History of Camouflage
The term camouflage comes from the French word camoufler meaning 'to blind or veil.'
Camouflage, also called protective concealment, means to disguise an object, in plain sight,
in order to conceal it from something or someone.
In the late 1800s, an American artist named Abbott Thayer made an important observation about animals
in nature that became a useful tool in developing modern camouflage. After studying wildlife,
Thayer noticed that the colouring of many animals graduated from dark, on their backs, to almost white on their bellies.
This is an important property that is very useful in modern camouflage.
This gradation from dark to light breaks up the surface of an object and makes it harder to see the object as one thing.
The object loses its three-dimensional qualities and appears flat.
This tendency to break up and flatten the surface of an object also appears in the artistic movement,
Cubism, which was occurring during this same time period.
Camouflage in military history
Successful camouflage became an
essential part of modern military tactics since the increase in accuracy and
rate of fire of weapons at the end of the nineteenth century. The first recorded
large-scale use of camouflage was during World War I. At the beginning of the
war the French experienced heavy losses because the troops wore red trousers as
part of their uniform. The French established a section de camouflage in
1915. The camouflage experts were, for the most part, painters, sculptors,
theatre set artists and such. This led to a new horizon blue uniform and various
camouflage paint schemes for trucks, guns and planes. Units of Camoufleurs
who were artists, designers, or architects in civilian life were also largely
used by the forces of the UK and the US and to a lesser extent by Germany, Italy
and Russia.
Theory of camouflage
MacKay's statement above remains one of the
most crucial elements in the theory of camouflage - an exact match with the
environment's colours is less crucial than the patterning of the regions of
colour
themselves. Ideally, camouflage should be made to break up and thereby conceal
the structural lines of the object which it hides. Thus, the patterns often seen
on camouflage clothing, masking cloth and vehicle paints are carefully
constructed to deceive the human eye by breaking up the boundaries that define
sharp edges and human silhouettes. Similarly, a tiger's stripes, when viewed in
the context of long grass or deeply shaded forest, have the same effect - making
it hard to differentiate the tiger from the background.
Modern camouflage research has developed
environment-specific patterns such as 'RealTree' and 'Mossy Oak' which contain
more detailed visual elements than older camouflage. While these patterns are
more effective than traditional camouflage patterns, they are also very specific
to an environment and season which precludes their general use for military
purposes.
Progress has also been made in generalized
camouflage patterns as well. In 2004, the US Army joined the US Marine Corps in
adopting an updated 'digital camouflage' pattern to replace the traditional
woodland pattern. It is termed 'digital' because much of the design was done on
a computer and unlike other camouflage patterns, it is blocky and appears almost
pixelated.
Research also continues into adaptive
camouflage, which is camouflage that changes to match its environment. One
method of doing this is by changing the pre-made pattern, either automatically
as some animals can like the octopus, or manually by reversing an article of
clothing with a different pattern on either side.
True adaptive camouflage, which many would
call 'invisibility', is much more difficult. In order to make true adaptive
camouflage, a high resolution display that renders thousands of different
angles, depending on how the viewer looked at it (similar to a hologram), would
have to be made, and the display information would have to be interpolated from
a few cameras as it is impossible to have one camera per angle displayed.
Additionally, the displays would have to be capable of extreme brightness to
maintain their illusion during daylight.
An example of this would be the camouflage
used by the alien in the movie 'Predator'. The banding along the sides of
the predator is a realistic graphical effect that is a consequence of not
rendering enough viewable angles to truly fool the eye.
While much of the display technology exists
today, the capability to extrapolate, model, and render a scene at the multitude
of angles required and in real time involves more processing power than could be
placed inside of an object camouflaged in such a way. It may be possible,
however, if real-time adaptation or a large number of viewable angles are not
required, the latter of which would result in parallax errors as seen in the
predator's camouflage.
People with maskun or other color blindness
have been used to detect camouflage, because they have heightened sensitivity to
visual patterns and their visual sensitivity curve is different from that of
people with normal sight. Military camouflage schemes now are designed with
defined spectral properties — even outside the range of visible light to avoid
detection by technical means like night vision devices. The other way around,
one can buy hunting garments with bright orange patches that stand out to the
eyes of other hunters, but are supposed to appear as camouflage to the game
animals.
The opposite of camouflage is making a person
or object more visible and easier to recognize, for example with retro
reflectors
and high-visibility clothing.
See also
|
|
|
For your convenience, the Airsoft Adventure SHOP is OPEN 6 days A week.
Coneybury Farm Shop Complex,
Alcester Road, Flyford Flavell, Worcestershire, WR7 4DF
Monday to Saturday: 9.00am till 5.00pm
Sunday: Closed
To contact us, CLICK HERE
Click here to add
Airsoft Adventure
to your Favourites
|
Shop in confidence with fully Secure Payment Server 24/7
© 2005 Airsoft Adventure. All rights reserved.
|
|
