The science/art of camoflage

First of all, apologies for the Daily Mail link, but…

I was pointed to this ‘story’ about new camoflage that intrigued me. As you will se in the pics, it is quite amazing. The thing is, I can’t help but wonder why it has taken so long.

I remember when the Canadian Army got new camo that was supposed to be designed for northern coniferous forests. Except that while, yes, the camo didn’t exactly clash with the surroundings, it never really blended in.

So why couldn’t they get the right greens and browns in the military, but some hunter can now?

I mean, this is neat, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the Daily Mail pics:

From this article

😉

😆

Oh probably at bit wrong?

‘New’ obviously has a different meaning in Daily Mail world. Realtree camo has been round for years (first licensed in 1986)

I guess that does make a difference to my question, rusty90, but I wonder, then, why it is not in the interests of the military to replicate such precise camo.

I mean, think of the stuff they used in ‘Nam. Considering how consistent the forests and terrain were, is it just that they couldn’t get the colours right?

The photo’s look great but you kinda get the idea that they stage the photo’s so the pattern matched the environment. If you go to the Realtree site, there 13 pattern’s! Yes 13 possible camo pattern’s.

That great for your sportsman with money to burn, but 13 possible uniforms for every soldier… yeah right.

Though looking in more depth, not all of those 13 are camo as we know it..

You’ll notice that all the camouflage suits in that article are different, and are matched to suit their surroundings perfectly. This is great if you always hunt in a duck pond / up a tree. Take that tree suit man and put him in the grass and he’ll be in contrast massively with his surroundings.
Troops are often on the ground in different environments, so camouflage that is adequate in many types of environment makes more sense.

As proof, here’s some science!

why it is not in the interests of the military to replicate such precise camo.

Because it’s very specific to the environment it’s used in. There are various Realtree patterns based on the environment they’re intended to be used in and they work well (as shown in the photos) when they exactly match the background. Hunters generally know in advance exactly where they’ll be using it, the military don’t.

I’ve got a Realtree Xtra Green jacket that works well in the mixed woodland I usually shoot in, if I go somewhere else it really doesn’t work as well.

Plus it’s not exactly cheap!

That’s why the current British army camo was introduced, as in some areas of Iraq & Ghan, personnel move quickly from semidesert to wooded to mountain areas. Neither the older (86 ?) dark pattern designed for N Europe, nor the pale desert pattern, were suitable for all of these. The newish pattern is a good compromise.

In the USA, if you are hunting, you probably have a specific window in which to shoot and you will most likely know the area to which you are going very specifically, a particular lake or wood. So that allows you to nip down to Cabelas and browse the camo to select exactly what you want.

Soldiers can’t stop to change clothes when they run out of trees into a village or a clearing.

That bloke in the top pic would not be quite so invisible in summertime. Although.. maybe.. cos the tree trunk doens’t change colour does it?

Have you seen the urban camouflage version? It’s very good:

Apart from some sniping situations camo isn’t that significant a factor in military use anyway. I was taught that concealment depends on the 7 S’s :
Shape
Shine
Shadow
Silhouette
Sound
Smell
Sudden movement
(If I remember that correctly after all these years)

You’re assuming that the Military always want to remain hidden. How would that translate to an overt peacekeeping scenario like ISAF? When the professionals want to remain unseen, they will do.

Have those Canadian gentlemen forgotten their cam cream?

Why we are seen;

Shape
Shine
Shadow
Silhouette
Sound
Smell
Sudden movement

They’ve added thermal/IR I think. And I think they teach surface rather than shine.

Realtree camo has been around for years, quite popular with shooters & fieldsports enthusiasts, but it’s huge in America, all ‘hunters’ wear it, nearly all the time, and have stacks of it, in all patterns and every garment going.

It does match some surroundings well, but it’s quite specific, and it’s effectiveness is a bit unknown, all depends what you’re trying to hide from, and what their vision actually allows them to see.

There are different principles for camo, there’s imitation (realtree) and those that are designed to trick the eye, not by direct imitation, but by the use of specific patterns and colours.

My main problem with realtree camo is that it makes you look an utter bell

As mention above^^ a lot of current camoflage is designed to act outside of the visible electromagnetic spectrum, as a large number of modern battles are really now only fought at night.

The UK is now using MTP (Multi terrain pattern) which is very similar to the US Army uniform. Instead of having 95 pattern in woodland (and there are actually two or three different version of the 95 DPM as well) and desert patterns we now have just one which is designed to work almost everywhere.

MTP is nothing new – the Americans even did one that worked equally well in both desert and jungle environments.

I do find it slightly odd that most US hunters then have to put a fluorescent orange vest on over their camo gear, so another hunter doesn’t miss them and shoot in their direction?

95 was useless in the jungle. In fact it was pretty shit everywhere (although slightly better than the old combats which came in “fat” only). Lightweights and stone shirts for camp, junglies for the field and camwhites for the cold. I’ve not had a proper ganders at the MTP stuff though.

The yank orange pattern is still real tree, but designed to work on animals who see in shades of grey…
Hence being Merkins they get that little bit more warning that they are about to shoot a friendly whilst to the quarry they remain hidden.

I’ve not had a proper ganders at the MTP stuff though.

Imagine CS95 but with layers of pockets upon useless pockets, which makes even the “hot weather” one too heavy for temperate use, and also makes it impossible to iron properly. Then add loads of velcro, to ensure that you become stuck to your mates when sat next to them in a vehicle. Then add some more velcro, so everything sticks to it inside your washing machine. Then move the pen-holder to the wrong side.

Otherwise, brilliant.

The whole point of camo is to break up the shape of a person at a distance, not close enough to smell. Zebra are camouflaged, but close up they’re dazzling black and white; look at them from a distance of a couple of hundred metres, the stripes visually blend to make them look a dusty brown, blending into the savanna background.
American camo has been bloody awful for years, and the digital ACU pattern is only useful if you’re fighting in a concrete construction site. Their desert camo wasn’t much better, especially compared to the British Desert DPM, which is still in use. As Wrecker says, Soldier 95 DPM is only useful in local temperate forests; fighting in multiple terrain situations needs something more sophisticated, which is where Multicam comes in.
A design created by Crye Precision, it was offered to the US military, who turned it down, sticking to their preferred Digital designs.
The British military were more open to new designs, asking Crye to create a variation of Multicam using the style cues from Soldier 95 DPM, called MTP, Multi-Terrain Pattern, because troops out in Iraq and Afghanistan were already doing something similar, mixing Desert DPM and Soldier 95 DPM to try to match the mix of arid scrub and greenery that occurs out there.
I wish I could have got a job designing camo patterns, the subject fascinates me, how mixing graphic patterns and colours can render something almost invisible from a distance.
There are lots of pretty ones, but they’re very limited in actual use, because of the environment they’re supposed to be used in, the ‘Urban’ camo which some military use, is a good case, as it’s nearly always blue, when it needs to be much more neutral. Australian camo is pretty bright, but in the Australian bush, it’s actually pretty effective.
It would be bloody useless in a European theatre.

I always liked the Vietnam US SF issue tiger stripe. Alley as ****.

There are loads of variations on the Vietnam era tiger stripes, as they were generally made ‘in country’. Some were green and black, some had lots of gold in them.

US Navy Seals have AOR 1 and 2, basically digital camo for either arid or temperate theatres that they mix and match, far more effective than their older stuff. The. US ‘acu’ camo pattern was chosen on cost, and generally slated as an actual camo, having been beaten in trials by several other patterns including Multicam.

MTP is the S95 colour palette in Crye Precision’s Multicam pattern. Most of the Royals and Poole based guys I know use Multicam, as do the Blades and Aussie SF guys I know. It’s a good compromise for many environments. Mind you, they have just released several different colour palette versions of it, black, desert and tropical. They are more of an answer to the new Kryptek patterns that are the current buzz. Friend of mine who runs Platatac, a big Aussie tactical gear manufacturer and supplier has just been over here on a whistle stop tour of SF and near SF units taking orders for the stuff.

Back in the day, good old British DPM regularly own concealment and camouflage competitions and trials against all sorts of fancy cutting edge stuff. It’s not a bad camouflage, it was just designed for different theatres than those our forces are expected to fight in nowadays. Not much chance we will be dishing it out to the Reds in Eastern Europe…

also makes it impossible to iron properly

Wait.. You iron camo?

The orange stuff is called blaze orange btw, and is for deer hunting because deer only see in black and white. Duck hunting stuff otoh is like we would expect camo to look. In Wisconsin when we go over in autumn half the male population wear blaze orange as normal clothing 🙂

Wait.. You iron camo?

It’s also works dress, as 95 kit was. So you couldn’t get away with not ironing it. We never wore 95s in the field anyway. Too thin/flimsy. Can’t beat proper denim trops.

A bloke came into work the other day and asked me to give him a quote to vinyl wrap his HiLux in real tree cammo pattern, I suggested it was a bad idea!

Imagine CS95 but with layers of pockets upon useless pockets, which makes even the “hot weather” one too heavy for temperate use, and also makes it impossible to iron properly. Then add loads of velcro, to ensure that you become stuck to your mates when sat next to them in a vehicle. Then add some more velcro, so everything sticks to it inside your washing machine. Then move the pen-holder to the wrong side.

One of the best descriptions I’ve seen yet. Don’t forget the compass pocket you can’t fit a compass in.

I’ve seen all sorts of weird ironing patterns just lately in MTP!

The US Army ACU camo works perfectly, as long as you are the guy on this couch:

It is horrible just about anywhere else!

camo fat bike with hunting attachment niche?!

http://www.realtree.tv/watch/dmlkZW89MTUyMw==/the-cogburn-cb4-bike-in-realtree-xtra-camo

Loving the cat gif 🙂

In Wisconsin when we go over in autumn half the male population wear blaze orange as normal clothing

Some couples have been known to go to their Senior Prom in camo or even get married wearting it!

Human vision gives priority to the processing of movement above all else, then solid lines and recognisable shapes etc such as the human face.

So military cammo does not really need to be perfect. What it needs to do is break up solid lines and break up recognisable features (eg faces stand out like a sore thumb to human vision, so if you can rub grime/camo paint on it and generally break up the features…then all the better). It also needs to blend in with many different backgrounds, so specific patterns like others have mentioned are out. Staying dead still when necessary will be enough extra camouflage for most soldiers. Sometimes you will notice soldiers in European settings adding foliage to their helmets to blend in with the surrounding folliage and also to break up the very obvious and solid lines the helmet confers.

Snipers however, will quite often blend themselves into the surroundings more using Ghillie suits.

I’ve seen C95 and MTP through the most advanced equipment (not yet) available and the MTP is fantastic. It works well under any sensor or lens as well as the naked eye.
Military camoflage has to do so much more than beat the eyes of an animal.

I like bumping into people walking in the street wearing camo troons or jackets. I just say “sorry mate, I didn’t see you” 🙂

I like bumping into people walking in the street wearing camo troons or jackets. I just say “sorry mate, I didn’t see you”

Mine’s speckled light green/dark green/black, it tends to stand out in an urban situation, so that argument doesn’t wash. It’s excellent for wildlife photography, though.
And a lot of people who wear camo kit would likely just punch you in the face if you pulled that stunt, not being too tolerant of that sort of ‘wit’. 😉

JoeG, that photo just about sums up that horrid Digital ACU, Kayak23, my Danish Flecktarn jacket would blend in perfectly in your woodland photo, bloody useless in Helmand Province, though!