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U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)

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Re: U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)

#161

Post by mechanical_bear »

samstave wrote: post #121
bityard wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 spen…

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 f…

I think TempleOS started in a similar fashion…

Re: U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)

#162

Post by Gordonjcp »

danielvf wrote: post #58
denton-scratch wrote: post #37

I was hoping to learn why the pixelated designs started appearing. Author says they work; but what led anyone to think that those designs might work? Why did they try them in the first place? And actually, why do they work? 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 foun…

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 wor…

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?

Re: U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)

#163

Post by Gordonjcp »

guessbest wrote: post #85
denton-scratch wrote: post #37

I was hoping to learn why the pixelated designs started appearing. Author says they work; but what led anyone to think that those designs might work? Why did they try them in the first place? And actually, why do they work? 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 foun…

I personally find the who camouflage switch to every branch of service, including the navy to be bizarre. Who thought it was good idea for navy seamen to be camouflaged in the water? With that line of reasoning why didn't the airforce get their own camouflage to look like a flight line? hah > After six years in the fleet and some controversy, the blue-and-gray cammies could be headed for Davy Jones' seabag. https://w…

> why didn't the airforce get their own camouflage to look like a flight line^W^W bar stool?

ftfy

Re: U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)

#164

Post by s1artibartfast »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #137
s1artibartfast wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> "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)"

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

Re: U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)

#165

Post by Axien »

bityard wrote: post #106
Sharlin wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 spen…

With thermal imaging, do snipers still rely on camouflage?

Re: U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)

#166

Post by outworlder »

hinkley wrote: post #92
denton-scratch wrote: post #37

I was hoping to learn why the pixelated designs started appearing. Author says they work; but what led anyone to think that those designs might work? Why did they try them in the first place? And actually, why do they work? 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 foun…

During the I-for-get-which war, the army hired color-blind spotters because the enemy camo turned out to be fooling fully sighted people but was less effective with red-green color blindness. I don't recall if it was texture or contrast issues but they stood out against the trees and shrubbery enough to locate. So we not only have to worry about invisible spectra, but some filters on visible light may reveal the targ…

If that works, wouldn't wearing glasses to filter out some wavelengths work just as well?

Re: U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)

#167

Post by Sharlin »

Axien wrote: post #165
bityard wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 spen…

With thermal imaging, do snipers still rely on camouflage?

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.

Re: U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)

#168

Post by rtkwe »

Sharlin wrote: post #99
danielvf wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wor…

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.

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).

Re: U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)

#169

Post by denton-scratch »

ryanmercer wrote: post #80
denton-scratch wrote: post #37

I was hoping to learn why the pixelated designs started appearing. Author says they work; but what led anyone to think that those designs might work? Why did they try them in the first place? And actually, why do they work? 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 foun…

>Why did they try them in the first place? 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 depth…

Well, that ghillie suit doesn't look pixelated to me - it just looks like it has quite a few straight-sided polygons in it.

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 , 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.

Re: U.S. Army Camouflage Improvement Explained (2013)

#170

Post by Sharlin »

hnarn wrote: post #156
Sharlin wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

Thanks, good info!
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