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Russia is Painting Dark Stripes on its Warships to Confuse Ukrainian Drones
If there’s any evidence that time is cyclical, one needs only look to military tactics that are old, and new again.
In World War I (and stretching into World War II), the UK started painting its surface warships in a camouflage pattern called “dazzle.” Not to be confused with what I tell myself in the mirror every morning before work: “Alright Wes, time to give ’em the ole razzle dazzle!”
Actually, dazzle camouflage was known as ‘razzle dazzle’ in the U.S.
Unlike traditional camouflage, where the purpose is to conceal, dazzle was designed to make it difficult for German subs to estimate a target’s range, speed, and heading.
Presumably, the answer was to make the warships look as obnoxious as possible.
It’s an interesting concept. Knowing that it’s impossible to make a warship invisible on the high seas, dazzle’s inventor, maritime artist Norman Wilkinson, decided to go in the complete opposite direction, making the warship paint loud and ostentatious.
It’s almost as if the typically reserved and polite Brits said, “Fine, if you’re going to shoot at us anyway, we may as well make it as annoying and unpleasant as we can.”
But did it work to confuse German submarines?
In Guy Hartcup’s 1979 book “Camouflage: The History of Concealment and Deception in War” he suggested that the dazzle camo had a small but noticeable statistical effect on confusing the Germans.
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.
Eventually, the dazzle camo lost its effectiveness with the advent of RADAR and infrared detection systems.
