Our Slovenian guest knows that I’ve been interested in camouflage, both orthodox and unorthodox, for some time, and pointed me to this history of camouflage by Severian, one of Z Man’s commenters.
Severian notes that primitive hunters probably didn’t use anything resembling modern camouflage, because animals don’t spot predators the way we spot enemies. They primarily spot movement and rely on their other senses. He wonders if prey animals like deer can even see color — which they can, but not like humans. This is why a tiger’s bright orange coat is excellent camouflage: orange and green are the same color, if you have red-green colorblindness. Mammal predators can’t produce green pigment, but they can produce orange, and their mammal prey can’t typically see the difference.
Anyway, Severian notes that military camouflage would’ve been useless in most of the conflicts in human history:
There’s simply no point in dressing a Roman legionary, a medieval knight, or a member of the Army of Northern Virginia in camouflage, because for those guys, movement is the entire point. Concealing the individual soldier would be counterproductive, because individual soldiers were pretty much worthless — big, mass movements were the only way to concentrate sufficient firepower (sword-power, lance-power, whatever) to win battles.
[I’m leaving aside guerrillas and whatnot, for the obvious reason that guerillas don’t win wars].
I can’t help but mention that Robin Hood and his Merry Men wore Lincoln green, if not modern camouflage.
There might even be a real advantage to gaudy uniforms in the black-powder era:
There’s smoke obscuring everything, command-and-control (such as it was) would be easier if you’re wearing something really bright and distinctive that can be seen through the haze.
It’s only when you get to a) static warfare, with b) long-range weapons that also c) have a high rate of fire that personal, sartorial camouflage starts to make sense.
[…]
It’s a conceptual reorientation: Pattern-disruption, not motion-disruption. Thanks to rapid-fire weapons, movement goes from an army’s biggest advantage to one of its biggest disadvantages. One needs to be still in no man’s land… but even if one is very still, the very regularity of one’s uniform is now a dead giveaway, because the human eye is unsurpassed at detecting patterns.
[…]
Throw in naked-eye gunnery and especially aerial photography and all of a sudden people start thinking about visual patterns as an abstract concept. The uniform goes from being “a mark of distinction” to “a means of unit identification” to “a part of combat in its own right.” German gray works pretty good, as does British khaki. I imagine that even the classic, distinctive French “horizon blue” worked well on occasion.
[…]
Indeed, as I understand it, camo was never issued to US regular troops in Vietnam. The standard combat uniform was GI green, official designation OG-107. Only Special Forces guys got camo, and it looked pretty cool.
It’s crazy how long it took camouflage to become standard issue in the US military:
World War I
By WW1, camouflage uniform were far from standard, but some troops were outfitted with camouflage akin to modern-day ghillie suits. If the terrain was particularly rocky, the early camo suits would resemble the rock surfaces that soldiers would inevitably find themselves hiding behind or lying atop of rocks. For greener environments, the outfits would be covered in materials resembling the elements of the environment such as moss and leaves.World War II
In World War II, the camouflage uniform truly started to emerge. Certain army units were assigned the HBT camouflage. This was short lived though due to the uniforms looking too much like the German Waffen-SS uniforms and friendly fire becoming a major problem.In fact, by 1943, U.S. Marines in the Solomon Islands began wearing reversible beach/jungle coveralls with totally new green-and-brown “frog” patterns, later known as “frog suits”. This type of camouflage pattern included speckled and disruptive coloration, similar to a frog’s skin. The Marine Corps soon adopted a two-piece uniform made of the same camouflage material and used that same material for a helmet cover during the Korean War.
1950′s
Camouflage uniforms in a leaf-and-twig pattern (with a four-color combination) were created by the Army’s Engineer Research and Development Laboratory and introduced. These had limited usage and underwhelming reviews, and they were quickly phased out.In 1954, The Army Green Uniform came about as a result of a uniform improvement program and became the basis of the Army uniform and, at that time, was expected to remain until at least 2014.
1960′s
By 1965, Navy SEALs, Green Berets, and other Special Forces in Vietnam started wearing unofficial camouflage uniforms. These locally produced uniforms were made with a camo pattern we know today as “Tigerstripe”.This pattern was called “Tigerstripe” due to the resemblance the pattern bore to the stripes on actual tigers. The pattern consisted of narrow strips of green and brown which look like brush strokes from a painter’s brush as well as broader brush strokes in black painted over a lighter shade of olive or khaki.
These brushstroke stripes interlock rather than overlap.
Eventually, the Tigerstripe pattern was replaced by the official ERDL (leaf pattern) pattern in American recon units. With that said, The Civilian Irregular Defense Group (advised by the Special Forces) continued to wear Tigerstripe uniforms from 1963 until it was disbanded in 1971.
1970’s
The OG-107 was the standard uniform throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The OG-107 was one of the longest issued uniforms by the US Military. The use of this uniform began in 1952 and a poly-cotton blend (OG-507) was introduced in 1975. The name of this uniform came from the US Army’s “Olive Green 107″ and “Olive Green 507″. Both of these were shades of a darker green (OG-107 made with cotton and OG-507 made with poly-cotton). The two shades are nearly identical, but differentiated by the material. The Battle Dress Uniform (BDU) replaced the OG-107 and OG-507 throughout the 1980s. These uniforms were also used by other countries, including countries the United States gave military aid.1980’s
In 1981, a new pattern came about known originally as the Six-Color Desert Pattern, but getting the name “Chocolate-Chip Camouflage” and “Cookie Dough Camouflage” because of the close resemblance to chocolate chip cookie dough. The base pattern is light tan with broad strokes of pale green and two different bands of brown. There are clumps of black and white spots laid over that to help blend in with pebbles and shadows.The M81 Woodland Camouflage Battle Dress Uniform (BDU) was introduced for the entire military. The colors included brown, green, black, and sand, and uniforms in this pattern were utilized by certain units well into the 2000s. The Woodland design was utilized during Vietnam but went through certain changes to more appropriately represent the longer-range environments that the troops would be encountering in the new era.
The elven cloaks from The Lord of the Rings were based on those Great War Ghillie suits.
And then the Army’s Digicam suits came out in 2004. These were made because the Army was jealous of the Marines’ spiffy new digital camouflage uniforms. However, digicam blended into no terrain whatever. In addition, digicam uniforms were uncomfortable and poorly designed. They generally split out at the crotch after only a few week’s wear. At least the placement of the rank tab gave Soldiers an excuse to look at women’s chests. Oh, and the “velcro everything” was a reaction to Special Forces units having removable everything for security purposes. It never made sense for regular units and looked stupid, in addition to costing more and wearing out quickly.
And then there is Navy camo. As if any sailor washed overboard wants to blend unseen into the ocean.
Oh well, everyone has to get in on “the latest thing.”
I read about the following interchange between the pilot of a small plane and a control tower:
Tower: What is the color of your plane?
Pilot: Camouflage.
Tower: So if you go down, you don’t want us to find you, right?
The U.S. military has a long and storied history of making its members ridiculous.
The only military uniform that looks decent is the Air Force’s service dress, and they still manage to fuck it up, organizationally, with comically large shoulder patches, and, individually, with obscene North Korea-esque participation-trophy chest medals and never-won-a-war ribbon bars.
https://i.ibb.co/t4xhQX6/USAF-service-dress.png
Even worse, the organization is overrun by women.
*and gigantic flaming never-won-a-war ribbon bars
Off topic, but I just finished a book Isegoria and his commentators would enjoy, Floyd W. Radike’s Across the Dark Islands: The War in the Pacific. Radike is a US Army 2nd Lieutenant leading a green infantry platoon from Guadalcanal to the occupation in Japan. I believe it was published after his death. His wife found it amongst his papers and got it published, his one and only book. Brilliantly written with a highly critical take on the US Army’s methods and leadership in the Pacific Campaign. Remind’s me a lot of Roy Dunlap’s book extensively covered here a few years ago.
I’m definitely intrigued, Dave. I’ll put it on the list.
https://icemanotzi.weebly.com/artifacts.html
Otzi the iceman wore a grass cape. I don’t know if it was camouflage or just cheap, available material like birch bark leggings in the Birkenleg Saga. Probably both. The German legend of the Tarnkappe is traced by Wiktionary to ‘darne’, ‘secret, hidden’: ttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Tarnkappe
I’ve seen pictures of New Guinea tribesmen wearing grass pointy capes that look both cheap and hard to spot. When NVA were putting bushes on their heads to hide from our bombers they looked similar.
* * *
I just read ‘Across the Dark Islands’ by Floyd Radike on Dave in Seattle’s recommendation. It’s a pretty good war memoir, not as stuffed with wry commentary as Roy Dunlap, who after all was a top professional gun magazine writer. Floyd Radike was a teacher and National Guard officer who went to the Pacific War. Regulars looked down on National Guard units, and so does Radike. I think MacArthur used up the old Army of the Southwest in the Pacific war due to them being his only regulars. One reason the Pacific war involved so many dead prisoners is that it was fought by decimated units of US regulars and starving units of Japanese.
Radike uses ‘good old boy’ as slur for ‘politically adept crooked nincompoop’. I don’t know if that was forties usage, since he revised the book through 1984.
‘What was obvious on Guadacanal was the relegation of the Guard regiment to second-class status . . . I was not sure that the division commander wasn’t right. I didn’t know whether we would fight, and the ‘old boys’ who dominated the officer corps were less than admirable. I was disgusted with most of the field-grade officers I’d had contact with. The NCOs, including my own, were a mixed lot, few exhibiting any leadership, courage, or initiative.’ …
‘There was perhaps another reason for the reticence of higher headquarters to use the National Guard regiment in a significant way… In war, a captain can look forward to a colonelcy and, if he is lucky and brilliant, even a general’s star may be in his future . . . Guadacanal would be no exception to this hunger for combat, command, and promotion.’
With exceptions- ‘I was going to ask if he [division commander] he knew how to handle such a weapon [machine gun] and in the nick of time remembered he had written the manual’. He thinks very highly of that division commander, and of regular units in general. He thinks highly of Army using artillery preparation and flanking tactics. He hates unprepared assaults by infantry on prepared positions, and hates his commanding officer for ordering unnecessary patrols at night when standing orders were for everyone to hide in foxholes and shoot at any movement.
When his commanding officer (personally brave and kind to wounded men, nasty to unwounded, never praised a job well done) was killed there were no regrets in the unit.
The first time his National Guard unit is ordered to the front line, as opposed to cleanup operations, it is to replace another Guard unit that broke and ran when attacked. The regiment that broke was, ‘as the Soviets say, unregimented’ and disappeared from Army records. Wiki supports Radike.
The first march into Guadacanal the colonel collapses from heat, along with a number of others accustomed to Georgia heat and not up to tropics. ‘The older men, those over twenty-five’ are pretty much doomed by heat and disease.
The first skirmish by Radike’s unit, a popular, brave lieutenant is killed with several men trying to capture a lone Japanese soldier left visible as bait for an ambush. At first the whole regiment advances with glacial slowness, allowing the Japanese plenty of time to retreat and prepare positions. The first time the regiment attacks a prepared position they give the Japanese five days to prepare and then attack without artillery preparation. When they do get artillery, ‘it was not uncommon to find cannoneers for an entire battalion cowering in their foxholes while one sniper took potshots at them. Of course, during the cowering period no missions were fired to support the infantry.
‘The Japanese were very adept at strong, interlocking defensive positions. To order our soldiers to attack such positions with infantry and rifles was to get a lot of Americans killed. Of course no one wants to be deemed a coward, so during the course of the Pacific War thousands of GIs and marines demonstrated their courageous response to foolish orders …’
Guadacanal is a training war for his regiment.
By the PI they are fighting like regulars, and the artillery is sorted out. And it’s still tough.
But still- ‘As officers passed through the different commands on their way to war, the strong, athletic, bright guys were siphoned off by intervening headquarters. But the small, timid, or weakly types were bound to wind up in the infantry. So much for the personnel system . . . ‘Skimming’ best describes it. . . And of course the rifle companies were at the bottom of the ladder: it was exceptional for a rifle company to get any troops with outstanding qualities. Instead there were too many of the short, fat, and relatively uneducated- many from rural areas. The concept that the best soldiers were needed at the ‘cutting edge’ was not honored in replacement policies … My platoon sergeant was the only exception I ever saw.’
I’m not sure Radike is completely right. The Romans compared good solders, short, bandy-legged, accustomed to hardship, with athletes- bigger, stronger, faster, but needing more food and less hardened to dirt and disease. People hardened by social mistreatment are hardened against military hierarchies.
‘On the plus side there was the M-1 rifle. It was the best thing that every happened to an infantryman. No matter how dirty it was, or how much sand had penetrated the mechanism, it always fired. And the 30 caliber bullet would go through a tree and kill a man on the other side.’
‘Royal Navy food was absolutely tasteless. Salt and pepper didn’t help. None of our crew said anything, but I could see by the grim set of their jaws that a can of good old-fashioned C-rations would have been preferable. . . ‘What you want, sir, is a sweet.’ I nodded and received a small dish of grayish-white substance. The steward enlightened me ‘It’s duff, sir’. ..’Mix equal parts of flour and water, boil until thick, cool, and serve’. I struggled through the remainder of the duff . . .’
US navy food was fresh and wonderful compared to the endless C rations, which gave Radike more calories than ever before or since in his life and led to increased troop losses from disease.
‘The Japanese fought with tenacity, but their willingness to die in a hole, rather than escape and fight another day, was the fatal flaw that led to their defeat. The banzai charge and fighting to the death in a hole were not courageous but silly.’
Not sure Radike was right. Most Japanese casualties were from starvation. A starving man can die bravely in a hole or a charge. Play different, lose different.
Finally the Japanese surrender. ‘The biggest plus for us was the presence of Douglass MacArthur in Tokyo. No one, repeat no one, could have established the authority of the occupation as well as he did’.
Radike refuses a promotion to major to get home and be a teacher again. Well done!