As jcranmer says, there's more details on the reasons it works somewhere down in this page, https://www.hyperstealth.com/US4CES-ALPHA/index.html
In combat, camouflage is really the VERY last line of defense possible, and a fairly weak one at that. If the difference between staying alive and being dead is the pattern of your clothing, a lot of things have already gone seriously wrong and your chances of survival are not great.
In the grand scheme of things, camo relatively high-hanging fruit. Money and time have mostly been spent on building superior weapons, armor, and of course training. Camo is a very small optimization in comparison and when the Army and Air Force decided to change up their BDU patterns, it was viewed by me and my fellow service members as largely a public image stunt. ("Look everyone, we're modern!")
Edit: to be clear, I'm only referring to uniforms... snipers and such use camouflage netting for example that is tailored to their exact location and can be extremely effective at "hiding in plain sight."
Current military member here. It is also the first line of defense against fratricide. It means your friends can tell you from the not-friends. A distinct pattern, unique to your organization, is what stops aircraft from dropping on you. So as current patterns trickle out into private hands, eventually every military organization needs to update its look.
It's very 'low hanging fruit'. It's ridiculous that that a 20 Trillion dollar Army has 'camouflage' that is very clearly crap next to better camo.
These tests could have literally been run in a day, even back in the 1950s.
Some soldiers, some screens, a few cameras, some changes in lighting and it would have been evident.
Moreover, it's reasonable to be suspect in whether an organization that can't handle such a basic R&D task is going to be able to handle the more complicated things.
The first is that the criteria that appears to have been most important was performance in near-IR (i.e., night vision). Humans can't see in NIR themselves, so it's not readily apparent that the UCP is actually pretty good camo in NIR conditions. It's pretty atrocious in visible light, though.
The second is the requirement that the camo pattern be good in all environments. And "standard" woodland patterns to be utterly horrendous in sandy desert environments, while desert patterns do similarly bad in woodland environments. And you can see how something like the UCP might score well--while it's not a good camo pattern for any visible pattern, it sticks out less than a standard woodland in desert or vice versa. Of course, there were other patterns at that time that performed strictly better than UCP in all environments (save NIR).
The main kicker, though, is that the winning pattern seems to have been constructed out of elements of all the participating patterns... with no follow-up work done to make sure that the resulting combination actually worked. As you say, this is where some tests would have saved an awful lot of embarrassment, and my suspicion is these tests were not run for either time or money reasons. (And yes, this is a false economy here, but it's one that I can really believe bureaucracies pursuing).
There is historical precedence for this kind of short-sightedness however: the Mark 14 Torpedo, the main torpedo the US used in WW2. Which didn't work, and the Navy's Board of Ordnance took a couple years (and ultimately an unsanctioned live-fire test demonstrating that it didn't work) to be convinced that they actually didn't work rather than the submariners being packs of incompetent morons.
Doesn't it go: 'don't be seen, if you're seen don't be acquired, if you're acquired don't be hit, if you're hit don't be penetrated, if you're penetrated don't be killed'? Camouflage ('don't be seen') is the first layer on the onion, not the last!
Think - positioning rather than magic fabric. That's my interpretation anyway.
Your last line of defence is not being killed if you've been penetrated - your medical kit!
Thankfully rationality eventually prevailed, but not before wasting 100's of millions, a portion of which was out of pocket for sailors.
Does everyone on a battlefield have thermal imaging? Even if there's a technology X that can defeat Y, if X can't be deployed widely, then X can still be useful.
In Ukraine, it's one of the things that are often crowdfunded by either side, along with NVDs and drones. Of course, when they are in short supply, they usually go to the units that can use the most effectively, such as recon & sabotage groups (диверсионно-разведывательная группа; not sure what's the proper English term for that, but it's basically guys who work behind enemy lines). So even if not everybody has them, the guys who are the most likely to mess you up probably do.
The most famous from the USA are Navy Seals, followed by Army Rangers, but every branch of the military has its own special forces. And other countries militaries do as well.
The one whose official remit probably looks most like the group that you describe are Air Force Special Reconnaissance (SR). It is their mission to deploy deep behind enemy lines, figure out enemy operations, and work with other units in any area of the military to take out high value targets. (For example by calling in air strikes or artillery.)
The way rifles work with recoils driving the expulsion of a shell after firing and using that force to load the next round to chamber (the famous AK47 design)
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Would there be a method of attaching a compressed water bottle with valve with a donut nozzle with vents out at angles to the optimal suppression of the muzzle flash.
The idea being that, like a paintball gun, the machine's trigger pull, also has a tangential trig that pulls an outburst a micro second from the rifle, in a ring mist of water/(some more expensive, toxic military fire-suppressant (ironic) to reduce the muzzle flash on shot...
May it reduce the muzzle flare? or is it too weak? Should it launch behind muzzle, after muzzle?
The bullet down the barrel triggers the valve when it hits 50% of barrel length. Once that induction occurs, it triggers the valve, and the flame suppressant cloud is spit out micro seconds prior to bullet breach...
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I am convinced that we can use Davincis micro fluidics... turbulence drawings.
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So let talk about next gen firing
The barrel release could be routed to drive the exhaust through channels which drive micro-turbine motors that slurp back through the external of barrel and infuse with water.
Working on this in Solid
(We'll see how widely the new system and everything actually gets deployed but it was an important part of the whole program at least)
> In addition to the flash suppression, the end can quickly cut barbed wire by pushing the muzzle onto a strand of wire and firing a round.
What an interesting feature!
The reason:
Davinciy was cabable of documenting the vortices of variues pulses of fluidicsbut the vortices expecticed creates the fluid dynamics
Hopw the fuck in 400 years have these guys come NOT up with better?
I dont trust a single structural eng.
Separately, using the force of the round (either via a gas tube or via direct rearward motion) to propel the action of the firearm isn’t really an AK47 thing, it’s common to all semi automatic rifles and predates the AK47 by quite a while.
"propel the action of the firearm isn’t really an AK47 thing, it’s common to all semi automatic rifles and predates the AK47 by quite a while. "
Kalashnikov invented the easiest way to manufacture this behavior... This is the reason its the most heinous of weapons.
I am talking about something different. And thats OK.
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I am talking about a specific method of funneling muzzle output to funnel through your suppression...
I am talkingabout a hydro-enahnaced flash press which does a certain thing. Please talk about what that certain thing is.
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The most environmentally way to reduce muzzle flash. Cloud of water vapor as an expulsion of the muzzle such that it interacts with the blast easily enough to expel the right amount of water vapor through the expulsion chamber as the expression continues through the valve, (barrel) and its in-flame-ant mitigated by the entrenchment water vapor cloud to expel the munition, but still keep other perams in check?
(pdf) heading 9: https://assets.surefire.com/uploads/2019/07/SF-BSD-manuals.p...
I’ll skip over lubed suppressor concept as I don’t know more than Google tells us :p
Adding water to the equation? Rust, mud, weight, boiling ... you would need some radical improvements to justify such added complexity.
I remember reading about importance of a newfangled barrel free-floating construction on carbines, soon after the Afghan war started. The examples used at that time were kludgy top-rail secured things supposedly used by mysterious SEALs guys. Later I saw Crane stock for the pair of chemical lights.
Today, those are slim M-LOK with rail on top and secured to the barrel nut, HEL-STARs, and MOE SL stocks. Oh and Russian Army standard infantry rifles are now cheap AKs with f*’ng buffer tubes, and G36 now has short aluminum mounts to avoid floppy carrying handle issues(“polymer degradation” fiasco).
What caused all those changes were clearly the wars.
With all the urban combat, there's a push toward shorter and maneuverable. In something short like the 10.5" M4A1 CQBR, flash becomes a much bigger problem (especially in dark rooms where it can be positively blinding to the shooter).
A suppressor helps with this issue, but it also starts adding back length to the gun (somewhat defeating the purpose).
300 blackout supposedly helps the problem (I've never shot it from a SBR) and also has better short-range (esp subsonic) ballistics compared to 5.56, but it too has muzzle flash.
The newly selected Army XM5 rifle and cartridge were designed for super-high pressures and achieving high speeds in a short barrel likely causing even more muzzle flash. Thankfully, this rifle is going to be suppressed for everyone by default. Unfortunately, it's super heavy (and that's without the super-heavy optics), has less ammo per magazine, and despite the goal, is still going to be blocked by higher-level body armor, and is still 36" in a SBR configuration (for comparison, the Israeli CTAR-21 is 30% shorter at just 25" providing rifle firepower in a SMG package).
A sniper lies prone for a long time, with really heavy cammo (think netting, foliage, etc). Staying put is a big deal.
Regular soldiers constantly move about, which means their cammo has to be more practical and lightweight, and is also less effective due to said movement.
Speaking of, is traditional garb at all effective from a tactical standpoint?
Waffen-SS used dotted camouflage in the late 1930s (Platanenmuster), so depending on what you mean by “earlier” the idea of camouflage without “large blobs” isn't that modern.
The Erbsenmuster from 1944 is an even better example of this type of camouflage.
Plus, like another commenter said camouflage is a last to second to last line of defense. Most units aren't moving stealthily in close proximity to their enemy and those that do adopt better camouflage techniques like ghillie suits or using terrain to hide while staying still (eg: waiting to ambush another group).
I do think that the Finnish M05 woodland camo [1] is one of the best in the world =)
Finland also has some interesting doctrine in anti-tank which leads to fun images like [0] of people absolutely COVERED in anti-tank mines or launchers. Part of being next to a much larger country I guess.
[0] https://twitter.com/jmkorhonen/status/1504016338204905474
These particular photos look like comic relief.
Those yellow anti-tank mines are 10 kg each, which means that dude would be hauling at least 160 kg = 353 lbs extra weight. Doable perhaps but definitely not used in combat.
Max loadout is more like 4 of those anti-tank mines hanging off your gear and carrying 4 in your hands, and that will guaranteed wipe you out. Hauling 4 total any longer distance is the usual amount.
Max loadout of the APILAS anti-tank rocket launcher thing is usually two on your back, and that'll practically immobilize you in Finnish terrain.
It does sound as if there's not much methodology in this business, beyond empirical testing. Like, is there a science of 'camouflagology'? [oops, when inventing words, never mix latin and greek]
It just seems like it's basically lore, gathered from talking to fgillies and field experience, augmented by tests (which may be omitted, or the results ignored). Anyway, it might be fun to take a minor in camouflagology.
I don't know if there's a more specific term or not, but camouflage is studied (along with other things) under the general subject of "Crypsis".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypsis
Note that this seems to be more particularly about natural forms of camouflage / etc., as opposed to military camouflage used by humans. But the two areas are clearly related.
Regardless of what you call it, it does appear that there is some science that goes into at least some aspects of this. See, for example:
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-camouflage-arbitrary-environme...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flecktarn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Uniforme_militar,_ej%C3%A...
You can scale invariance and fractals with squares, triangles, or whatever shape you want.
From the biological perspective, the same phenomenon should happen with dots or triangular shapes
If you used dots you have irregular spaces between them. This may or may not be a good thing, but it is certainly going to be different to the dots themselves.
Hexagons could work though.
But judging by the linked site and some Googling, I'm going to say no one knows for sure because no one has tested it.
More modern (and expensive) patterns like Multicam or A-TACS do the same thing without pixels, e.g.: https://www.camopedia.org/index.php/File:Multicam.jpg
I have never seen non-printed camo patterns. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flecktarn is printed too.
Just a fun aside: when Canada invaded Afghanistan, there was a lack of the arid variant of CADPAT. It left soldiers to land in the brown and tan desert wearing vivid green camouflage designed for summer in the Canadian rain forests.
>I find it bizarre that this is all done by private companies, competing in public competitions, with royalties to be paid for the chosen design. And I'm quite surprised that some designs were found wanting because they don't work under IR (e.g. the soldier shines against the background). That sounds like they're using the wrong dyes; surely a decent design methodology would lead to such problems being remedied by incremental improvement?
It was fixed AFAIK. IIRC issued CADPAT clothing were controlled items in 2000's because they had the the treatments designed to work against near infrared. Civilian CADPAT lacked those treatments so companies like Tru Spec[1] could sell it on the open market. There were other teething issues I am aware of; the dyes bleeding into splotches instead of the digital pattern as called for, as well as fading issues after laundering. Fixed of course but it took some iterations.
[1] I just double checked, Tru Spec never sold it. There were some smaller outfits in Canada that produced CADPAT available on the civilian market for short time; Drop Zone Tactical out of Edmonton for sure was one. Rumor mill is that it was material made by Consoltex under military contract that failed to meet the military's specifications and sold off to licensed DND manufactures to recoup costs.
This is a (kinda funny) plotline in Generation Kill.
That reminds me of a story I heard about the "chocolate chip" US desert camo used in Desert Storm in 1991. Basically, the US designed their "desert camo to be effective in the desert of the American Southwest. But we ended up actually fighting in the Iraq/Saudi/Kuwaiti border region instead of the American Southwest, and it turns out that the deserts are different enough that the camo was not particularly effective.
That reminds me of the times we chose to wear snow pants but not jackets, because there was snow on the ground but not much elsewhere.
Edit: looks like the wore the forest green stuff to Afghanistan. The only articles I can find suggests they did it on purpose, to stand out for peace keeping reasons, but that could easily be damage control. Anyone know the real story? GP suggests they just didn't have an arid design at the time (which I would believe).
For years afterwards whenever there was a discussion about equipment and supporting troops, it was brought up as an argument in favour of more purchases.
(1) https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canadian-troops-not-green-wit... https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-jan-19-mn-23667...
So we not only have to worry about invisible spectra, but some filters on visible light may reveal the target as well.
I have lots of other stories about the wierd things color blind people see and don't see. (My sisters are color blind, none of my family sees colors exactly the same, makes for some weird situations)
> Now we can address the Micropattern - digital pixels. These are required to add background noise and texture matching with the background and this is designed to fool with the focal area of the eye - when you are looking directly at or close to the target to make it more difficult to recognize what you are looking at.
> After six years in the fleet and some controversy, the blue-and-gray cammies could be headed for Davy Jones' seabag.
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2016/04/23/the-navy...
Imagine the JavaScript cool kid mindset but with guns.
A more terrifying sentence than this has rarely been written.
.... the USans will also come back in 20 years to make a film about how invading your country and blowing you into a pink mist in front of your parents made their solders feel sad.
In fact, it's not just their own camouflage pattern, the ABU actually had a distinctive blouse and pants that are different from the BDU that came before, or the ACU that the Army had adopted. Then they took the sage-green fleece from ECWCS Gen III (what the Army was wearing), and added the APECS Goretex parka that the Marine Corps was wearing, only in the ABU tiger-stripe rather than MARPAT.
Most of the actual battlefield airmen (i.e. the people who might reasonably expect to find themselves in combat conditions where camouflage could help like combat controller, TACP, PJ) didn't wear it anyway.
As pointed out elsewhere, this is very largely about esprit-de-corps in the context of a military organization, even if your job is actually avionics maintenance or personnel.
It does seem like a huge waste for all the services to have their own completely distinctive utility uniforms though - the pendulum is swinging back the other way now with the Army, Air Force and Space Force all back in the redesigned ACU/OCP with stitching color (black/spice-brown/blue) as the service-distinctive element.
Then again, maybe those old styles only looked good when they were made with nice materials, like wool and heavy waxed canvas, and would look bad with cheap modern synthetics.
With regards to looking good, I don't think it's necessarily that the look good with appropriate materials, but more that they look good only when they are properly starched and the like to maintain crisp lines.
This seems good in some situations and very bad in others?
I think you'll find they're pretty appealing to a lot of the people who want to be in the military.
Simple, effective, dare I say elegant.
Not everything the military does is about effectiveness. Sometimes senior NCOs want the enlisted to "look military", not just be effective.
Here's another example: why is the military PT (physical training) test varied by sex and age? If it was only about combat effectiveness, presumably there'd be 1 set of values that determine if someone had sufficient fitness relative to the rigors of combat (or whatever their job requires).
This makes variations by age and sex concessions to that goal, rather than design elements.
Meanwhile the Army would sometimes retain people incapable of passing the old age and gender standard. As an extreme example people with missing limbs could be retained.
The reality? Some politician or admiral wanted to leave their mark.
ftfy
The purpose was to disrupt primitive Soviet-era night vision. The grid pattern was intended to interfere with the generated grid used by these devices for targeting.
Even after plenty of research I could find no cases of this pattern ever disrupting anything. By the early 90’s, night vision technology had progressed greatly and this green grid was completely ineffective. There is even some anecdotal evidence it made detection easier!
https://guide.sportsmansguide.com/gulf-war-desert-night-camo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Infantry_Brigade#/media...
There the goal is less to avoid detection and more to make it hard to determine direction/orientation.
V2 rockets used in anger all used "ordinary" camouflage to hide their location prior to launch.
With no knowledge what so ever my gut reaction is to simply point to nature. Leaves get eaten/bitten/broken/ripped, a branch might be in front of another adding depth with similar patterns, rocks and sand in a desert can vary sharply at different focal depths, urban environments can have dozens of materials in use along with random detritus and objects at various focal depths.
Pixilation was probably a logical step towards recreating these varied environments. Look at a ghillie suit that has leaves incorporated, they'll have a pixilated appearance - example: https://static5.gunfire.com/eng_pl_Ghillie-Suit-camouflage-s...
Actually, that's what's bugging me most about this camo made from regular square blocks: it looks really easy for a recogniser to spot. No AI <spit>, an old-fashioned neural network would be enough to recognise edges, and then spot squares on a grid.
[Edit] Yeah, I get that your average stag deer doesn't have access to thermal imaging and neural networks. But this is military camo, not deerstalking camo.
The average grunt doesn't have access to thermal imaging or neural networks either, they might have a crappy Vietnam-era flashlight, their weapon system, and a reasonable compromise between number of rounds and weight as spare mags. Especially when that grunt is a "third world" fighter. Pixelated camo like ARPAT saw the bulk of its current use in Afghanistan and Iraq where the most sophisticated thing the enemy might have is a pair of binoculars and a cellphone.
The pixilation, to the human eye, is much more natural than large splotches of a few colors because terrain/vegetation/buildings in natural light have all sorts of depth and shadow variation, the pixilation is much harder to pick out than fairly large blotches of random color.
- Shape
- Shine
- Shadow
- Speed
- Surface
- Silhouette
- Spacing
- Smell
- Sound
I find it bizarre that this is all done by private companies, competing in public competitions, with royalties to be paid for the chosen design. And I'm quite surprised that some designs were found wanting because they don't work under IR (e.g. the soldier shines against the background). That sounds like they're using the wrong dyes; surely a decent design methodology would lead to such problems being remedied by incremental improvement?