U.S. Woodland
camouflage pattern
U.S. Woodland was the former standard issue camouflage pattern of the United States Armed Forces from 1981 to 2012 in the cut of the Battle Dress Uniform and a dozen other pieces of clothing that were issued, until its replacement in the early 2010s. It is a four color, high contrast disruptive pattern with irregular markings in green, brown, sand and black. It is also known unofficially by its colloquial moniker of "M81" after the year of its adoption, however this term was never officially used by the U.S. military.
Although BDUs have been long phased out of frontline use in the U.S. Armed Forces, U.S. Woodland is still used on some limited level since MOPP suits, vests, and other equipment were printed in it and never fully replaced. Some modernized uniforms such as modified BDUs and FROG gear were used by special forces such as the USMC Forces Special Operations Command and United States Navy SEALs.
Development and history
The woodland pattern is similar to the brown-dominant version of the ERDL pattern used during the Vietnam War, only differing in that it is enlarged by 60 percent and the shades adjusted for contrast. The changes were made in order to extend the effectiveness of the camouflage pattern to as close to 350 meters as possible.
The enlargement of the pattern was made as part of a shift of tactical focus of the United States military from the close-range fighting of Vietnam to planning for potential longer-range fighting across European woodlands.
The US Woodland pattern was printed slightly darker than ERDL for two key reasons. First, the chosen colors complemented the pattern sizing, preventing the visual blending of colors at greater distances and enhancing the effectiveness of the pattern.
“U.S. Woodland” enters the record as camouflage pattern. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Woodland, camouflage and pattern can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1770272. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1981 and 2012.
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This entry incorporates text from “U.S. Woodland” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.