Camouflage effectiveness

[Seedorf81]

Does anybody knows anything about the effectiveness of camouflage?

I wonder why the Germans camouflaged their uniforms and colorschemed their vehicles often, while the Allies usually kept everything in one or two colortones.

Is there any camo-grog "in the house"?

[JonS]

Seems pretty effective

[JonS]

More seriously; you quickly get in to all sorts of questions about what, exactly, you are trying to achieve with camouflage. The Navy and Air Force offer a couple of instructive examples here.

About halfway through the war the US all but abandoned camoflage on it's aircraft, for good reasons. The camoflage was primarily designed to make attacks on aircraft parked in disperal harder. But they noticed that the german airforce was on the wane, and that attacks on airfields were becoming exceptionally rare. So they ditched the camouflage. And in doing so they sped up production, saved a heap of weight, and improved the performance of all their a/c.

At various times, different navies have have tried dazzle 'camoflage', where the aim wasn't to hide the ship, but to hide what the ship was doing. The idea was that the jagged lines and complex patterns would make it hard to get a fix on which way the ship was heading, and how fast it was going. You'll notice that no one still uses that scheme, although that probably has as much to do with the universal use of radar, and fashion sense, as it does to do with how effective dazzle was.

About the only numerical example I know of that shows the effectiveness of camoflage is from Coastal Command during WWII. The CC Operational Research scientists noticed that the aircraft patrols were seeing significantly less surfaced submarines that they should, in theory/mathematically, have been observing. One of the OR scientists went out to a CC airfield to see if they could figure out what was going on. He immediately noticed that the a/c that CC were using were old Bomber Command airframes, and were still painted in BC colours - with completely black undersurfaces. They figured that this allowed submarines on the surface to see the patroling a/c by day at about an extra 1/3rd of the distance that had been assumed, and so the submarines were able to sbmerge and disappear before the a/c saw them. As a trial they got the undersurfaces repinted in white, which significantly shortened the range that the subs could see the a/c at, and this immediately increased the number of sightings and attacks by a/c on subs. Any decent history of OR and/or Coastal Command should be able to give you the specific distances, etc, associated with this.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Sniper ghillie suits are another example of highly effective camouflage.

I recall reading somewhere that mono-color uniforms are actually a little better at making moving infantry more difficult to spot.

[Wicky]

Adding to JonS

Yehudi lights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yehudi_lights

Yehudi lights are lamps placed on the underside or wing leading edge of an aircraft to raise the aircraft's luminance to the average brightness of the sky, a form of active camouflage using counter-illumination. They were intended to disguise the aircraft by preventing it from appearing as a dark object against the sky.

[umlaut]

Does anybody knows anything about the effectiveness of camouflage?

I wonder why the Germans camouflaged their uniforms and colorschemed their vehicles often, while the Allies usually kept everything in one or two colortones.

Is there any camo-grog "in the house"?

I am certainly no expert, but here´s a couple of brief attempts to answer:

As far as I know the US also tried camoflage uniforms in Europe, but abandoned the idea because other US/allied units mistook the camoflaged soldiers for germans, who had already used camo for while.

I think the main reason for camoflaging vehicles was to avoid air attacks. And since the allies had almost total air superiority in Europe, there was little reason for the allies to have it - but very good reason for the germans.

The more knowledgeable will probably correct me very soon

[Michael Emrys]

The real reason the Germans used complex camouflage schemes on their AFVs is because it looked cool and they knew that tens of thousands of modelers in future decades would prefer to build German models. Truth.

Michael

[Erwin]

I choose Michael's interpretation.

[Seedorf81]

Thanks for your thoughts so far.

Still wondering if the amount of money, time and resources spent on camouflage, be it WW2 or the present, is worth the effort. Does it save lives, for instance? Since nearly everything about war has been researched in one form or another, I cannot imagine that there are no reports on WW2camouflage. If forummembers stumble across any source of info, please share.

Umlaut mentioned that the German's used their camo mainly for cover against air attacks. Yes, they had to in the latter part of the war, but I know for a fact that the SS already wore camouflage during the attack on the Netherlands in may 1940. I don't believe they did that out of fear for air attacks, but because someone had realised that camo made them harder to spot on the frontline.

[umlaut]

Hi Seedorf

Please note, that I wrote:

I think the main reason for camoflaging vehicles was to avoid air attacks.

Uniform camo I believe was used because it

made them harder to spot on the frontline.

...as you said

[Seedorf81]

Hi Seedorf

Please note, that I wrote:

Uniform camo I believe was used because it

...as you said

Sorry, need to have eyes checked.

[baron Jacquinot]

Thanks for your thoughts so far.

Still wondering if the amount of money, time and resources spent on camouflage, be it WW2 or the present, is worth the effort. Does it save lives, for instance? Since nearly everything about war has been researched in one form or another, I cannot imagine that there are no reports on WW2camouflage. If forummembers stumble across any source of info, please share.

Umlaut mentioned that the German's used their camo mainly for cover against air attacks. Yes, they had to in the latter part of the war, but I know for a fact that the SS already wore camouflage during the attack on the Netherlands in may 1940. I don't believe they did that out of fear for air attacks, but because someone had realised that camo made them harder to spot on the frontline.

Daniel Peterson - Waffen SS camouflage - http://rapidshare.com/files/2183191274/ss%20camo.zip

[baron Jacquinot]

I have replica dot44 parka and plane tree 3/4 smock and cap, some times they can be effective I think, but not every where.

[Steiner14]

Clothing for lazy husbands.

[baron Jacquinot]

Clothing for lazy husbands.

I want this one with sofa, so I will play CM without wife screams.

[Wicky]

Worth seeing ... How Not To Be Seen

[slysniper]

Of course camo. works, against the human eye anyway.

The problem is, how much weaponry relies on the human eye only anymore. Not much.

And in the future, likely even less, with even an infantry man having access to high tech vision aids.

But high tech camo. will likely be developed also, so we will see.

But vs. the Human eye, camo. is great, it depends on the quality and use, but it sure can deceive the Human eye.

My most amazing experience as a sniper was once on maneuvers I was on an Intel. mission behind enemy lines, as dawn approached I had not made it back out because another sniper team had been spotted doing the same operation in a different area of the line and set their whole area on alert.

Patrols were now high and I had a road blocking me from crossing it because it now had patrols moving up and down it.

I had no choice but to cross and try and make a downhill slope on the other side which would hide my movement hopefully. But 4 men had easy view of where I was wanting to cross and that was the best area I found.

Needless to say, I tried timing it and moving in a manor to not be detected, but before I made it 2/3rd across, someone had turned and I was spotted. I leaped for the bank and ran, tumbled and fell down the hill.

But I could only go so far before I had to stop and try to find concealment and stop my motion because I knew that many eyes would be searching for me down this hillside. I could hear the enemy running, shouting and trying to pinpoint where I had crossed the road. I had no time to prep my hide, there were only knee high grasses and some straggly bushes, and my saving grace was I had my gillie suit on.

I could hear two patrols moving down the hillside searching for me, they were discussing the fact that they did not think I could reach the stream that was at the base of the hill and that I was likely hiding somewhere. The one team passed my location very close and then moved on a short distance.

After a while they became discouraged and started changing their mind that I had made it to the base of the hill and was now somewhere on the other side where there was good concealment.

But before they went back up to the road they fanned out and did a grid search for me.

One man walked by me went no more than a meter or two above me on the hill then turned and walked parallel along the hill and stopped almost on top of me. I could hear him breathing, I was so afraid he was looking right at me , but I could not know because I had my face buried in the dirt and focused on moving or breathing beyond the minimum of my ability. But I felt I could have touched him if I tried. I thought he would hear my heart because it was pumping so hard and I so scared.

He then walked off and it was almost over, I was afraid to move for another 15 minutes or so, but then I worked my way down the hill and back to safety.

In that early morning light, what saved me was a gillie suit and the items I had done from my boots to fingernails to the tip of my noise to become nothing more than the ground that was around me. It still amazes me to this day that it worked that day.

[Holman]

I have replica dot44 parka and plane tree 3/4 smock and cap, some times they can be effective I think, but not every where.

...

IMAGE #3: Blurry photo camouflage for the win!

[Vanir Ausf B]

You need to have Aris mod that grass so it's more subdued. Real grass isn't neon bright like that. I know so because I read it on the forum

[Michael Emrys]

You need to have Aris mod that grass so it's more subdued. Real grass isn't neon bright like that. I know so because I read it on the forum

Yeah, I'm aware that some folks around here believe that. But my guess is they never walked out onto a springtime meadow on the first or second day of sunshine after a long rain. Then the brilliance of the color will just about knock you down.

That said, the foreground in the photo is a bit overexposed.

Michael

[BLSTK]

Seems pretty effective

Where's the remote? I know I put it somewhere.

[baron Jacquinot]

I think for Russian countryside better to use "Oak leaf" pattern, dot44 for West Europe nature, but I buy one parka, who knows maybe it would be useful when we will be assault Caen or Dunkirk)))))))))))))))))))))))

[Seedorf81]

Worth seeing ... How Not To Be Seen

Fantastic, especially Cleese starting at 2.19