9 ms·

It's not really so much about the pixels being square as the fractal-ish nature of mordern pixel camos that result in a "scale invariance" effect. There's detai

It's not really so much about the pixels being square as the fractal-ish nature of mordern pixel camos that result in a "scale invariance" effect. There's details and contrast at the level of the small pixels, and there's details and contrasts are medium levels, and then again at large levels. Previous US army camo mostly had detail at only one scale level. 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 https://www.hyperstealth.com/US4CES-ALPHA/index.html

Sharlin 4y ago
Exactly. Very very few things in nature actually are made of large blobs of a single color (unless you're very shortsighted). Honestly, it baffles me why militaries didn't realize this earlier.
- bityard 4y ago
  Source: former military member. 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."
  - jollybean 4y ago
    In the first phase of Ukrainian war soldiers were firing a lot of line of sight, it does matter. And especially the IR / night vision opportunities are real. 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.
    - lupire 4y ago
      What camouflage is going to work anywhere where you are traveling miles per day to conquer territory, usually in cities?
    - jcranmer 4y ago
      There are, it seems, a few aspects that went into the seemingly-obviously-poor decision to go with UCP. 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.
  - samstave 4y ago
    I just had a really odd thought cross my head and want to just document here before I forget it: 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) -- 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... --- I am convinced that we can use Davincis micro fluidics... turbulence drawings. ---- 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
    - Sharlin 4y ago
      I don't think muzzle flash is a big problem in today's rifles. Any powder left burning by the time the bullet exits the barrel is wasted energy, so things tend to get optimized pretty thoroughly (this is the field of internal and transitional ballistics). Carbine-length firearms (if they're chambered for rifle rounds) do tend to have bigger issues with muzzle flash. Flash suppressors [1], either integrated or add-on, help and have exactly zero complexity compared to a hypothetical water mister. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_suppressor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_suppressor
      - hajile 4y ago
        Muzzle flash is a HUGE problem with modern ar-15 style rifles. You won't get 100% efficiency until something like 22-26 inch barrels, but that's a VERY long gun to be using (and even those have muzzle flash). 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).
  - Axien 4y ago
    With thermal imaging, do snipers still rely on camouflage?
    - Sharlin 4y ago
      Good camo is broadband. Camo nets, ghillie suits help spread and dissipate a thermal signature, making it more difficult to pick up from the noise. And unless you have a JWST and know exactly where to point it (and obviously the whole idea of snipers is that you don't know), good luck trying to find a human head-sized target that's a klick away from you.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > With thermal imaging, do snipers still rely on camouflage? 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.
      - int_19h 4y ago
        Not everyone; but at about $1-2K per unit these days, it is increasingly available even to third-world militaries, such as the Taliban. 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.
        btilly 4y ago
        In English those would fall under the vague umbrella of "special forces". 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.)
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Snipers need good camo, but the people snipers snipe don't?
    - the_af 4y ago
      My reading is that snipers are a very specialized soldier type that can benefit from cammo, but it's way less useful for other soldier types. 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.
  - sandworm101 4y ago
    >>In combat, camouflage is really the VERY last line of defense possible 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.
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    > camouflage is really the VERY last line of defense possible 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!
    - gridspy 4y ago
      Best way not to be seen is to be lying prone in good cover. Ideally none of your uniform is visible to your targets, even if it was bright orange. Think - positioning rather than magic fabric. That's my interpretation anyway.
      - chrisseaton 4y ago
        Well that just places it second or third, not last! Your last line of defence is not being killed if you've been penetrated - your medical kit!
      - 13of40 4y ago
        I'm sure everyone has a story like this, but I was in the Army back when they had the green and black blobby camouflage, and we were doing a training exercise against some California National Guard unit. My squad leader and I were at a forward observation point, got bored, and decided to infiltrate them. We ended up behind their lines under some kind of evergreen tree with branches hanging to the ground, so a bit dark, but broad daylight otherwise. So some guy from the "enemy" side peeked underneath the tree, stared straight at us, not three feet away, then turned around and left. (Their side was wearing shirts inside-out so we could tell each other apart.) I guess I did my face paint OK that day.
    - Sharlin 4y ago
      The first layer is probably "don’t be there" but yeah.
  - User23 4y ago
    How much of this is due to the US military spending the past generation dunking on goatherds? I imagine the pattern on your uniform is entirely irrelevant when up against an equivalent technology adversary with proper artillery and air power. On the other hand having the guy with the AK be 20% more likely to miss his first shot sounds like it’s worth doing some research on your clothing’s appearance. Speaking of, is traditional garb at all effective from a tactical standpoint?
    - jabl 4y ago
      The vast firepower of modern armies would make it more important to not be seen in the first place, not less?
  - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
    It's hard to interpret those Navy blueberry uniforms as anything but pointless optics and possibly inter-service ego nonsense between the decision makers involved. A uniform that doesn't blend in with ships, docks, or beaches, but is actually a serious hindrance in a person overboard situation. Oh and it's about as fireproof as a grease soaked rag. Thankfully rationality eventually prevailed, but not before wasting 100's of millions, a portion of which was out of pocket for sailors.
- hnarn 4y ago
  > it baffles me why militaries didn't realize this earlier 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.
  - Sharlin 4y ago
    Thanks, good info!
- rtkwe 4y ago
  The ability to easily print and create those patterns has likely improved over the years to where it's cheap enough to be worth the mild improvements vs the cost of the printing of the uniforms. 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).
  - Sharlin 4y ago
    As a Finn, my conception of warfare is probably biased towards a specific type that happens in woodlands with short sightlines and lots of natural concealment. Direct-fire engagement distances tend to be short, infantry tactics are informed by the desire to get as close as possible without being seen, and by unit movement (possibly under aerial surveillance) while giving away as little information as possible. I do think that the Finnish M05 woodland camo [1] is one of the best in the world =) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M05 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M05
    - rtkwe 4y ago
      Yeah mine is probably colored by being from the US and it's recent wars where overall stealth wasn't a huge consideration because the force disparity was so great 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 https://twitter.com/jmkorhonen/status/1504016338204905474
      - Sharlin 4y ago
        Yep, and the Finnish doctrine has been pretty much vindicated by the Ukraina invasion (although a full-scale land assault against Finland has long been seen as a rather improbable scenario, that hasn’t stopped us from hoarding AT weaponry and maintaining a large artillery force).
      - 4y ago
- tomcam 4y ago
  Sadly I'm a large blob of a single color
- calvinmorrison 4y ago
  I thought this hearkened back to the days of banners. You gotta know who's on who's side for any sort of effective early modern warfare in europe, otherwise you'll be shooting your own more than you'd like
s1artibartfast 4y ago
That still doesnt answer the question of why pixels. You can scale invariance and fractals with squares, triangles, or whatever shape you want.
- shawabawa3 4y ago
  > "Pixels have minimal impact on the ambient vision but a large impact on the focal cone causing further delay as the brain attempts to process the increased detail, when pixelation in camouflage is done correctly (color and scale) the brain will confuse the background noise with the pixels, removing the anomaly as a threat or delaying the identification of a threat. (6)"
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    I read that as having more to do with the length scale of features represented by the pixels than the shape of the pixel itself. From the biological perspective, the same phenomenon should happen with dots or triangular shapes
    - nl 4y ago
      I think squares are easier to fit together than dots and probably triangles. 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.
- blt 4y ago
  Maybe it's easier to implement the pattern generation algorithm for pixel output?
- int_19h 4y ago
  Pixelation by itself does not produce any camo effect. It just happens to be easier and cheaper to produce fractal camo patterns on clothing out of pixels - it can be literally printed. And at any range at which the pattern is likely to work anyway, the individual pixels aren't really visible. 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 https://www.camopedia.org/index.php/File:Multicam.jpg
denton-scratch 4y ago
Well, I'm now much better informed! 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.
- mindcrime 4y ago
  Like, is there a science of 'camouflagology'? [oops, when inventing words, never mix latin and greek] 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 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-environment.html https://phys.org/news/2021-01-camouflage-arbitrary-environme...
Gordonjcp 4y ago
So basically, "if I make them fractal they look like patterns in nature, and if I scale tiny pixel fractals on screen up to the width of a bolt of cloth they still look like fractal patterns in nature, and if I get it right the details end up about the same scale as details in nature, mostly" kind of thing?
yencabulator 4y ago
But that by itself doesn't explain why Flecktarn wasn't as good. Plenty of detail there, just organic looking not pixelated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flecktarn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flecktarn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Uniforme_militar,_ej%C3%A9rcito_alem%C3%A1n,_Madrid,_2015.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Uniforme_militar,_ej%C3%A...

Sharlin 4y ago

Exactly. Very very few things in nature actually are made of large blobs of a single color (unless you're very shortsighted). Honestly, it baffles me why militaries didn't realize this earlier.

bityard 4y ago
Source: former military member. 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."
- jollybean 4y ago
  In the first phase of Ukrainian war soldiers were firing a lot of line of sight, it does matter. And especially the IR / night vision opportunities are real. 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.
  - lupire 4y ago
    What camouflage is going to work anywhere where you are traveling miles per day to conquer territory, usually in cities?
  - jcranmer 4y ago
    There are, it seems, a few aspects that went into the seemingly-obviously-poor decision to go with UCP. 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.
- samstave 4y ago
  I just had a really odd thought cross my head and want to just document here before I forget it: 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) -- 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... --- I am convinced that we can use Davincis micro fluidics... turbulence drawings. ---- 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
  - Sharlin 4y ago
    I don't think muzzle flash is a big problem in today's rifles. Any powder left burning by the time the bullet exits the barrel is wasted energy, so things tend to get optimized pretty thoroughly (this is the field of internal and transitional ballistics). Carbine-length firearms (if they're chambered for rifle rounds) do tend to have bigger issues with muzzle flash. Flash suppressors [1], either integrated or add-on, help and have exactly zero complexity compared to a hypothetical water mister. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_suppressor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_suppressor
    - hajile 4y ago
      Muzzle flash is a HUGE problem with modern ar-15 style rifles. You won't get 100% efficiency until something like 22-26 inch barrels, but that's a VERY long gun to be using (and even those have muzzle flash). 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).
- Axien 4y ago
  With thermal imaging, do snipers still rely on camouflage?
  - Sharlin 4y ago
    Good camo is broadband. Camo nets, ghillie suits help spread and dissipate a thermal signature, making it more difficult to pick up from the noise. And unless you have a JWST and know exactly where to point it (and obviously the whole idea of snipers is that you don't know), good luck trying to find a human head-sized target that's a klick away from you.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > With thermal imaging, do snipers still rely on camouflage? 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.
    - int_19h 4y ago
      Not everyone; but at about $1-2K per unit these days, it is increasingly available even to third-world militaries, such as the Taliban. 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.
      - btilly 4y ago
        In English those would fall under the vague umbrella of "special forces". 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.)
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Snipers need good camo, but the people snipers snipe don't?
  - the_af 4y ago
    My reading is that snipers are a very specialized soldier type that can benefit from cammo, but it's way less useful for other soldier types. 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.
- sandworm101 4y ago
  >>In combat, camouflage is really the VERY last line of defense possible 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.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  > camouflage is really the VERY last line of defense possible 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!
  - gridspy 4y ago
    Best way not to be seen is to be lying prone in good cover. Ideally none of your uniform is visible to your targets, even if it was bright orange. Think - positioning rather than magic fabric. That's my interpretation anyway.
    - chrisseaton 4y ago
      Well that just places it second or third, not last! Your last line of defence is not being killed if you've been penetrated - your medical kit!
    - 13of40 4y ago
      I'm sure everyone has a story like this, but I was in the Army back when they had the green and black blobby camouflage, and we were doing a training exercise against some California National Guard unit. My squad leader and I were at a forward observation point, got bored, and decided to infiltrate them. We ended up behind their lines under some kind of evergreen tree with branches hanging to the ground, so a bit dark, but broad daylight otherwise. So some guy from the "enemy" side peeked underneath the tree, stared straight at us, not three feet away, then turned around and left. (Their side was wearing shirts inside-out so we could tell each other apart.) I guess I did my face paint OK that day.
  - Sharlin 4y ago
    The first layer is probably "don’t be there" but yeah.
- User23 4y ago
  How much of this is due to the US military spending the past generation dunking on goatherds? I imagine the pattern on your uniform is entirely irrelevant when up against an equivalent technology adversary with proper artillery and air power. On the other hand having the guy with the AK be 20% more likely to miss his first shot sounds like it’s worth doing some research on your clothing’s appearance. Speaking of, is traditional garb at all effective from a tactical standpoint?
  - jabl 4y ago
    The vast firepower of modern armies would make it more important to not be seen in the first place, not less?
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
  It's hard to interpret those Navy blueberry uniforms as anything but pointless optics and possibly inter-service ego nonsense between the decision makers involved. A uniform that doesn't blend in with ships, docks, or beaches, but is actually a serious hindrance in a person overboard situation. Oh and it's about as fireproof as a grease soaked rag. Thankfully rationality eventually prevailed, but not before wasting 100's of millions, a portion of which was out of pocket for sailors.
hnarn 4y ago
> it baffles me why militaries didn't realize this earlier 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.
- Sharlin 4y ago
  Thanks, good info!
rtkwe 4y ago
The ability to easily print and create those patterns has likely improved over the years to where it's cheap enough to be worth the mild improvements vs the cost of the printing of the uniforms. 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).
- Sharlin 4y ago
  As a Finn, my conception of warfare is probably biased towards a specific type that happens in woodlands with short sightlines and lots of natural concealment. Direct-fire engagement distances tend to be short, infantry tactics are informed by the desire to get as close as possible without being seen, and by unit movement (possibly under aerial surveillance) while giving away as little information as possible. I do think that the Finnish M05 woodland camo [1] is one of the best in the world =) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M05 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M05
  - rtkwe 4y ago
    Yeah mine is probably colored by being from the US and it's recent wars where overall stealth wasn't a huge consideration because the force disparity was so great 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 https://twitter.com/jmkorhonen/status/1504016338204905474
    - Sharlin 4y ago
      Yep, and the Finnish doctrine has been pretty much vindicated by the Ukraina invasion (although a full-scale land assault against Finland has long been seen as a rather improbable scenario, that hasn’t stopped us from hoarding AT weaponry and maintaining a large artillery force).
    - 4y ago
tomcam 4y ago
Sadly I'm a large blob of a single color
calvinmorrison 4y ago
I thought this hearkened back to the days of banners. You gotta know who's on who's side for any sort of effective early modern warfare in europe, otherwise you'll be shooting your own more than you'd like

s1artibartfast 4y ago

That still doesnt answer the question of why pixels. You can scale invariance and fractals with squares, triangles, or whatever shape you want.

shawabawa3 4y ago
> "Pixels have minimal impact on the ambient vision but a large impact on the focal cone causing further delay as the brain attempts to process the increased detail, when pixelation in camouflage is done correctly (color and scale) the brain will confuse the background noise with the pixels, removing the anomaly as a threat or delaying the identification of a threat. (6)"
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  I read that as having more to do with the length scale of features represented by the pixels than the shape of the pixel itself. From the biological perspective, the same phenomenon should happen with dots or triangular shapes
  - nl 4y ago
    I think squares are easier to fit together than dots and probably triangles. 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.
blt 4y ago
Maybe it's easier to implement the pattern generation algorithm for pixel output?
int_19h 4y ago
Pixelation by itself does not produce any camo effect. It just happens to be easier and cheaper to produce fractal camo patterns on clothing out of pixels - it can be literally printed. And at any range at which the pattern is likely to work anyway, the individual pixels aren't really visible. 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 https://www.camopedia.org/index.php/File:Multicam.jpg

denton-scratch 4y ago

Well, I'm now much better informed! 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.

mindcrime 4y ago
Like, is there a science of 'camouflagology'? [oops, when inventing words, never mix latin and greek] 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 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-environment.html https://phys.org/news/2021-01-camouflage-arbitrary-environme...

Gordonjcp 4y ago

So basically, "if I make them fractal they look like patterns in nature, and if I scale tiny pixel fractals on screen up to the width of a bolt of cloth they still look like fractal patterns in nature, and if I get it right the details end up about the same scale as details in nature, mostly" kind of thing?

yencabulator 4y ago

But that by itself doesn't explain why Flecktarn wasn't as good. Plenty of detail there, just organic looking not pixelated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flecktarn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flecktarn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Uniforme_militar,_ej%C3%A9rcito_alem%C3%A1n,_Madrid,_2015.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Uniforme_militar,_ej%C3%A...