page_title: Military camouflage
section_title: From the Second World War
hierarchical_section_title: Military camouflage / History / From the Second World War
caption_attribution_description: THE BRITISH ARMY IN NORTH AFRICA 1942; A Crusader tank with its 'sunshield' lorry camouflage erected, 26 October 1942.
context_page_description: Military camouflage is the use of camouflage by an armed force to protect personnel and equipment from observation by enemy forces. In practice, this means applying colour and materials to military equipment of all kinds, including vehicles, ships, aircraft, gun positions and battledress, either to conceal it from observation, or to make it appear as something else. The French slang word camouflage came into common English usage during World War I when the concept of visual deception developed into an essential part of modern military tactics. In that war, long-range artillery and observation from the air combined to expand the field of fire, and camouflage was widely used to decrease the danger of being targeted or to enable surprise. As such, military camouflage is a form of military deception.
  Camouflage was first practiced in simple form in the mid 18th century by rifle units. Their tasks required them to be inconspicuous, and they were issued green and later other drab colour uniforms.
context_section_description: Printed camouflage for shelter halves was introduced for the Italian and German armies in the interwar period, the "splotchy" M1929 Telo mimetico in Italy and the angular Splittermuster 31 in Germany. During the War, both patterns were used for paratrooper uniforms for their respective countries. The British soon followed suit with a brush-stroke type pattern for their paratrooper's Denison smock, and the Soviets introduced an "amoeba" pattern overgarment for their snipers.
  Hugh Cott's 1940 book Adaptive Coloration in Animals systematically covered the different forms of camouflage and mimicry by which animals protect themselves, and explicitly drew comparisons throughout with military camouflage:
  The principle is one with many applications to modern warfare. In the Great War it was utilized by the Germans when they introduced strongly marked incidents of white or black tone to conceal the fainter contrasts of tone made by the sloping sides of overhead camouflage-screens, or roofing, as seen from the air. The same principle has, of course, a special application in any attempt to reduce the visibility of large objects of all kinds, such as ships, tanks, buildings, and aerodromes.
  — Hugh Cott
  Both British and Soviet aircraft were given wave-type camouflage paintwork for their upper surfaces throughout the war, while American ones remained simple two-colour schemes (different upper and under sides) or even dispensed with camouflage altogether. Italian and some Japanese aircraft wore sprayed-on spotted patterns. German aircraft mostly used an angular splint-pattern camouflage, but Germany experimented with different schemes, particularly in the later stages of the war. They also experimented with various spray-on camouflage patterns for tanks and other vehicles, while Allied vehicles remained largely uni-coloured. As they had volunteered in the first World War, women sewed camouflage netting, organizing formalized groups for the work in Australia, Britain, New Zealand and the United States who took part as camoufleurs during the second war.
  The British Middle East Command Camouflage Directorate, consisting mainly of artists recruited into the Royal Engineers, developed the use of camouflage for large-scale military deception. Operations combined the disguise of actual installations, vehicles and stores with the simultaneous display of dummies, whether to draw fire or to give a false idea of the strength of forces or likely attack directions. In Operation Bertram for the decisive battle at El Alamein, a whole dummy armoured division was constructed, while real tanks were disguised as soft-skinned transport using "Sunshield" covers. The capabilities so developed were put to use not only in the western desert, but also in Europe as in the Operation Bodyguard deception for the Invasion of Normandy, and in the Pacific campaign, as in the Battle of Goodenough Island.
  The introduction of strategic bombing led to efforts to camouflage airfields and strategic production centres. This form of positional camouflage could be quite elaborate, and even include false houses and cars. With the threat from nuclear weapons in the post-war era such elaborate camouflage was no longer seen as useful, as a direct hit would not be necessary with strategic nuclear weapons to destroy infrastructure. The Soviet Union's doctrine of military deception defines the need for surprise through means including camouflage, based on experiences such as the Battle of Kursk where camouflage helped the Red Army to overwhelm a powerful enemy.
caption: Camouflage in the empty desert: a Crusader tank masquerading as a truck in Operation Bertram
exif: {}