Desert Camouflage Effectiveness 

In this video Bruce and I had a unique opportunity to travel to Las Vegas, Nevada to meet with our good friend Dimitri with Primary Arms. While we were out there we not only got to put some round down range but we seized the opportunity to conduct some good camouflage effectiveness tests of some desert camouflage patterns in an actual desert environment. In addition to that we also got some footage of some of the patterns through PVS-14 Generation III night vision. I want to give a big thanks to Dimitri and Primary Arms for making this all possible! Please check out the links I have posted in the comments section to get good deals on optics from them. CHECK OUT BRUCE'S CHANNEL: ru-vid.com/show-UCwfzznRRdLUHwKiMTND49Jg The following camouflage patterns will be looked at in this video: 6 Color Desert 3 Color Desert (unfortunately somewhat faded & NOT a new uniform) Desert MARPAT Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP) Multicam ATACS AU Desert Tiger Stripe Desert DPM Polish Desert Desert CCE Tropical Flecktarn Pencott Badlands Pencott Sandstorm Desert Tan Desert Vegetato Desert Night camouflage (Through NVGs only) Rhodesian Brush Stroke Taliban outfit **Guys, Primary Arms is hooking up my subscribers! If you want to get FREE shipping and a free gift such as a FREE or discounted (depending on which scope) scope mount for the variable scopes, or a free anti-reflection device for the prisms optics, just follow the links I have posted below on the scope of your choice. YOU MUST follow these links or you will not get the free or discounted mount/anti-reflection device and free shipping from the standard Primary Arms website.** PA CYCLOPS 1X PRISM (BLACK): bit.ly/2BREKZn PA CYCLOPS 1X PRISM (COYOTE/FDE): bit.ly/2BRfhiX PA Advanced Micro Dot w/ push button: bit.ly/2LX39Nd PA Advanced Micro Dot w/ rotary knob bit.ly/2CjTCjr PA Micro dot (Budget red dot) bit.ly/2Ci99k3 Holosun HS503G RDS W/ ACSS bit.ly/2r7gCd3 PA 3X Magnifier bit.ly/2r3XAV2 GG&G flip to side magnifier mount: bit.ly/2EN5uv3 PA 1-6X24 FFP ACSS RAPTOR 5.56 / 5.45 / .308 BLACK bit.ly/2jW0V4O PA-1-6X24 FFP ACSS RAPTOR 5.56 / 5.45 / .308 WOLF GRAY bit.ly/2IidvtX PA 1-6 FFP ACSS RAPTOR 7.62x39 / 300 Blk out bit.ly/2IIAnC5 PA 1-8 PLATINUM FFP RAPTOR 5.56 bit.ly/2zqXYBo PA 3X Compact Prsim Scope ACSS 5.56 GEN II (Black) bit.ly/2OzAQqA PA 3X Compact Prism Scope ACSS 5.56 GEN II (Coyote) bit.ly/2OAEekN PA 3X Compact Prism Scope ACSS 7.62x39/300 Blkout GEN II (Black) bit.ly/2KdtaXD PA 3X Compact Prism Scope ACSS 7.62x39/300 Blkout GEN II (Coyote) bit.ly/2n3AgVv PA 1-8X Scope with Patented ACSS 5.56 / 5.45 / .308 Reticle bit.ly/2SPbNob PA 1-6X24mm SFP Riflescope with Patented ACSS 5.56 / 5.45 / .308 Reticle Gen III bit.ly/2BD73bB PA 1-6X24mm SFP Riflescope Gen III with K.I.S.S. Reticle bit.ly/2SUbxEo PA 1-6X24mm SFP Riflescope with Patented ACSS 22LR Reticle bit.ly/2N8fj7P PA 1-6X24mm SFP scope w/ACSS 300BLK/ 7.62X39 Reticle bit.ly/2N6Qut9 PA 1-6X24mm SFP Riflescope Gen III with Patented ACSS 22LR Reticle bit.ly/2N8fj7P Trijicon ACOG TA31 4x32 Scope with RED Dual Illumination ACSS Reticle TA31-R-ACSS bit.ly/2EQIMhg Trijicon ACOG TA31 4X32 Scope with RED Dual Illuminated ACSS AURORA RECTICE bit.ly/2T6uZuz Trijicon ACOG TA31 4X32 Scope with GREEN Dual Illuminated ACSS AURORA RECTICE bit.ly/2FRTmIQ Trijicon TA44 ACOG 1.5X16S TALL BASE (GREEN ACSS reticle) bit.ly/2DkC72H Trijicon TA44 ACOG 1.5X16S TALL BASE (RED ACSS reticle) bit.ly/2rdEu1O Trijicon TA44 ACOG 1.5X16S SHORT BASE (GREEN ACSS reticle) bit.ly/2EQge7G Trijicon TA44 ACOG 1.5X16S SHORT BASE (RED ACSS reticle) bit.ly/2FMdLMO BIG THANKS to Dimitri and Primary Arms for making this all possible! Also don’t forget to check out and subscribe to Bruce’s channel: ru-vid.com/show-UCwfzznRRdLUHwKiMTND49Jg Also check out my buddy John who is the owner of UW Gear and his RU-vid channel at Alpha Charlie concepts: ru-vid.com

"Very honoured to be out here in the Nevada desert." Probably the first time that phrase has ever been uttered. Always great content good sir.

Highly underrated channel

That ATACS was almost predator grade stuff.

2:36 Pencott Sandstorm/Pencott Badlands 5:00 UCP/Desert Tan/ATACS AU 8:02 6 Color Desert/MARPAT/Multicam 11:27 3 Color Desert/Rhodesian Brushstroke/Desert DPM 14:43 Desert Tiger Stripe/French CCE/Polish Desert 18:28 Tropical Flecktarn/Italian Vegetato/Taliban type kit 22:21 Start of testing each camo through Gen III PVS-14 NV

I was surprised at how effective the Rhodesian was. The lighter colored patterns gave away the body shadows quickly whereas the darker ones helped blend the shadows into the background. Taliban was down right scary.

The 3-colour camo looked so bright that it would do better on the Las Vegas strip than in the Nevada desert.

That face you make when UCP is a lot more effective than some people give it credit for.

These videos show just how important it is for motion discipline. We are drawn to motion much moreso than anything else, and anything in motion, no matter how well color matched is easy for us to pick up as predators, and how much a shadow give away position as well, even when laying flat on the ground. Amazing work. I would argue the slightly darker colors did better, even in a non dark environment.

That goddamned Taliban crap worked better than most! That UCP stuff worked way better than expected too. Great work guys.

The 6 color desert did quite well; it was designed for this kind of environment.

The only flaw in that Taliban pattern was the way the skirt of the tunic flapped in the wind.

Multicam was good. Atac looked holographic on that hillside, same with the rohdation. Practically invisible. This was one of your best. So cool you get to do this shit. Thanks for the video brother.

Good to see Ol' Chocolate Chip in its natural environment.

The Vegetato and 3 color desert were designed for more sandy type deserts like in the Sahara and the Arabian deserts. The main gripe they had about the chocolate chip during desert storm is that it was designed more for the North American desert.

Great video, obviously a lot of work went into this, surprising really how much the camos can differ against certain backdrops and lighting. The Taliban and Rhodesian outfits really surprised me at working where you wouldn't think they would be all that great. Which raises the question, how well would some woodland camos work in the desert.

Damn fine video.. thats how its done. RU-vidrs take note, Content excellent, teachable moment, exceptional.

This was really interesting. As a desert rat, I've been looking forward to this for a long time. The most striking things to me are that, at least for my friend and I, Multicam and UCP looked better in terms of general brightness than the other patterns (though of course UCP was too flat and too gray), and Multicam looked right in terms of color as well. Only 6-color desert and Tropentarn seemed to have significantly effective patterning. And unsurprisingly (for me), the vast majority of these desert camouflages should be prefaced as "(too bright to blend into American) Desert camouflage"

An excellent channel, it's a great pity that we in Russia do not have such a channel or at least a translation. Many thanks to the author. The theme of the desert is very urgent for me now. Sorry my English Google translation

I've watched this video over and over, and man, the A-Tacs and the 6 color desert patterns have really impressed me. The badlands should have been called 'badass'! Of course the Rhodesian is up there with the best of 'em.

*COMPARISON TIMESTAMP: rock scene* 5:08 ATACS AU was best in this comparison 9:16 All 3 were great! Chocolate Chip and MARPAT Desert tie for me... 12:34 Rhodesian Brushstroke stood out to me 16:00 Desert Tiger Stripe stood out to me 19:45 Tropical Flecktarn stood out to me

This video was incredibly enlightening. There was a number of surprises, Mulitcam and Marpat both did much better than I thought, and 3 Color Desert did pretty bad in my opinion. UCP did well, and 6 Color Desert also, both of which I thought would be okay at best. The most unexpected was the Rhodesian, I never would have guessed that would be as effective as it was. It blows my mind how horrible I am at looking at a landscape, then looking at a selection of camouflage, and ranking them how I think they'll do. Fascinating stuff, thank you all for taking the time and effort to demonstrate it!

Thanks guys for you hard work by providing us desert people some good insight on the different patterns. I normally wear the multi-camo pattern for coyote hunting near Phoenix and with your video it shows to be very effective!

This is absolutely my favorite one of your camo effectiveness videos. I really liked the side by side comparison format. Thank you! Outstanding job!

This was an absolutely life-saving (and money-saving) video for me. I was trying to decide which camo to choose between Multicam , UCP, and MARPAT desert. And I can say Multicam and UCP both did the job with a flying colors. TNX a lot for this informative and wonderful video.

The Atacs AU works great & I'm surprised with the UPC at those long distances. Tan not so much

Thank for the video! I'm hosting a GURPS game set in the desert and one player wants to utilize camouflage techniques. Seeing these demonstrations has provided me much insight into a topic that I know next to nothing about. Simply seeing the patterns used in the field has helped me grasp "what it looks like to be camouflaged" so I can better referee my game.

Great new video Brent! Looks like you guys had loads of fun, thanks for sharing with us

Did you know: There were multiple variants of the 6 color/chocolate chip Due to the Brown being too bold, the US figured the less there was the more effective it was, as is with other desert camos. As the fighting in the middle East continued on the Brown blotches got smaller and smaller and blended better with the rest of the uniform.

Even most of the more heavier green wear can be very well hidden in the taller more dense bush areas throughout the Las Vegas outskirts. Like the East, North, and West areas. Classic woodland, Mandrake, etc. Very cool stuff here, welcome to Vegas!

This was the video ive been scanning for. just simple and straight to the point very "see for yourself".

This was an outstanding presentation, and clearly a lot of work went into it. The NV stuff was a bonus. Thank you and well done sir!

Thank you Gunny for taking the time out and as well Bruce n Dimitri , seen the discounts for the scopes as well!! Looking forward to seeing some long-range.. 0311 Rrahh!!!

I have always loved t.stripe and this desert blend is great, however u can't beat atacs!!! I'm also impressed with Taliban, believe it or not; also I can't believe how well Rhodesian looked! I thought it would be too dark but it's awesome!! Been trying to find some buts it's expensive! Thanks for doing a great desert video. Can you do a water one next?

Awesome effort , guys ..... Thank you for your time ! some eye openers on what works !

Highly interesting video. Well worth watching! Thank you for posting this.

wow. what a great video. thank you for sharing. Dimitri's camo looked excellent.. i hope he presents to US Military. i was surprised at the following. 1 how the pattern made any little or no difference in the night scope 2. how many good ones there are out there. 3 how each had positive and negatives depending on the angle of view, the background and surround , and distance from camera. 4 the only really poor one was the plane desert tan. 5 how well almost all of them did when the models would turn backs , squat or kneel and round up thier bodies. 6 how much depended on the pose of the models. the more they revealed thier human shape / arms/ legs/ head the less effective the camo. 6 how difficult to be best camo in all the varying flora, sand, and rock changes in just a few yards. 7 how effective the simple Taliban two color dark/light was at camo, I am glad i am not on patrol trying to find these shapes and colors in a life and death situation. Good Bless the American Military and our Allies.

I was most impressed by the Rhodesian brush stroke, French CCE, and the desert Flektarn. It really surprised me at the end seeing how dark the brushstroke is. I guess my takeaway is that it’s okay if the camo sticks out a bit as long as you just end up looking like one of the common features of the landscape. In this case, I think the brushstroke looked like a rock most of the time.

Effective video. Thanks for taking the time especially getting Dimitry to help. A huge treat. Thanks for the knowledge!

I love this channel, it just great!

Brent it's the best video ever. Off the scales, legend

The macro pattern of CCE was very effective at breaking up the silhouette! When standing, kneeling or walking (maneuvering?) it was a winner to me.

What a thorough video. Excellent. Thank you!

Awesome stuff. Nice to see all the desert camo. In the desert settings.

Dare I say it? Yup, this has got to be the best vid on camo effectiveness on this channel...and probably on YT !!! Great collab, great setting, nice assortiment of camo types & styles...hell....if this is a prelude of things to come...bring it on !!!

1. Atacs 2. Multi cam 3. Badlands. Special mention to the Vegi as most likely to get you shot. Is there a tag on this thing that says "Shoot me"? A very good video. Obviously a lot of work. One takeaway is proof again nature is right, dark over light. Where a dark camo will blend with a lighter background, light camo over a dark background is a "Shoot me" sign. Proof in the pudding again.

Great video Brent. Kudos for all your hard work

Great stuff really enjoyed to watching it,lot of good work done. As a polish im after polish desert but atacs worked well and few others. Thanks for videos and im waiting for more.

Gotta go with 1. Badlands 2. Atacs 3. Multicam. The others all seemed to have their place in different areas, but those three seemed to stand out (less) from the others in the overall scheme. Awesome video!

multicam, atacs, choc. chip, rhodesian all seem good!

Guys this was simply amazing!!! The amount of work putted into this is insane!! Instant subscriber!!

As always perfect! Thanks for effort in making this one. All best, regards!

I live in Nevada, it’s one of those very “floral” deserts. With bushes, and often times trees. I find that the KZS camo works pretty good out here too, depending where you are.

So much work for that one video... and it turned out awsome😍💪 A lot of great patterns, biggest surprise was the damn taliban outfit! Respect from Germany and thanks for your work guys, GR🤘

Fantastic video, you’re hole channel is outstanding. One of the absolute best that youtube has to offer

Awesome video, Brent, well worth the long wait! Thank you or your service and for taking time to make RU-vid stuff for all of us! Many good camos here and some impressive showings. Interesting segment was the Multicam vs Marpat vs 6-color: I thought the Multicam was extremely effective, and performed better than both Marpat and 6-color (although both of them were also pretty good).

It definitely helps to have darker colors in an desert design, especially when there are rocks and shrubs in the area

good lord that rhodesian desert near the rock i couldnt see it if my life depended on it

Another great upload. Your efforts and time is greatly appreciated.

Cheers Mate! Much appreciated.. At the end of the day it’s how you could blend in to the environment. In addition you’re movements & taking advantage of the terrain you are in.

Funny thing is, Desert's vary from each other. Certain camos won't work in the Sonoran desert while they will work in the Mojave. Particularly in Arizona the best overall is probably Pencott Badlands.

ATACS continues to impress.

I forgot the big thank you for the time and energy to do this test.

Great Video. Thank You Guys

General Observations: 1. Darker colors are better than lighter colors in the daylight. 2. Lighter colors are better than darker colors under moonlight. 3. Whoever designed Night Desert never actually looked at it through NVGs.

that was legit a good vid. I think the most effective for the desert were the Marine desert pattern, the tigerstripe, the multicam, the german tropic flecktarn, the pencott badlands

Thanks for the effort put forth in doing this trial. It's ironic that I have lived out here in Southern Nevada for some 20 years, and upon arriving from the mid west, promptly traded out all of my woodlands for 6 color and tan cammies. As time went on I discovered through a friend, Rhodie camo, but wasn't able to locate anything other than a smock. It seemed to work well, but again the supply chain didn't cooperate. I then discovered ATACS-AU and absolutely fell in love with it! So I have adapted it along with coyote 782 gear which together seem to work well.

Thank you, I appreciate the good work.

Great video. Really a lot of work, one can see. Really interesting to see though, so big thanks to all of you!! Lot to say. First, one can really see the difference on camouflages with mostly a "micro" pattern, and those with a more significant "makro" pattern in them on these longer distances. Like Multicam, UCP and eg. Pencott Badlands for "micro". They pretty soon turned into a "mono" color spot or figure, with that "average" color, that the "color mix" develop, when the light rays mix towards the human eye. The camos with more "Makro" pattern in them, like 6-color desert, French CCE desert and so, maintained their "camouflage" effect at slightly longer distances, but of cause the "macro" pattern is easier to spot close up, on shorter distances. Also interesting to see the difference between the patterns, that seem to have been made specifically for sand deserts like Saudi Arabia and Iraq, as 3-color desert, Italian Desert Vegetato, the Desert Tan and so, up against camos that were a little darker in the tone, like British Desert DPM, Desert Tiger Stripe and German Tropen tarn (that the Danish army also used before Multicam overtook.) The specific sand desert camos seemed too light in the colors for this kind of mixed sand and stone desert with some small sorts of plants and vegetation, to break up the background color impression. Also the very light colored camos seem to reflect the sunlight a lot, if it hit large, exposed areas on a person. I have always thought, that if one had taken the old desert camos like Desert DPM, Tropentarn and 6-color Desert, and had painted them on a slightly more light green background instead of the tan one, the overall result would have been something very close to Multicam at longer distances, even as short as 30 meters (app. 33 yards) IMHO. It seems like Multicam and Pencott Badlands have some sort of green / brown earth tone to them like a mono color even at relatively short distances, that almost equals the old Soviet ww2 uniforms used at the Eastern Front (of cause, only front until last months of the war, when Soviet attacked Japan forces in Manchuria.) But interesting, that we have almost turned full circle, so we, in some NATO countries are using uniforms with same color impression at longer distances, that the old Soviet soldiers used. :o) (IMHO only of cause.) I have seen parts of the video some times actually(and full length once of cause), but if you ever go out there again some day, and dare do a part 2, it would be funny to see something like the East German Strichttarn or Raindrop camo, the Kryptek camos, and A-tacs IX, German Splinter tarn, and SS 44 Dot and maybe also the Gorka suit and KZS camo, just to mention some. But really nice work, and fun to see. A video of some Soviet ww2 uniforms, (In a living room :o) ) just for comparison with the color impression of Multicam at longer distances. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-yNgEprBKRBU.html Another video, but by a Frenchman: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6bCC3naMfpI.html 3rd. one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-FXv9pkYzMpo.html Nice Day!!

Outstanding work as always... If you thought woodland flecktarn was amazing, take a seat and look at this.

I am glad I know the history and purpose of each pattern. for example 6 color was made for places like this while 3 color was made for something like Kuwait where it's all more dunes. Marpat was made for dunes as well and has no place in badlands like Nevada however it worked surprisingly well as did UCP. Which UCP was made specifically for hiding from night vision at night, never made to be a universal pattern but some good idea fairy entered it into the testing for universal patterns at the last minute and it somehow won. I digress a wonderful video displaying these patterns.

This was an outstanding presentation. Really enjoyed it. Thank you for sharing the experience.

Okay, so I expect the greener pattern to work okay, but the Taliban get up worked FAR better than I would have imagined. That's nuts.

all of these patterns in one vid... yasssssssss

Awesome video! Thank You!

That 3D reforming pattern looks excellent.👍

Seemed like some of the greenish patterns worked well in that desert. If I could only choose one pattern for all environments I would probably choose the Army OCP. They knocked it out of the ballpark when the Army adopted that pattern.

Hello Brent, thanks for the very informative video and excuse my poor english. I was surprised to see once again (in desert environment this time) that older patterns did better than the newer, computer generated or digital patterns, if you like. Six color desert is the winner here IMHO, with CCE and DPM doing very good as well (late issue brownish DPM and not the desert storm era yellowish would have done even better). The bigger and more different color brush strokes or patterns, provide a better concealment of the human silhouette in 90% of the environments. The lighter colored uniforms were picked up easier in most backgrounds, except maybe only when lying over sand (no rocks or any vegetation). UCP, Vegetata desert (looked like a cheap knockoff), 3 color desert and desert tan were the worst by far, with marpat and night desert (total failure or maybe it used to work with older generation NVGs) in the second place from the bottom. Multicam, ATACS, tigerstripe and sandstorm were effective as well, with polish, tropentarn and badlands doing just ok. Rhodesian (due to the large and different color brush strokes and the wise positioning of your buddy wearing it) and the afghan traditional (?) outfit were also a surprise to see performing really adequate. I would like to add that British troops used to wear woodland DPM shirts combined with desert pants of the same pattern when operating in the middle eastern "green zone" areas back in the days before the use of MTP camo. That looked extremely effective to me and a very good way to totally break the human figure in those not so arid areas. I would also like to say that I 've read somewhere (can't remember where, sorry) that the US army knew that the 3 colors pattern was worst than the 6 colors one but went with it after all because it was cheaper to manufacture and buy, just saying. Greetings from Greece.

OUTSTANDING Video! Surprising how just simple "earth tones" ( Taliban ) seem to work really well. Just like the color of "Deer" blends well into their environment... thanks for the video!

Thank you gentlemen. 👍🏻

That camo Dimitri is working on is awesome. Looks super promising! Any place we can get updates about it in the future? And will there be a jungle/forest variant?

I still think UCP only blends in with gravel roads on a rainy day. I reject your reality, and substitute my own.

Such a cool video, I like how he gives you a couple seconds to try to find them each time

Great video, thank you guys for taking the time and effort. Watching on my 4K 55 inch TV, the ATACS AU even when moving kept disappearing, as soon as it stopped, it was gone. Rhodesian 👍 Taliban 👍🤔

I think the 6 color, MARPAT and multicam were the hardest to spot. I couldn't find any of them throughout their entire segment

You can always spot the Taliban when it's windy.

Great video. I always learn something from you guys. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

I love this Brent0331's channel because it shows the effectiveness of how camo is used. Keeping making those videos man!

Why are there 3 talking floating heads in the desert?

Well... Camera doesn't give the same distance focus that our eyes give..! But yes the camouflage is good

Very cool video, thanks for your effort!

Amazing how invisible they are when still. Thanks for the good work mates.

NICE TEST! Polish desert, 3color, khaki and vegatato is to bright for rock desert. Very wierd-taliban its good, even in IR xD

Cammies to not wear in Nevada desert: desert tan, faded 3 color, DDPM, Desert Pantera and Vegetato. They really stick out, definitly not right environment for these.

EXCELLENT comparison. Fascinating to see how they differed. What I gleaned is that camo is less about color and more about your background and movement. Sure the lighter colors stood out, but that taliban was scary camouflage UNTIL the breeze started moving that fabric around. Very interesting.

Man, that CCE is the straight up Chevy of patterns, "like a rock"!

One pattern I would have liked to have seen was Auscam.

That tan, compared to the other camo schemes, sucked. LOL!

I was surprised at how well UCP worked. Also kind of surprised that MARPAT worked so well in some situations, then stuck out like a sore thumb in others. Cool video!

Great video, thanks for posting.