12/27/2023 0 Comments Modern dazzle camouflage![]() (Source: Wiki Commons)Ĭuriously, the inventor of ‘dazzle’ had no love for contemporary art. USS Leviathan (formerly Vaterland) in dazzle camouflage. After demonstrating his invention to the admirals in Washington, Wilkinson was invited to share his know-how with the US Navy, partnering with American expressionist artist and fellow reserve officer Everett Warner. The Americans had the additional problem that many of their troopships were seized German vessels, hence, even more recognizable to the enemy. Within less than a year, Wilkinson’s team (staffed mostly with talented women from the Royal Academy of Arts) designed the camouflage of more than 2,000 British ships – conspicuous enough to make an impression across the Atlantic, where the USA had already failed several disguising attempts. The first ‘dazzler’ was the HMS Industry in 1917. Testing a model at Wilkinson’s facility at Leamington Spa. The British Navy’s Dazzle Section was a go. The experiment, outrageous at first, was effective enough to convince King George V to give his royal blessing. Wilkinson called this game of smoke and mirrors ‘dazzle camouflage’, dubbed by many ‘razzle dazzle’. All this could cause a gunner to miscalculate the trajectory of his torpedo by a few degrees, enough for a miss or a less damaging strike. ![]() The most befuddling combinations used blue stripes to make one large ship look like several smaller ones. In some designs, he painted a fake bow on the side of the hull, in others he made the front seem like the back, or visually broke up the stern to make the vessel look shorter. In 1917, the talented reserve officer decided to turn the problem on its head – instead of evading the enemy, why not confuse him instead? Wilkinson began by covering model ships with irregular and contrasting geometrical patterns, so that shape, size, and direction were hard to determine from a distance. Periscope view of a ship in dazzle camouflage (left) and the same ship uncamouflaged (right). But as Emperor Wilhelm’s underwater assassins turned the ocean into a slaughterhouse, sinking 23 British vessels on average each week, Wilkinson could not afford to fail. Moreover, unlike forests and deserts, the sea offered no suitable background for an object to blend in, the volatile weather conditions constantly altering light and cloud patterns. The first hurdle were the ships themselves – to the trained eye of a gunner, a vessel’s shape, size, and position betrayed her direction and speed within seconds. Like many others at the time, marine artist Norman Wilkinson experimented with camouflage techniques, but each new attempt led the British volunteer to the same unsurmountable problems. (Source: The Illustrated London News, Norman Wilkinson, 1915) In early 1917, while many on the British Isles followed the carnage with despair, one man got creative. By the end of the war, U-boats sank more than 5,000 ships and killed nearly 13,000 men. The ease with which Imperial U-boats took out British vessels became even more alarming with Germany’s declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare. ![]() By 1916, one in every five British supply ships in the English Channel fell victim to German torpedoes. On, the RMS Lusitania was attacked and sunk by German submarine U-20 off the coast of Ireland, killing 1,198 of her 1,962 passengers. Having tried and failed to measure up to the Royal Navy, the German Admiralty had redrafted its strategy for the new century, investing heavily in a novel but promising technology – the submarine. (Source: New-York Tribune)Ī formidable naval power, Britain entered the Great War with a somewhat lofty confidence, which was not meant to last. Thus begins the story of a crazy and brilliant invention: dazzle camouflage. The German gunner holds his breath, makes a guesstimate of the thing’s trajectory, and fires a torpedo. But what he sees through the periscope today looks more like a Picasso painting than a troopship – giant stripes of black and white, random geometrical patterns, inverted perspective. With a brain trained to work like a computer, he knows what he is doing, having sunk many British vessels since the German Empire began unrestricted submarine warfare three years earlier. The gunner has had a few brief moments to peek through the periscope and to make a quick appraisal of an enemy ship’s type, speed, and direction. Now imagine the same bewildered conversations taking place inside a German U-boat, in the summer of 1918. If you have ever been to a modern-art gallery, you must have heard the likes of:
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