Dazzle camouflage

intended dazzle camouflage to cause the enemy to take up poor firing positions , image halves not yet adjusted for range. The target's masts are especially useful for rangefinding, so Kerr proposed disrupting these with white bands. Seeing the opportunity to put his theory into service, Thayer wrote to Churchill in February 1915, proposing to camouflage submarines by countershading them like fish such as mackerel, and advocating painting ships white to make them invisible. An observer would find it difficult to know exactly whether the stern or the bow was in view; and it would be correspondingly difficult to estimate whether the observed vessel was moving towards or away from the observer's position. commander's periscope view of a merchant ship in dazzle camouflage (left) and the same ship uncamouflaged (right), Encyclopædia Britannica, 1922. The conspicuous markings obscure the ship's heading. Wilkinson advocated "masses of strongly contrasted colour" to confuse the enemy about a ship's heading. the conspicuous patterns would obscure the outlines of the ship's hull (though admittedly not the superstructure), disguising the ship's correct heading and making it harder to hit. Dazzle was created in response to an extreme need, and hosted by an organisation, the Admiralty, which had already rejected an approach supported by scientific theory: Kerr's proposal to use "parti-colouring" based on the known camouflage methods of disruptive coloration and countershading. This was dropped in favour of an admittedly non-scientific approach, led by the socially well-connected Wilkinson. Kerr's explanations of the principles were clear, logical, and based on years of study, while Wilkinson's were simple and inspirational, based on an artist's perception. Wilkinson claimed not to have known of the zoological theories of camouflage of Kerr and Thayer, admitting only to having heard of the "old invisibility-idea" from Roman times. It was Wilkinson's social connections that brought the scheme to fruition. Captain Clement Greatorex, the Director of Naval Equipment was introduced to the idea in April 1917 and coined the term "dazzle painting". The following month, an auxilliary stores vessel, , was experimentally painted to Wilkinson's design. The Admiralty refused Wilkinson any facilities to further the project, but the sculptor Francis Derwent Wood arranged for the use of studios at the Royal Academy of Arts in Burlington House. Assembling a team of art students and artists in Royal Naval Reserve uniform, including the Vorticist Edward Wadsworth, Wilkinson experimented with models mounted on a turntable which could be observed through a periscope. He then outmaneuvered the reluctant Admiralty by going straight to Joseph Maclay, the Minister of Shipping, resulting in the British Merchant Service adopting dazzle painting in October 1917 and the Royal Navy following suit shortly afterwards. ==Possible mechanisms==

, Disrupting rangefinding In 1973, the naval museum curator Robert F. Sumrall (following Kerr Disguising heading and speed , from September 1915 The historian Sam Willis argued that since Wilkinson knew it was impossible to make a ship invisible with paint, the "extreme opposite" was the answer, using conspicuous shapes and violent colour contrasts to confuse enemy submarine commanders. Willis pointed out, using the dazzle scheme as an example, that different mechanisms could have been at work. The contradictory patterns on the ship's funnels could imply the ship was on a different heading (as Wilkinson had said Motion dazzle In 2011, the scientist Nicholas E. Scott-Samuel and colleagues presented evidence using moving patterns on a computer that human perception of speed is distorted by dazzle patterns. However, the speeds required for motion dazzle are much larger than were available to First World War ships: Scott-Samuel notes that the targets in the experiment would correspond to a dazzle-patterned Land Rover vehicle at a range of , travelling at . If such a dazzling target causes a 7% confusion in the observed speed, a rocket propelled grenade travelling that distance in half a second would strike from the intended aiming point, or 7% of the distance moved by the target. This might be enough to save lives in the dazzle-patterned vehicle, and perhaps to cause the missile to miss entirely. ==World War I==

British Royal Navy In 1914, Kerr persuaded the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, to adopt a form of military camouflage which he called "parti-colouring". He argued both for countershading (following the American artist Abbott Thayer), and for disruptive coloration, both as used by animals. A general order to the British fleet issued on 10 November 1914 advocated use of Kerr's approach. It was applied in various ways to British warships such as , where officers noted approvingly that the pattern "increased difficulty of accurate range finding". However, following Churchill's departure from the Admiralty, the Royal Navy reverted to plain grey paint schemes, of a moonlit convoy wearing his dazzle camouflage, 1918 The British Army inaugurated its Camouflage Section for land use at the end of 1916. At sea in 1917, heavy losses of merchant ships to Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare campaign led to new desire for camouflage. The marine painter Norman Wilkinson promoted a system of stripes and broken lines "to distort the external shape by violent colour contrasts" and confuse the enemy about the speed and dimensions of a ship. Wilkinson, then a lieutenant commander on Royal Navy patrol duty, implemented the precursor of "dazzle" beginning with the merchantman SS Industry. Wilkinson was put in charge of a camouflage unit which used the technique on large groups of merchant ships. Over 4000 British merchant ships were painted in what came to be known as "dazzle camouflage"; dazzle was also applied to some 400 naval vessels, starting in August 1917. Wilkinson's dazzle camouflage was accepted by the Admiralty, even without practical visual assessment protocols for improving performance by modifying designs and colours. The dazzle camouflage strategy was adopted by other navies. This led to more scientific studies of colour options which might enhance camouflage effectiveness. After the war, starting on 27 October 1919, an Admiralty committee met to determine who had priority for the invention of dazzle. Kerr was asked whether he thought Wilkinson had personally benefited from anything that he, Kerr, had written. Kerr avoided the question, implying that he had not, and said "I make no claim to have invented the principle of parti-colouring, this principle was, of course, invented by nature". Similarly the Royal Navy painted some of their Felixstowe flying boats with bold disrupting lines similar to those of their ship camouflage. The effect remained dubious, but was found to reduce the incidence of the planes being targeted by anti-aircraft gunners on their own side. in dazzle camouflage, July 1918 Effectiveness Dazzle's effectiveness was highly uncertain at the time of the First World War, but it was nonetheless adopted both in the UK and North America. In 1918, the Admiralty analysed shipping losses, but was unable to draw clear conclusions. Dazzle ships had been attacked in 1.47% of sailings, compared to 1.12% for uncamouflaged ships, suggesting increased visibility, but as Wilkinson had argued, dazzle was not attempting to make ships hard to see. Suggestively, of the ships that were struck by torpedoes, 43% of the dazzle ships sank, compared to 54% of the uncamouflaged. Similarly, 41% of the dazzle ships were struck amidships, compared to 52% of the uncamouflaged. These comparisons could be taken to imply that submarine commanders had more difficulty in deciding where a ship was heading and where to aim. However, the ships painted in dazzle were larger than the uncamouflaged ships, 38% of them being over 5000 tons compared to only 13% of uncamouflaged ships, making comparisons unreliable. Thayer did carry out an experiment on dazzle camouflage, but it failed to show any reliable advantage over plain paintwork. The American data were analysed by Harold Van Buskirk in 1919. About 1,256 ships were painted in dazzle between 1 March 1918 and the end of the war on 11 November that year. Among American merchantmen 2,500 tons and over, 78 uncamouflaged ships were sunk, and only 18 camouflaged ships; out of these 18, 11 were sunk by torpedoes, 4 in collisions and 3 by mines. No US Navy ships (all camouflaged) were sunk in the period. ==World War II==

Ships . James Yunge-Bateman, 1943. However effective dazzle camouflage may have been in World War I, it became less useful as rangefinders and especially aircraft became more advanced, and, by the time it was put to use again in World War II, radar further reduced its effectiveness. However, it may still have confounded enemy submarines. In the Royal Navy, dazzle paint schemes reappeared in January 1940. These were unofficial, and competitions were often held between ships for the best camouflage patterns. The Royal Navy's Camouflage Department came up with a scheme devised by a young naval officer, Peter Scott, a wildlife artist, which were developed into the Western Approaches Schemes. In 1942 the Admiralty Intermediate Disruptive Pattern came into use, followed in 1944 by the Admiralty Standard Schemes. Dazzle patterns were tested on small model ships at the Royal Navy's Directorate of Camouflage in Leamington Spa; these were painted and then viewed in a shallow tank on the building's roof. , a false bow wave The United States Navy implemented a camouflage painting program in World War II, and applied it to many ship classes, from patrol craft and auxiliaries to battleships and some s. The designs (known as Measures, each identified with a number) were not arbitrary, but were standardised in a process which involved a planning stage, then a review, and then fleet-wide implementation. Dazzle measures were used until 1945; in February 1945 the United States Navy's Pacific Fleet decided to repaint its ships in non-dazzle measures against the kamikaze threat, while the Atlantic Fleet continued to use dazzle, ships being repainted if transferred to the Pacific. Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine first used camouflage in the 1940 Norwegian campaign. A wide range of patterns were authorised, but most commonly black and white diagonal stripes were used. Most patterns were designed to hide ships in harbour or near the coast; they were often painted over with plain grey when operating in the Atlantic. Aircraft In 1940, the US Navy conducted experiments with dazzle-type camouflage for aircraft. The artist McClelland Barclay designed "pattern camouflage" schemes for US Navy aircraft such as the Douglas TBD Devastator and the Brewster F2A Buffalo to make it difficult for the enemy to gauge the shape and position of the aircraft. The camouflaged aircraft were flown in combat, but the effect was found not to be satisfactory. File:Douglas TBD in experimental camouflage 1940.jpg|US Navy Douglas TBD Devastator in experimental "pattern camouflage" by McClelland Barclay, 1940 File:Brewster F2A Buffalo in dazzle camouflage.jpg|US Navy Brewster F2A Buffalo in experimental camouflage, 1940 ==Since World War II==

Renewed naval use The Swedish Navy's s entered service from 2002 with a grey dazzle scheme to complement their stealth technologies. In 2019, the Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Regina was painted in a 1944 pattern to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic; the pattern was described variously as "dazzle" and "disruptive". In 2021, the Royal Navy painted HMS Tamar, a , in patches of black and four shades of grey. It described this as "dazzle camouflage", making the ship the first Royal Navy vessel to have a paint scheme with this intention since the Second World War. A senior officer stated that although the scheme "still had value in littoral environments when viewed against the background of land", it was "more about supporting the unique identity of the squadron". Her four sister-vessls have since received similar treatment, most recently , which was repainted in dazzle camouflage after a refit in 2025. For concealment purposes, the United States Navy littoral combat ship, USS Freedom, used the "Measure 32" paint scheme during a deployment to Singapore in 2013. It was also reported that during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Navy painted "dark stripes on its warships to make them look smaller and confuse Ukrainian drones". Arts File:B.Poole 2 American Ships in Dazzle Camouflage.jpg|Two American ships in dazzle camouflage, painted by Burnell Poole, 1918 File:Dazzle-ships in Drydock at Liverpool.jpg|Dazzle-ships in Drydock at Liverpool, by Edward Wadsworth, 1919 File:HMS President Dazzle 2.jpg|, painted by Tobias Rehberger in 2014 to commemorate the use of dazzle in World War I Other uses In civilian life, patterns reminiscent of dazzle camouflage are sometimes used to mask a test car during trials, to make determining its exterior design difficult. During the 2015 Formula 1 testing period, the Red Bull RB11 car was painted in a scheme intended to confound rival teams' ability to analyse its aerodynamics. The designer Adam Harvey has similarly proposed a form of camouflage reminiscent of dazzle for personal camouflage from face-detection technology, which he calls computer vision dazzle. Its intention is to block detection by facial recognition technologies such as DeepFace "by creating an 'anti-face. It uses occlusion, covering certain facial features; transformation, altering the shape or colour of parts of the face; and a combination of the two. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has used dazzle patterns on its fleet since 2009 for recognition rather than camouflage. English football team Manchester United used a football kit during the 2020–21 season that resembled a dazzle design. File:Red Bull RB11 16355850249 45c5240d97 o.jpg|Red Bull RB11 racing car in camouflage livery ==See also==