Ermintruder
The greatest risk is to risk nothing at all...
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2013
- Messages
- 6,208
Something that never fails to amaze me is the vast and frequently-contradictory designs of camouflage seen woven or printed into the uniforms of the world's armed forces. Whilst the logic in a leap from red to khaki is inarguably-sound, it seems there has been from then onwards an almost-infinite range of opinions available as to what constitutes military semivisibility.
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2018/11/the-art-and-evolution-of-military-camouflage/
Whilst these designs probably become almost technofetishist in their selection and use, it's curious to consider that in many ways, opposing armies upon the field of battle should (of course) be attempting to appear similiarly-invisible to each-other.
In other words, the tactical evolution has been (over time) from convergent mud-smeared hairy mis-shapen spear-shakers, through divergent wode/shiny-armour/redcoats/penninsular greens& blacks, through blue vs grey ACW, sliding back via grey vs brown WW1+2, inexorably back towards convergent camouflaged sniper-suited riflemen.
The only time armies are now of a usefully-different colour-scheme is upon chessboards, or wargamers' tables (either physical or online.
I am always struck by the clever inverted symmetry of camouflage used on a number of WW2 fighter aircraft- a bold dark mottled upper and side surface of a few geoconvincing colours, and the underbody/underwings painted the same shade as the sky. In so doing, the designers were trying to emulate nature, and better the evolved colorways of the animal& insect worlds (the straight horizontal transition line along the fuselage between the lower layer of sky-blue, and the brown:green of the upper parts, creating a mini inverse flat horizon line that helped melt away the metal birds of death in the fire-filled skies).
I've not yet been able to find-out more about the fabled coaldust-encrusted superblack paint used (allegedly) on bombers and nightfighters, which was meant to absorb the search-beams sweeping the night sky. This may have been just another part of that by far most-potent weapon of war: reputational presumed capability, or, inferred differential advantage.
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2018/11/the-art-and-evolution-of-military-camouflage/
Whilst these designs probably become almost technofetishist in their selection and use, it's curious to consider that in many ways, opposing armies upon the field of battle should (of course) be attempting to appear similiarly-invisible to each-other.
In other words, the tactical evolution has been (over time) from convergent mud-smeared hairy mis-shapen spear-shakers, through divergent wode/shiny-armour/redcoats/penninsular greens& blacks, through blue vs grey ACW, sliding back via grey vs brown WW1+2, inexorably back towards convergent camouflaged sniper-suited riflemen.
The only time armies are now of a usefully-different colour-scheme is upon chessboards, or wargamers' tables (either physical or online.
I am always struck by the clever inverted symmetry of camouflage used on a number of WW2 fighter aircraft- a bold dark mottled upper and side surface of a few geoconvincing colours, and the underbody/underwings painted the same shade as the sky. In so doing, the designers were trying to emulate nature, and better the evolved colorways of the animal& insect worlds (the straight horizontal transition line along the fuselage between the lower layer of sky-blue, and the brown:green of the upper parts, creating a mini inverse flat horizon line that helped melt away the metal birds of death in the fire-filled skies).
I've not yet been able to find-out more about the fabled coaldust-encrusted superblack paint used (allegedly) on bombers and nightfighters, which was meant to absorb the search-beams sweeping the night sky. This may have been just another part of that by far most-potent weapon of war: reputational presumed capability, or, inferred differential advantage.
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