http://www.armytimes.com/article/20140731/NEWS07/307310083/UPDATE-New-images-show-details-new-Army-camo
 

 
As you can see from this photo, the pattern is in the MultiCam family but really more of an ancestor. Scorpion was developed by Crye Precision under contract for the Army’s Objective Force Warrior Program starting in the early 00s. As the Army transitioned the program it dropped the Scorpion pattern and Crye independently refined the pattern and began to slowly market it as MultiCam. Specialized military units saw promise in the pattern and began to use it. Simultaneously, it was picked up by the tactical industry and offered commercially making it easier for small unit adoption. This increased use of MultiCam by military forces is a truly successful case of grassroots marketing and by the late-00s it was being worn by both American as well as Allied SOF. Over the past two years it has been selected for use by the US Army and Air Force for use in Afghanistan as well as by the UK and Australian military in national variant forms.
 
Now some of you may think that the Scorpion Camo is the same as the Multicamo, No and Yes. It took me a while to see the differences but once I figured it (like solving a puzzle) then I could see the differences immediately. First, Multicam uses at least twice as many slugs (Light Beige and Dark Brown smaller Macro elements). Second, Crye applied another mostly Vertical Layer representing branches throughout the new pattern.
 
 
    

Multicam Pattern                                                                         Multicam Pattern with vertical elements circled                  
 
 
 
                                                                                  

                                        Scorpion Pattern                                                                                                                                                                            Multicam Jacket
                                                                                                                                                  Note the extra light beige and dark brown slugs and vertical elements when compared to Scorpion on the left

 
 In 2008-2009 study when the U.S. Army (Natick) brought out two versions of the Scorpion pattern (Woodland Scorpion and Desert Scorpion) for testing against 15 other patterns including Multicam. Woodland Scorpion did not fair poorly but was not a standout in any of the environments.

 
 
 
Ironically when they changed the torso area representing  PPE (Personal Protective Equipment - vests) to Multicam, the Woodland Scorpion pattern did better in all four environments, with a slightly better overall score than Universal-AOR.

 
 
The Desert Scorpion did not fair well at all and did not even crack the top 10 in Desert Environments

 
 
So here below, we have a comparison of Woodland and Desert Scorpion versus Multicam and we can see the having the correct color and PPE can make a substantial difference. Note: None of the Scorpion or Multicam patterns broke the top 10 for either the Woodland Environment or the Desert Environment, which is disappointing given specific coloration with the Scorpion Patterns into those two environments.

 
Why did the Army decide to go with Scorpion W2 Camo? It preformed well enough overall to garner two of the top 10 spots in this test - one with matching PPE and one with Multicam PPE, outperforming both the Multibrush and Desert Brush pattern in overall effectiveness which was their (Army owned patterns) top contender in previous Natick testing. Initially the Government was looking to put two of it's own families in the finals against three industry submissions but the Army decided after the initial 2011 Phase IV testing to only put one family forward. Now to expect it was the All-Over-Brush pattern (also known as Multibrush and a Desert coloration Version known as Desert Brush), as Natick testing showed Desert Brush was beat Desert MARPAT in Desert Environments in their first test and then was beat by AOR-1 in the second test, so as good as it was, it was not good enough. Multibrush tied with AOR-2 in Mountain Environments in 4th place being beaten by Multicam, Universal-AOR and Woodland Scorpion. If the early Phase IV testing confirmed these results then the Brush pattern did not meet the baseline requirements to move forward. Thus one of the industry families made it into the finals due to the Army pulling one submission out at that time. 
 

nikkocortez
There are so many patterns now among the diffrent branches that its getting kind of stupid.  Especially with how much money actually goes into developing these things.... Worst of all I still don't understand the Navy's choice of Blue Digital... So its easier to lose you in water if you fall overboard?

HA ya thats true. Its just like China's sea fleet uniform.

 
But anyways I have to say by far this multi-camo was always my favorite uniform camo pattern. It seems like every 7-10 years the Army changes its uniform patterns. Look at the two different desert camos. The first is from Desert Storm War and the second is from Iraq Freedom war.
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

HAZMAN_THE_GREAT

That was either phased out early on or just disused. Every Army guy I interacted with in OIF was wearing their new digital light greenish pattern, this:
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Combat_Uniform

Nikko,
 
Lucky for you... you didn't wear the "old dungarees".....  You probably wore the "Dickie" style slacks aka utility uniform that replaced the denim bell bottom dungarees that I wore in the 90s when I came in.  Dumbest uniform ever!  The rank and name was stenciled in ink.... and the old salts that were busted down would strike a line in ink across the rank they lost.  Looked terrible.
 
I also elected USMC regs so added additional uniforms to my seabag and was up to 14 separate uniforms at one point.  Making rank cost a fortune!

There goes another $200+ per uniform outfit from our soldiers.  So many uniform changes, hard to keep track anymore.

I'm in the Civil Air Patrol and we're still rocking the old woodlands camo BDUs. We don't even wear the USAF ABU. Uniform regs were updated in June, but no updated field uniforms.

rblaes_99

HAZMAN_THE_GREAT
O ya about the Navy uniforms, I just asked a friend of mine thats in the Navy and he said that the Navy blues turn orange once you go over board. They only turn orange if salt water hits it so regular washing is still fine.

HAZMAN  he was joking with you right????  I mean it would make more sense but this is an old urban legend and no such saltwater-only reactive fabric exists...  besides you get exposed to saltwater on a ship even if you don't go overboard.

Nah he was did serious with me brotha. He also said you cant starch the uniforms too. My friend recently just got done with basic and AIT about 8 or 9 months ago and he said that the Navy blues have been updated ever since about a year and a half to 2 years ago to turn orange. He said its not like an orange orange like you would think. Its just gives the man over board a better way to be found. Anyways I would think if your on deck that its required to wear a orange life jacket vest for safety measures.