Camouflage

Coldwood

Coldwood

Joined
Jun 5, 2006
Messages
2,718
I know we've gone over this before, but I have some ideas I'd like to run out, for comments.

Urban camouglage, blend in with the sheeple population, that's obvious.

Woodland camouflage:

I'm intrigued by old photos I've seen of battle ships in WW1. They used bold dramatic patterns to break up the profile of the ship. The photos were black and white but I assume they used shades of light blue and dark blue to blend with ocean and sky. The point was to confuse the eye of the enemy as to what part of the ship to direct artillery fire. On a horizon line, however, it looked like a ship.

Now in woodland camouflage, three things stand out: movement, pattern and skyline silhouette.

Movement is the most obvious giveaway. If you think you might be watched, don't move.

Patterns for camouflage clothing are numerous: We have American, English, Dutch, French, German military patterns, also leaf and bark patterns for hunters. All are good up close compared to surrounding vegetation. But look at a man in camo from 100 yards away and what do you see? A brown or green blob humanoid form. In other words, the camo pattern blends into one color that may or may not match the surrounding terrain.

The trick, I think, is to break up the pattern of the humanoid form.

The colors that do not work in the woods are: white, yellow, orange or red.

The colors that do work are: green, brown, blue, grey or black.

To break up the pattern of the humanoid form, you have to use bold blobs of black. If you look into the woods, black is probably the predominant color. Or the one least noticed by the human eye.

To put black into your camo pattern, I suggest buying loose overclothes of various BDUs to go over your regular clothing. Get a spray can of flat black Rustoleum and spray your over clothes in bold patterns to break up the humanoid form. I mean one foot to two feet wide.

Another option is the ghillie suit. You all know about those, I won't BS about it.

Skyline silhouette: Doesn't matter what your camo is, ridge runner, if you get skylined you're made.

Yesterday I was out with a friend checking his trap line. He wore a dark green baseball cap, charcoal grey shirt, black levis and OD hip waders. All good colors for the woods. I stood around and waited while he went into difficult areas to check his traps. Watching him disappear into the woods, I noticed two things: his movement gave him away, despite the subdued colors. The other thing was his head, the most obvious: white face and bald forehead, glasses, red hair.

For us white people, our faces are probably the greatest giveaway. So, we can buy pretty camouflage grease paint or just use creek mud. Anyway, we have to think about that for hiding out.

Just my .02 about breaking up the human form for camouflage.
 
The best patterns out there are the tigerstripe variations, MARPAT, and multicam. If you're in the "Run away to anywhere" mode I'd go with multicam
 
Coldwood said:
The colors that do not work in the woods are: white, yellow, orange or red.
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Actually, there are many European camo patterns that include a red component. If you look around, it's amazing how much red you actually see in the woods. (Usually, it's a component of the shadows) Not being picky, but it's one of the things that attracted me to the German "flectar" patterns. :cool:

Unfortunately, camo will work up close or far away, but not both very well. Also the patterns are dictated by the local flora (or lack thereof!) Best bet, find something big and hide behind or under it!:D

J-
 
MARPAT
I can't say enough good about it. The pixels fool the eyes.
You can watch someone walk away from you, and the farther they go, even though you know where they are, it's like watching an old TV set when the reception starts to fade away. The pixels in the camo pattern fool the eye/brain and poof, they are gone.

We use it ecsclusively now for paintball, it's not just better than standard Woodland camo, it's the next level. I switch to the desert marpat in late fall -winter. If it's brand new, it needs to roughed up, washed, and in my opinion, it needs a little bit of fade to it, depending on the time of year it can be a little dark when it is new.

Coldwood you hit on the important parts of being spotted. Movement is the biggie. Specifically it's the shoulder/neck/head silhouette that is picked up. The way it was explained to me, is that carnivores, through the ages developed this imprinting in their brain to pick out the shoulder/head/neck region of an animal.
Humans being carnivores and hunters are no different. Do the experiment youself. When you look at another animal, try to pick out your first glance, and freeze it, what are you looking at? most likely Head/neck region.
Millions of years of evolution has brought us to this point.

So, one way to mix up those who may be looking for you, is to alter that head/neck/shoulder silhouette. You can use a small lightwieght item like a camo mosquito head net.

At night time watch for backlighting. Always stay low, even starlight can backlight you. Your outline sticks out like a sore thumb. Also at night, Black is too dark for your clothing. You look like a big dark blob the size of a human moving. Navy Blue sweats work well at night. On a Moonlit night you can even get away with lighter colors. Full moon, real bright, grey Sweats can even work.

During the daylight hours, use shadows to you best benfit. Always stop in shaded area, whenever possible. This does two things, it camoflauges you better by simply making you tougher to see AND, it keeps you from casting a shadow, your-own-darn-self. You might think you are well hid behind a tree, but your shadow will give you away everytime.
Also, along the same lines, don't look directly out of your eyes. (WHAT is he smoking?) Have your head at a slight downward angle, and look out from your eyebrows. It's another one of the human evolution things.
We call it being flat-faced. Flat faced is with your head straight-up, face at a 90° to the ground, eyes looking straight forward.
Other animals pick up on that, including other humans. It's in our Genes.
if you are wearing a boonie hat or brimmed hat, thats better, tip your head down a little and look out from under the brim. Squat a lot. When you are squatted, you are more compact, and less of a humanoid shape.

Indigenous foliage. Nothing wrong with stuffing a little local foliage into your pockets, hat, pack, or even tying it it onto gear. Example: If you enter a pine forest, grab some evergreen and "camo up" with it. if you have a rifle, turn it into a pine bough.
"Hey will ya stop pointing that limb at me!"
 
The Swiss Alpenflage was red intense. and that was devised by a team of scientific individuals IIRC.

white,
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Actually, during the winter months, under conditions were there is snow and dark material, some of the white based patterns are efficient. The use of non white based patterns could actually make a person stick out under those conditions.

Remember too that military camo is rarely more than 3-4 colors. This isa result of economics, and government thrift. Tigerstripe is excellent, and IIRC, the to be USAF uniform is based off the traditional tiger stripe patter.
 
Hammer27 said:
The best patterns out there are the tigerstripe variations, MARPAT, and multicam. If you're in the "Run away to anywhere" mode I'd go with multicam
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Tigerstripe, been there done that. Too dark. Maybe you would get away with it in a murky swamp in Louisiana, otherwise it was designed for the tropics.
It was fine in Vietnam. It was replacing ODs, so, how could it go wrong.
Wouldn't touch it in NorthAmerica. It sticks out badly when the background colors are lighter than it is, which is most of the time. Tigerstripe, it was thought, did have some possibility that it helped hide movement, due to it's horizontal line approach.

There is active and passive. The World War 1 example that Coldwood used is a Passive Disruptive pattern. It disrupts the silhuoette, in an effort to break the edges, and is passive because it trying to make the object blend with it's background. Military camo is typically passive and most likely edge disruptive.

Multicam is strange. the places it works, it works very well. One place where we do NOT like it is, frankly, in the woods! It works better in an urban setting or grassy plain, meadow, desert, etc. Also, their website shows it in specific places with specific lighting. And the cost is just prohibitive. For me, the jury is still out on Multicam.

As for the various other patterns, such as Flecktarn, (Flectar) they use the older principals such as US Woodland and Tigerstripe. They work OK in the region they were designed for. I've tried Flectarn in the fall, when the leaves are changing.

With the exception of Multicam, I own a set of just about everything.
Woodland, Flacktarn, Austrian Dot, DPM, Tigers, 6-color deserts (Chocolate chip cookie).

What do I wear? MARPAT. All the way. It's not a gimmick, it works.
 
Skunk, jdrew, MP, good points! Thanks.

I was not thinking about snow, but snow is actually bluish, not true white...so maybe grey/white, blue/white?

Regarding red. I wear brown sunglasses that pick up red like a stoplight. That's something else to consider. What color lenses are your pursuers looking through? I also wear yellow hunter glasses that penetrate the grey woods.

When I aproach a clearing, I walk the shady perimeter...stay out of the sun...do not walk into the center.

I still maintain that any tight camo patterns will blend into a solid color at a distance...you might look like a tree at five yards, but at 100 yards you look like a humanoid blob on the the landscape through my telescope.

I still think I would plan to stay in shadow, and re-paint my camies broken-black, vertical even, to break up my silhouette.
 
What is the advantge to hunter camo? IT seems so completely dfifferent from the military stuff?
 
To be honest, I don't know. I think leaf and bark patterns are very good, up close. I think military patterns are just based on tradition. But again, both are tight patterns that don't work well, IMHO, at a distance if one is moving.
 
The dazzle paint on those WW1 ships was there to fool with the human operated optical rangefinders.
The idea was to make it hard to focus on, hard to judge size and hard to judge speed.

Human shape, movement and being at eye level are huge.
I like the old Italian Army camo...it has large blocks of color that break up the human shape well. Add a gray backpack (stone) and it is surprising.
The head/shoulders area is usually the giveaway as far as human shape.
Also, lying down or being above eye level make a huge difference.
People look for people at eye level.
I have a jacket, for years now, that I've been planning on painting with the WW2 German armor 'ambush pattern' It is large blocks of color like the Italian jackets I have with spots of the contrasting colors in the large areas.
Looks sort of like sunlight coming thru the trees.

Oh and Tigerstripes work well in the pine and mountain laurel woods that I hunted in.

:D

Edited to add:
RealTree and other hunter camo is designed to look good on the rack IMNSHO.
In the woods the shapes and colors blob together visually and you see the silhouette of a person anyway.
If you were standing infront of a tree that had the exact same leaves and colors it should work...otherwise you look like a human shaped tree.
Again JMHO
 
I like ASAT camo, many bow hunters love it.
Efficient in the wood.
Even in light background (grass, plain), it will stick out but it is so intricated that brain will dismiss the shape as some sort of bush.

That said camo is generally overkill if you're careful enough and won't save you if you're not.

Basics are:
if possible don't move or move slowly.
don't make noise.
cover face and hands.
break shape, particularly the head/shoulder line.

Add scent control for animals.
 
Covering face and hands, big giveaways for white people. Try cheap, dark, cotton gardening gloves, some have rubberized palms, good for holding a rifle steady. For the head, a black balaclava, or camo mosquito netting. Or mud, or grease paint.
 
I always loved asat. I swear i have more deer come in and get busted much less. Large open areas light background works great. All those little sticks and leaves turn to one large dark human shape at distance.

Take your camo put it on a hanger and hang in the woods. Almost all "blob out" at 30 yards or so.

But hell 6 days ago I took a nice mule deer buck at 30 yards in an open field wearing an orange hat and vest.....
 
SkunkWerX said:
Multicam is strange. the places it works, it works very well. One place where we do NOT like it is, frankly, in the woods! It works better in an urban setting or grassy plain, meadow, desert, etc. Also, their website shows it in specific places with specific lighting. And the cost is just prohibitive. For me, the jury is still out on Multicam.
Click to expand...

I agree that Multicam garments are too expensive - but I like the pattern's versatility so I bought several yards and I'm in the process of sewing a capote with it.

As far as the jury goes, I read that it beat MARPAT in the Army's tests - but it wasn't an official entry so it couldn't be chosen for the contract even though it performed better. But this might just be hearsay, I can't confirm it.

I guess I just like Multicam - reminds me of faded Woodland but better with its addition of dappled-light spots and the mimicking of depth. But haven't tried it in the field yet, so ultimately the jury is still out with me too.
 
Ghillie suits are fantastic, for hiding, but, they are HOT and Heavy, and severly restrict movement. I have all the respect in the world for the snipers who crawl around in those things in VA, NC, SC and Georgia in the summer.
They are suana suits.

We have used Ghillies extensively in paintball, I can tell you I wouldn't even think about wearing one unless temps were below 40°F
Forget moving in them, they are restrcitive, and then when you do move, it's like tracking a Wooly Mammoth. Great for stalking prey, or sitting real still, otherwise, they have huge drawbacks.

The Marpat actually doesn't turn into a blob, as Coldwood is mentioning.
It actually works better the farther away you are.
It's all about the pixels. The farther away it is, the more difficult it is to focus on.

We can move 10 guys into an ambush position, 100 yards out, and the bad guys don't see us. Go figure.

It happens every time we play (we play a lot) People come up to me and say, "Man I knew the area where you were, but I could never see you."

We have done side x side tests, marpat wins everytime.

The Army should have wished they had MultiCam as an official entrant, the ACU sucks! It works marginally everywhere, but doesn't work well anywhere.
They would have been better off sucking it up, and wearing the MARPAT. oorah.
Even our Army buddies wear MArPat when playing Paintball, what's that tell ya?
 
To the comments on White camo in winter... Wasn't it the Norwegians or the Finns who the Germans dubbed "White Death" for their all white coveralls and their ability to appear out of nowhere and wreak havoc?

Don't sell white on white short in a snowy winter wonderland! :D

I also heard "black" doesn't really exist in nature (black is actually not a real color as it is essentially all colors at once, according to an old art instructor!) and that the black on some camo was actually what gave away some folks in Viet Nam... and why it doesn't exist on (IIRC) Multicam outfits... But I won't swear to that as I haven't had to test it the hard way and have only heard about it...:o
 
I am no camo expert at all, but it seems to me various shades of brown work well in a variety of terrains, even better than OD does. There are browns in almost every natural setting. I think the MARPAT has more browm in it than woodland does, and I like that.
 
Yes, the Marpat has a lot of the Coyote Tan color. It was actually custom developed specifically for Marpat, as the base color. i think the USMC holds the rights to the color.
They learned that the big black blobs in Tigers and Woodland needed to be more subdued.

I did a Marpat paintjob on a paintball gun, and was surprised at the amount of tan. The black is only speckled on, here and there.

Good observation.
 
I can't find anyone who sells the MARPAT stuff in NYCO ripstop. I really love the NYCO ripstop, I have a pair of 3 colour desert BDU pants in them, and the matieral is way more comfortable than my 60/40 poly cotton BDU pants.

What do you guys think about using velcro on the new ACU stuff? More convenient maybe, but awfully loud, and sure to give up your position. Looks like the MARPAT still uses buttons.

A point on camouflage: Would mixing a different colour scheme/pattern top with bottoms help break up the humanoid form better?

Will
 
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