Disruptive Pattern Camouflage Uniform
five-colour military camouflage pattern
Disruptive Pattern Camouflage Uniform (DPCU), also nicknamed Auscam, jelly bean camo, or hearts and bunnies is a five-colour military camouflage pattern used by the Australian Defence Force. Replacing the jungle greens used from WWII, it was developed and tested during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The uniform was trialled in 1987, with it being slowly introduced in late 1989, with the last production and discontinuation of the jungle greens being in late 1990. Jungle greens were last issued in late 1991 for Australian Regular Army, and late 1994 for Australian Army Reserve.
The DPCU has mostly been phased out of the Australian Army by the Australian Multicam Camouflage Uniform (AMCU), which uses colour palettes of the DPCU and an Australian-designed multi-camouflage pattern based on MultiCam, following suit to the U.S. Army replacing their Universal Camouflage Pattern for Operational Camouflage Pattern and the British Army replacing their previous Disruptive Pattern Material for Multi-Terrain Pattern. Despite AMCU being the current camouflage pattern of the ADF, DPCU is still worn in service by soldiers and many reserve units in conjunction with the new pattern. Recruits at training establishments during the late 2010s and early 2020s were issued both uniforms during the holdover period before AMCU was officially adopted. 2021 was the last year DPCU was officially issued to recruits.
The DPCU was additionally considered not as effective as AMCU, as it didn't have as good of test scores when finding effectiveness.
As of 2023, the Australian Army Cadets have officially adopted AMCU also, and retaining existing stocks of DPCU field environments.
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