driven (it is widely believed) by the feeling among Army brass that the US Marine Corps couldn’t be allowed to out-cool the Army with their new MARPAT uniforms, and so the Army had to have cool, hi-tek, futuristic-looking pixels of their own.
While scientific theories about neurology were brought forward as to why pixelation would interact with the human neurology to render a soldier unseeable, the USMC chose pixelation not for its technical characteristics, but because it was easier to print on fabric.
While the search begins for a replacement for the UCP, some soldiers are being issued uniforms in the more traditional (and actually effective) Multicam Pattern. Among the most successful patterns tested was the so-called “Syrian” Camo pattern, itself reminiscent (to some) of the German WWII Marsh Camouflage Pattern
via MetaFilter http://www.metafilter.com/117700/The-Most-Outstanding-Camouflage-5-Billion-Can-Buy