Disruptive Pattern Material - Later Developments

Later Developments

The pattern was changed slightly with subsequent issues. On early 1960 (manufactured from 1966) and 1968 Pattern DPM uniforms the sand coloured base would appear to lighten in tone at night, becoming dangerously conspicuous. This was addressed in the late 1970s, when the sand and brown colours were slightly darkened. The 1985 Pattern has fewer, less precise dots and the brown is much darker; 1990 and later has a band of new shapes and is smaller; 1994 has an orangey colour instead of a tan. Tropical polycotton DPM uniforms varied even more; early versions were very brightly coloured notably with a russet brown and emerald green which faded to rather unexpected pastel tones of blueish green and pink-brown with washing. Late 1970s and early 1980s Trops have a more yellowish sand base and are greatly sought-after by those wishing to appear "ally," while the final production style in the early 1990s used colours closer to temperate uniforms.

DPM items in the Combat Soldier 95 (CS95) clothing system have similar colours to the 1966 uniform. However, instead of all four colours being printed onto a whitish base, the material is in fact woven in the sand shade and overprinted only with three colours. This leads to a loss in contrast between the colours after washing and wear, and the clothing tends to appear darker when wet than previous types.

Although slight changes have been made to DPM and the colours, the pattern is easy to recognise. There are also jungle versions of DPM where the colours are brighter, and on one variation the tan is darker than the green. A desert variant was first issued on a limited basis in the late 1980s. This appeared very similar, but consisted of subdued sand and khaki hues. This was replaced by a two-colour version by 1990 because four-colour versions had been adopted by some Middle Eastern countries, notably Iraq.

From 1990 a system of Personal Load Carrying Equipment (PLCE) was introduced, initially produced in olive green. The olive type was quickly replaced in production by a DPM version, and now almost all British issue webbing and rucksacks are DPM.

Current issued DPM equipment is IRR (Infra-red Reflective) coated. This coating has a specific reflective wavelength in order to blend in with natural colours in the infra-red light spectrum. This reduces the visibility of soldiers to night vision devices, which detect infra-red light, as trees and other green plants reflect deep red and infra-red light (the Wood Effect).