Does the standard issue BDU (combat uniform) depend on the current war?
As you have been told, “digitals” are replacing the BDU. To answer your question, when the BDU was developed back in the 80s there were three (origially four) kids of BDU. Desert, Woodland, Arctic, and “Urban”. Urban was a grey, black and white mix designed for fighting in cities. (If the Soviets had come into West Germany there would have been a LOT of street to street fighting, Germany is very urbanized.) I don’t think that the “Urban” pattern was ever officially issued, but it was very cool to wear it in the late 80s. I think some SWAT teams adopted it. There were also some all black BDUs made, but those were only for the civilian market as far as I know. Units were issued Desert, Arctic, or Woodland based on where they were going to be deployed. If you were going to be operating in a snowy enviormnet you got Arctic. I was never issued Arctic but I believe it was rare and most restricted to coats, etc. Units that got sent to the CENTCOM Area of Operations (Iraq, Iran, Saudi, Qatar,
