Talk:Dazzle camouflage/Archive 1

Mixed messages

"American naval leadership expressed the dissenting opinion that dazzle camouflage was effective. Dazzle camouflage continued to be used until the end of World War II."

"However effective the scheme was in WWI, it eventually became completely obsolete as rangefinders became more advanced, and, by the time it would have been put to use again in WWII, the advance of widespread naval aviation and radar made it useless. The airplanes could observe the ships from the sky, and the radar could aim guns much farther than the eye could see."

The last paragraph, particularly the 'would have been' implies it never was. Which is true? --195.195.166.41 16:49, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

"Modern" use

I remember seeing a few months ago on Boing Boing, who did several postings on dazzle camo, something about the West German army painting their tanks in a maroon, white, pink and brown blocky camo scheme at one point in the '60s and was fairly effective in urban and suburban situations. I also recall that, in playing to the stealth characteristics of the ship, the Swedish Visby class corvette is painted in a similar jagged and contrasting to the dazzle camouflage ships of WWI and WWII, although in contrasting grays instead of pastels. There's even promo pieces with the Visby in this blocky puzzle piece pattern, very similar to the examples shown here. And the Visby isn't going to be alone: some artist concepts of the DD-21 Zumwalt and the Litoral Assault Craft feature similar schemes, along with stealth construction techniques. --YoungFreud 03:44, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable. The British troops in Berlin in the 1980s also painted some of their vehicles in a blocky grey-green-black pattern that was intended to break up their outlines in an urban area, and was said to have worked well.

But there is a difference between dazzle camouflage at sea and similar disruptive patterns on vehicles on land. Radar works very well at sea, but is very hindered by "ground clutter" and other interference on land. But even on land, what deceives the Mark 1 Eyeball does not help much against thermal imaging systems or the new generation of ground surveillance radar systems.

On the other hand, most Western armies seem to assume that their likely opposition in the foreseeable future will be using mainly Soviet type vehicles, weapons, organization, and tactics, and will not have much if anything at all in the way of modern electro-optical target acquisition capability. Therefore, perhaps, it might make sense for the militaries of the US or UK to continue to paint vehicles in camouflage pattern, but the Army of the People's Republic of Lower Gumbystan might as well paint their T-54s bright orange, or, better yet, refrain from actions that could result in armed conflict against a modern military.

Mountbatten pink? Anyway, if you can avoid being spotted by the mk1 eyeball why not use the opportunity? Just because you may be spotted using modern electronics doesn't mean you should use bright orange. // Liftarn

The binocular head of HMS Seraph's Search (navigation) periscope

The article implies that the main purpose was against the binocular rangefinders in use on surface warships at the time. Although to some extent true, the actual reason for the Dazzle painting was to confuse the ship's appearance when viewed through a U-boat's monocular attack periscope.

Usually submarines have two periscopes, a binocular Search Periscope (two eyepieces giving stereo vision - see image right) for general and navigational use, and a monocular Attack Periscope - used for actually aiming torpedoes at a target ship - the Attack Periscope being monocular has a smaller, narrower head, and therefore makes less of a visible wake on the surface, but being monocular, i.e., the periscope only has one eyepiece like a traditional telescope, the user gets no sense of range or depth of vision such as one would looking through binoculars. In summary, in this particular circumstance it then becomes very difficult to estimate range, course, speed, etc., as one has to rely solely on the appearance of the target vessel.

The point about the view through a submerged submarine's Attack Periscope's is that it is a monocular one from only a few feet from the water's surface, and so the Dazzle camouflage would, depending on the light, visibility, etc., help break-up the ship's outline, which is used by a submarine's Captain to judge course, speed, distance, and angle-on-the-bow.

Like a lot of camouflage, it was intended to confuse, rather than conceal.

BTW, the Search Perisicope head pictured does have a built-in rangefinder, but the Attack Periscopes of the First and Second World Wars generally only had the graduated vertical and horizontal lines so loved by filmmakers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.59.39 (talk) 21:32, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Bearings obtained from a monocular scope can be used to infer target course, range, and speed using target motion analysis. Modern submarine periscopes split sensors between scopes for other reasons.VmZH88AZQnCjhT40 (talk) 21:16, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

What about the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society? Their ships are all dazzled. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rollinoveru (talk • contribs) 19:19, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Dazzled they may be, but they are not camouflaged: Sea Shepherd tries to be seen, not to disappear. The same applies to the use of variously coloured and patterned military-style clothing worn for fashion. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:28, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

"Nature" use

How about mentioning that there may be parallels in nature? For example some life scientists have suggested that the stripes exhibited by zebra may have a similar purpose to dazzle camouflage.--ManInStone 14:21, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I think this article needs more pictures because this is a very visual topic. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ManInStone (talk • contribs) 11:19, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

Vehicle use

Modern car manufacturers appear to use dazzle camouflage when roadtesting new vehicles

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/spyshots/203153/cadillac_cts_vseries.html

The intent appears to be to obscure and hide sytlistic elements of a new car from automobile paparazzi.

Can anyone confirm this is a valid use of Dazzle Camo? --Nemo 02:22, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Better example here:

http://www.webwombat.com.au/motoring/news_reports/holden-ve-ute-spied.htm

--Nemo 02:30, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Google search to find more:

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&um=1&q=car+spy+photo+camouflage&sa=N&start=20&ndsp=20

-- Nemo --203.147.190.12 (talk) 07:36, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

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Prototypes (from "Modern times" section)

The following unsourced claim has been around for a while and has recently been extended, again with no source, so it seems time to remove it. In the hope that a source can be found for it, here it is - feel free to add it back with suitable sources: Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:18, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

"In modern times, dazzle camouflage is seldom used. Car and light truck prototypes are covered in dazzle camouflage during testing to hide the vehicle's "lumps and bumps" before the manufacturer is ready to show it to the public. Self-adhesive contact paper, not paint, is generally used."

Extent of variation within definition of dazzle

I would value perspectives on the pattern variations within dazzle camouflage. The classic dazzle patterns appear to be distorted checkerboards of rectangular polygons of two alternating contrasting colors with common intersections. A common variation includes a few triangular polygons preserving the common intersections. Another variation includes more than two colors, which enables preservation of somewhat reduced contrast at additional intersections between polygons. Another is curved rather than straight lines between polygons, or even irregular boundaries so the polygons lose their geometrical shapes. Does the camouflage scheme pass outside of the realm of dazzle at some point in this progression?Thewellman (talk) 20:58, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Loss of focus

The article is losing focus -- military dazzle patterns used in the world wars -- with a spatter of thin, poorly-sourced sections towards the end on possibly-derivative developments in defeating computer vision and modern art. I am wondering whether simply to remove all of these, or whether they can be better sourced. I suspect all the material belongs in other articles and could just be linked from here, or may be deleted altogether as flakily sourced. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:52, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Absent progress on this, the material has been removed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:20, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Here's another piece that remains uncited, and anyway does not belong under WWI. If citations can be found it might go in somewhere. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:48, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

"During both World Wars, former ocean liners owned by British steamship companies such as Cunard Line were re-commissioned as an integral part of the British war fleet. These auxiliary ships were refitted with armament and repainted in the same manner as other fleet ships. For example, the Canadian Pacific Steamships' RMS Empress of Russia and White Star Line's RMS Olympic, former passenger liners, were given the "dazzle" treatment when used as troopships."