:Dazzle camouflage
{{Short description|Family of ship camouflage}}
{{Distinguish|Motion dazzle}}
{{Redirect|Dazzle Ships|the OMD album|Dazzle Ships (album)}}
{{good article}}
{{Use British English|date=October 2013}}
File:USS West Mahomet (ID-3681) cropped.jpg
Dazzle camouflage, also known as razzle dazzle (in the U.S.) or dazzle painting, is a type of ship camouflage that was used extensively in World War I, and to a lesser extent in World War II and afterwards. Credited to the British marine artist Norman Wilkinson, though with a rejected prior claim by the zoologist John Graham Kerr, it consisted of complex patterns of geometric shapes in contrasting colours interrupting and intersecting each other.
Unlike other forms of camouflage, the intention of dazzle is not to conceal but to make it difficult to estimate a target's range, speed, and heading. Norman Wilkinson explained in 1919 that he had intended dazzle primarily to mislead the enemy about a ship's course and so cause them to take up a poor firing position.{{efn|Wilkinson said "The primary object of this scheme was not so much to cause the enemy to miss his shot when actually in firing position, but to mislead him, when the ship was first sighted, as to the correct position to take up. Dazzle was a method to produce an effect by paint in such a way that all accepted forms of a ship are broken up by masses of strongly contrasted colour, consequently making it a matter of difficulty for a submarine to decide on the exact course of the vessel to be attacked." For example, an enemy submarine might position itself poorly, leaving itself at long range or out of range altogether. Wilkinson further wrote that dazzle was designed "not for low visibility, but in such a way as to break up her form and thus confuse a submarine officer as to the course on which she was heading".{{cite book |author=Wilkinson, Norman |title=A Brush with Life |publisher=Seeley Service |year=1969 |page=79}}}}
Dazzle was adopted by the Admiralty in the UK, and then by the United States Navy. Each ship's dazzle pattern was unique to avoid making classes of ships instantly recognisable to the enemy. The result was that a profusion of dazzle schemes was tried, and the evidence for their success was, at best, mixed. So many factors were involved that it was impossible to determine which were important, and whether any of the colour schemes were effective. Experiments were carried out on aircraft in both World Wars with little success.
Dazzle attracted the notice of artists such as Picasso, who claimed that Cubists like himself had invented it.{{cite web |author=Campbell-Johnson, Rachel |url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article1543756.ece |title=Camouflage at IWM |work=The Times |date=21 March 2007}}{{dead link|date=September 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} Edward Wadsworth, who supervised the camouflaging of over 2,000 ships during the First World War, painted a series of canvases of dazzle ships{{efn|For example, Wadsworth's Dazzle-ships in Drydock at Liverpool, 1919.}}Marter, Joan M. The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art, Oxford University Press, 2011, vol. 1, p. 401.Saunders, Nicholas J.; Cornish, Paul. (eds). Contested Objects: Material Memories of the Great War, Routledge, 2014. Jonathan Black: {{"'}}A few broad stripes': Perception, Deception, and the 'Dazzle Ship' phenomenon of the First World War", pp. 190–202.Newbolt, Sir Henry John Newbolt. Submarine and Anti-Submarine, Longmans, Green and Co, 1919. p. 46. "You look long and hard at this dazzle-ship. She doesn't give you any sensation of being dazzled; but she is, in some queer way, all wrong".Deer, Patrick. Culture in Camouflage: War, Empire, and Modern British Literature. Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 46. after the war, based on his wartime work. Arthur Lismer similarly painted a series of dazzle ship canvases.
Intended purposes
File:Dazzle Camouflage Effect.svg intended dazzle camouflage to cause the enemy to take up poor firing positions]]
At first glance, dazzle seems an unlikely form of camouflage, drawing attention to the ship rather than hiding it. The approach was developed after Allied navies were unable to develop effective means to hide ships in all weather conditions. The British zoologist John Graham Kerr proposed the application of camouflage to British warships in the First World War, outlining what he believed to be the applicable principle, disruptive camouflage, in a letter to Winston Churchill in 1914 explaining the goal was to confuse, not to conceal, by disrupting a ship's outline. Kerr compared the effect to that created by the patterns on a series of land animals, the giraffe, zebra and jaguar.{{cite journal |url=http://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol19/tnm_19_171-192.pdf |title=The Dazzling Zoologist: John Graham Kerr and the Early Development of Ship Camouflage |last1=Murphy |first1=Hugh |last2=Bellamy |first2=Martin |journal=The Northern Mariner |date=April 2009 |volume=XIX |issue=2 |pages=171–192|doi=10.25071/2561-5467.330 |s2cid=247298555 }}Forbes, 2009. pp. 87–89
File:Coincidence rangefinder (Warships To-day, 1936).jpg, image halves not yet adjusted for range. The target's masts are especially useful for rangefinding, so Kerr proposed disrupting these with white bands.]]
Taking up the zebra example, Kerr proposed that the vertical lines of ships' masts be disrupted with irregular white bands. Hiding these would make ships less conspicuous, and would "greatly increase the difficulty of accurate range finding".{{efn|Kerr thought this because, as shown in the rangefinder eyepiece image, masts provide ideal verticals to align.}} However, in the same letter, Kerr also called for countershading, the use of paint to obliterate self-shading and thus to flatten out the appearance of solid, recognisable shapes. For example, he proposed painting ships' guns grey on top, grading to white below, so the guns would disappear against a grey background.
Similarly, he advised painting shaded parts of the ship white, and brightly lit parts in grey, again with smooth grading between them, making shapes and structures invisible. Kerr was thus hoping to achieve both a measure of invisibility and a degree of confusion for the enemy using a rangefinder. Whether through this mixing of goals, or the Admiralty's scepticism about "any theory based upon the analogy of animals", the Admiralty claimed in July 1915 to have conducted "various trials" and decided to paint its ships in monotone grey, not adopting any of Kerr's suggestions. It had made up its mind, and all Kerr's subsequent letters achieved nothing.
The American artist Abbott Handerson Thayer had developed a theory of camouflage based on countershading and disruptive coloration, which he had published in the controversial 1909 book Concealing-Coloration in the Animal Kingdom.{{cite journal | title=Revealing and concealing coloration in birds and mammals | author=Roosevelt, Theodore |author-link=Theodore Roosevelt | journal=Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History | year=1911 | volume=30 | issue=Article 8 | pages=119–231|hdl = 2246/470}}{{cite journal |last1=Wright |first1=Patrick |title=Cubist Slugs. Review of DPM: Disruptive Pattern Material; An Encyclopedia of Camouflage: Nature – Military – Culture by Roy Behrens |journal=London Review of Books |date=23 June 2005 |volume=27 |issue=12 |pages=16–20 |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n12/patrick-wright/cubist-slugs}} 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. His ideas were considered by the Admiralty, but rejected along with Kerr's proposals as being "freak methods of painting ships ... of academic interest but not of practical advantage".
The Admiralty noted that the required camouflage would vary depending on the light, the changing colours of sea and sky, the time of day, and the angle of the sun. Thayer made repeated and desperate efforts to persuade the authorities, and in November 1915 travelled to England where he gave demonstrations of his theory around the country. He had a warm welcome from Kerr in Glasgow, and was so enthused by this show of support that he avoided meeting the War Office, who he had been intending to win over, and instead sailed home, continuing to write ineffective letters to the British and American authorities.
The marine artist and Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve officer Norman Wilkinson, agreed with Kerr that dazzle's aim was confusion rather than concealment, but disagreed about the type of confusion to be sown in the enemy's mind. What Wilkinson wanted to do was to make it difficult for an enemy to estimate a ship's type, size, speed, and heading, and thereby confuse enemy ship commanders into taking mistaken or poor firing positions.{{cite book |title=Camouflage |publisher=Thames and Hudson / Imperial War Museum |year=2007 |author=Newark, Tim |page=74}}{{cite news |last=Wilkinson |first=Norman |title=Letters. Camouflage |newspaper=The Times |date=4 April 1939}} 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.Glover, Michael. [https://web.archive.org/web/20110616084856/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article1479657.ece "Now you see it... Now you don't"] The Times. 10 March 2007.
File:EB1922 Camouflage Periscope View.jpg 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.{{efn|Wilkinson said that dazzle was a "method to produce an effect by paint in such a way that all accepted forms of a ship are broken up by masses of strongly contrasted colour, consequently making it a matter of difficulty for a submarine to decide on the exact course of the vessel to be attacked."}} Thus, while dazzle, in some lighting conditions or at close ranges, might actually increase a ship's visibility,Forbes, 2009. pp. 90–91 the conspicuous patterns would obscure the outlines of the ship's hull (though admittedly not the superstructureForbes, 2009. p. 97), disguising the ship's correct heading and making it harder to hit.Forbes, 2009. p. 96
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.Forbes, 2009. pp. 98–100 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. The decision was likely because the Admiralty felt comfortable with Wilkinson, in sharp contrast to their awkward relationship with the stubborn and pedantic Kerr.Forbes, 2009. p. 92.
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.{{efn|Vegetius had recorded "Venetian blue" (bluish-green, the same colour as the sea) was used for ship camouflage during the Gallic Wars, when Julius Caesar had sent his scout ships to gather intelligence along the coast of Britain.{{cite journal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A1zXAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA35 |pages=35–39 |last=Murphy |first=Robert Cushman |author-link=Robert Cushman Murphy |title=Marine camouflage |journal=The Brooklyn Museum Quarterly |volume=4–6 |publisher=Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences |date=January 1917}}}}
Possible mechanisms
File:Polish destroyer's range-finder.JPG, {{Circa|1930}}]]
=Disrupting rangefinding=
In 1973, the naval museum curator Robert F. Sumrall{{cite web |title=Robert F. Sumrall |url=http://navyyardassociates.net/bp1.html |publisher=Navy Yard Associates |access-date=7 January 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160118213354/http://navyyardassociates.net/bp1.html |archive-date=18 January 2016 |url-status=dead }} (following Kerr) suggested a mechanism by which dazzle camouflage may have sown the kind of confusion that Wilkinson had intended for it. Coincidence rangefinders used for naval artillery had an optical mechanism, operated by a human to compute the range. The operator adjusted the mechanism until the two half-images of the target lined up in a complete picture. Dazzle, Sumrall argued, was intended to make that hard, as clashing patterns looked abnormal even when the two halves were aligned, something that became more important when submarine periscopes included such rangefinders. Patterns sometimes also included a false bow wave to make it difficult for an enemy to estimate the ship's speed.{{cite book |author=Sumrall, Robert F. |title=Ship Camouflage (WWII): Deceptive Art |work=United States Naval Institute Proceedings |date=February 1973 |pages=67–81}}
=Disguising heading and speed=
File:Arthur Lismer - Olympic with Returned Soldiers.jpg, 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"{{cite web |last1=Willis |first1=Sam |title=How did an artist help Britain fight the war at sea? |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zty8tfr |publisher=British Broadcasting Corporation |access-date=7 January 2016}} was the answer, using conspicuous shapes and violent colour contrasts to confuse enemy submarine commanders. Willis pointed out, using the {{HMT|Olympic}} 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). The curve on the hull below the front funnel could seem to be a false bow wave, creating a misleading impression of the ship's speed; additionally, the striped patterns on the bow and stern could create confusion about which end of the ship was which.
That dazzle did indeed work along these lines is suggested by the testimony of a U-boat captain:
{{blockquote|It was not until she was within half a mile that I could make out she was one ship [not several] steering a course at right angles, crossing from starboard to port. The dark painted stripes on her after part made her stern appear her bow, and a broad cut of green paint amidships looks like a patch of water. The weather was bright and visibility good; this was the best camouflage I have ever seen.}}
=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 {{convert|70|m|yd|abbr=on}}, travelling at {{convert|90|km/h|mph|abbr=on}}. 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 {{convert|90|cm|abbr=on}} 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.{{efn|The equivalent for naval artillery at a range of {{convert|7000|m|yd|abbr=on}} would require a ship to travel at
World War I
{{further|Camoufleurs}}
=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.Forbes, 2009. p. 87 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 {{HMS|Implacable|1899|6}}, 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, informing Kerr in July 1915 that "various trials had been undertaken and that the range of conditions of light and surroundings rendered it necessary to modify considerably any theory based upon the analogy of [the colours and patterns of] animals".Forbes, 2009. p. 88
File:'Dazzle-painting' was a form of camouflage, and was particularly effective in moonlight. Wilkinson was responsible for the introduction of the 'dazzle' painted effect. As is evident in this image, the paint des Art.IWMART4029.jpg of a moonlit convoy wearing his dazzle camouflage, 1918]]
File:S.S. Alban camouflage by Thomas Hart Benton.jpg
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.Fisher, Mark. [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article785672.ece "Secret history: how surrealism can win a war,"]{{dead link|date=September 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} The Times. 8 January 2006.
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.{{efn|In August 1917, {{HMS|Alsatian}} was painted in a dazzle pattern, perhaps the first Royal Navy vessel to be camouflaged in this way.{{cite web |last1=Raven |first1=Alan |title=The Development of Naval Camouflage 1914–1945 Part I |url=http://www.shipcamouflage.com/1_4.htm |website=Ship Camouflage |access-date=22 May 2015}}}}
All British patterns were different, first tested on small wooden models viewed through a periscope in a studio. Most of the model designs were painted by women from London's Royal Academy of Arts. A foreman then scaled up their designs for the real thing. Painters, however, were not alone in the project. Creative people including sculptors, artists, and set designers designed camouflage.{{ cite journal |last=Paulk |first=Ann Bronwyn |s2cid=143681624 |url=http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/modernism-modernity/v010/10.2bronwyn.html |title=False Colors: Art, Design, and Modern Camouflage (review) |journal=Modernism/modernity |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=402–404 |date=April 2003 |doi=10.1353/mod.2003.0035}}
Wilkinson's dazzle camouflage was accepted by the Admiralty, even without practical visual assessment protocols for improving performance by modifying designs and colours.Williams, 2001. p. 35 The dazzle camouflage strategy was adopted by other navies. This led to more scientific studies of colour options which might enhance camouflage effectiveness.Williams, 2001. p. 40
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". He agreed also that he had not suggested anywhere in his letters that his system would "create an illusion as to the course of the vessel painted". In October 1920 the Admiralty told Kerr that he was not seen as responsible for dazzle painting. In 1922 Wilkinson was awarded the sum of £2000 for the invention.
=Royal Flying Corps=
File:Felixstowe F.2A Q 082243 (detail).jpg, finished in a naval black and white scheme]]
In the First World War, experiments were conducted on British aircraft such as the Royal Flying Corps' Sopwith Camels to make their angle and direction difficult to judge for an enemy gunner.{{cite web |title=Camouflage during the First World War |url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205183559 |publisher=Imperial War Museum |access-date=5 June 2020}} 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.{{cite web |last1=D'Alto |first1=N. |title=Inventing the Invisible Airplane – When camouflage was fine art |url=https://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/art-camouflage-180959768/ |publisher=Air & Space Magazine |access-date=5 June 2020}}
=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.{{cite book |title=Camouflage: the history of concealment and deception in war |publisher=Pen & Sword |author=Hartcup, Guy |author-link=Guy Hartcup |year=1979}}
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. Furthermore, 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.
With hindsight, too many factors (choice of colour scheme; size and speed of ships; tactics used) had been varied for it to be possible to determine which factors were significant or which schemes worked best.{{cite journal |title=Dazzle Camouflage Affects Speed Perception |author1=Scott-Samuel, Nicholas E |author2=Baddeley, Roland |author3=Palmer, Chloe E |author4=Cuthill, Innes C |journal=PLoS ONE |date=June 2011 |volume=6 |issue=6 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0020233 |pages=e20233 |pmid=21673797 |pmc=3105982|bibcode=2011PLoSO...620233S |doi-access=free }} Thayer did carry out an experiment on dazzle camouflage, but it failed to show any reliable advantage over plain paintwork.{{cite journal |title=Dazzle coloration and prey movement |author1=Stevens, M. |author2=Yule, D.H. |author3=Ruxton, G.D. |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society B |year=2008 |volume=275 |issue=1651 |pages=2639–2643 |doi=10.1098/rspb.2008.0877 |pmid=18700203 |pmc=2605810 }}
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.{{cite journal |last1=Buskirk |first1=Harold Van |title=Camouflage |journal=Transactions of the Illuminating Engineering Society |date=1919 |volume=14 |issue=5 |pages=225–229 |url=http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/Illuminating_Engineering_v14_1000185898/421 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304053850/http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/Illuminating_Engineering_v14_1000185898/421 |archive-date=2016-03-04 }}{{efn|As Buskirk claimed, less than 1% of the US merchant ships painted in dazzle were lost; but without knowing the number of non-camouflaged ships, it is not possible to calculate the comparative rates of loss.}}
World War II
=Ships=
{{further|Ship camouflage#Second World War|l1=Ship camouflage in World War II|World War II ship camouflage measures of the United States Navy}}
File:The Outside Viewing-tank Directorate of Camouflage Naval Section (1943) (Art. IWM ART LD 2759).jpg.{{cite news |last=Rodger |first=James |title=Leamington camouflage unit to be celebrated in new art exhibition |url=https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/whats-on/arts-culture-news/leamington-camouflage-unit-celebrated-new-11638766 |work=Coventry Telegraph |date=20 July 2016}} 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.{{cite journal |author=Sumrall, Robert F. |title=Ship Camouflage (WWII): Deceptive Art |journal=United States Naval Institute Proceedings |date=February 1973 |pages=67–81}}
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.{{cite web |last1=Warneke |first1=Jon |last2=Herne |first2=Jeff |url=http://www.steelnavy.com/rnchips.htm |title=Royal Navy Colour Chips |publisher=Steelnavy.com |access-date=7 January 2012}} 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.{{cite web |title=Directorate of Camouflage (Naval Section) at Work, Leamington Spa, 1941 |url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/9662 |publisher=Imperial War Museum |access-date=21 April 2020}}
File:USS Northampton (CA-26) at Brisbane on 5 August 1941 (NH 94596).jpg]]
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 {{sclass|Essex|aircraft carrier|1}}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.
Not all United States Navy measures involved dazzle patterns; some were simple or even totally unsophisticated, such as a false bow wave on traditional Haze Gray, or Deck Blue replacing grey over part or all of the ship (the latter to counter the kamikaze threat).{{cite web |author=Short, Randy |url=http://www.shipcamouflage.com/measures.htm |title=USN Camouflage Measures |publisher=Snyder and Short Enterprises |access-date=27 July 2015}} 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.{{cite web |url=http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/S19-7/1945_S19_631Application.html |title=Camouflage Instructions – Carriers, Cruisers, Destroyers, Destroyer Escorts, Assigned to the Pacific Fleet |publisher=Navy Department Bureau of Ships |date=26 February 1945 |access-date=8 April 2013 |author=Brand, C. L.}}
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.{{cite web |last1=Asmussen |first1=John |title=Bismarck Paint Schemes |url=http://www.bismarck-class.dk/bismarck_class/bismarck/paint_schemes/paintbism1941rheinubung.html |access-date=17 July 2015}}{{cite book |author1=Asmussen, John |author2=Leon, Eric |title=German Naval Camouflage Volume One 1939–1941 |date=2012 |publisher=Seaforth Publishing |isbn=978-1-84832-142-7}}
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=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.{{cite book |last1=Elias |first1=A. |title=Camouflage Australia: Art, nature, science and war |date=2011 |publisher=Sydney University Press |isbn=978-1920899738 |pages=186–188 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OEQnC5e3vG0C&pg=PA188}} The camouflaged aircraft were flown in combat, but the effect was found not to be satisfactory.{{cite web |title=McClelland Barclay (1891-1943) |url=http://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/art/artists/the-art-of-mcclelland-barclay.html |publisher=US Naval History and Heritage Command |access-date=5 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150313224616/http://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/art/artists/the-art-of-mcclelland-barclay.html |archive-date=13 March 2015 |date=31 March 2015 |quote=In mid-1940, Barclay prepared designs for experimental camouflage for different types of Navy combat aircraft. Evaluation tests, however, showed that pattern camouflage was of little, if any, use for the aircraft. |url-status=dead}}
File:Douglas TBD in experimental camouflage 1940.jpg|US Navy Douglas TBD Devastator in experimental "pattern camouflage" by McClelland Barclay, 1940{{cite web|title=NH 96165 Douglas TBD-1 torpedo Plane|url=https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/NH-96000/NH-96165.html|publisher=US Naval History and Heritage Command|access-date=5 June 2020}}
File:Brewster F2A Buffalo in dazzle camouflage.jpg|US Navy Brewster F2A Buffalo in experimental camouflage, 1940
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Since World War II
= Arts =
The abstract patterns in dazzle camouflage inspired artists including Picasso. He claimed credit for camouflage experiments, which seemed to him a quintessentially Cubist technique. In a conversation with Gertrude Stein shortly after he first saw a painted cannon trundling through the streets of Paris he remarked, "Yes it is we who made it, that is cubism". In Britain, Edward Wadsworth, who supervised dazzle camouflage painting in the war, created a series of canvases after the war based on his dazzle work on ships. His work later inspired Peter Saville's cover and the title of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's 1983 album Dazzle Ships.{{cite web | url=http://www.omd.uk.com/discography/albums/html/a_10.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010418093643/http://www.omd.uk.com/discography/albums/html/a_10.html | archive-date=2001-04-18 | title=Omd Discography | Albums 1980 - 84 }} In Canada, Arthur Lismer used dazzle ships in some of his wartime compositions.{{cite news |last1=Kelly |first1=Gemey |title=The Group of Seven and the Halifax Harbour Explosion: Focus on Arthur Lismer |url=http://www.cbc.ca/halifaxexplosion/he7_teachers/focus_arthur_lismer.pdf |publisher=Canadian Broadcasting Corporation |access-date=10 June 2015}} In America, Burnell Poole painted canvases of United States Navy ships in dazzle camouflage at sea.{{cite web |title="A Fast Convoy" by Burnell Poole |url=https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/exhibits/fast-convoy.html |publisher=Naval History and Heritage Command |access-date=12 January 2016}} The historian of camouflage Peter Forbes comments that the ships had a Modernist look, their designs succeeding as avant-garde or Vorticist art.
In 2007, the art of camouflage, including the evolution of dazzle, was featured as the theme for a show at the Imperial War Museum.{{cite book |title=Camouflage |publisher=Thames & Hudson with Imperial War Museum |author=Newark, Tim |year=2007 |pages=Inside cover}} In 2009, the Fleet Library at the Rhode Island School of Design exhibited its rediscovered collection of lithographic printed plans for the camouflage of American World War I merchant ships, in an exhibition titled "Bedazzled".{{cite web |title=Fleet Library Special Collections: Dazzle Camouflage |url=http://dazzle.risd.edu/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111116220642/http://dazzle.risd.edu/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=16 November 2011 |access-date=7 January 2016 }}
In 2013, Phil Coy was commissioned to design the facade of Lewisham's Glass Mill{{Cite web |date=17 October 2014 |title=The Glass Mill - Lewisham Leisure Centre |url=https://find-an-architect.architecture.com/la-architects-ltd/lewes/the-glass-mill-lewisham-leisure-centre# |access-date=27 January 2024 |website=RIBA}} leisure centre in South East London. His design "Razzle Dazzle Boogie Woogie"{{Cite web |date=27 January 2024 |title=Public Art in Lewisham |url=https://lewisham.gov.uk/inmyarea/arts/your-local-arts/visual-art/galleries/public-art/lewisham-public-art |access-date=20 May 2013 |website=Lewisham Council}} collapses the principles of Dazzle camouflage with those of Piet Mondrian's seminal painting Broadway Boogie Woogie into a digital camouflage design that covers the buildings facade.
In 2014, the Centenary Art Commission backed three dazzle camouflage installations in Britain:{{cite web |url=http://www.1418now.org.uk/whats-on/dazzle-ships |title=Dazzle Ships |access-date=7 January 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141009130024/http://www.1418now.org.uk/whats-on/dazzle-ships/ |archive-date=9 October 2014 |url-status=dead }} Carlos Cruz-Diez covered the pilot ship {{MV|Edmund Gardner}} in Liverpool's Canning Dock with bright multi-coloured dazzle artwork, as part of the city's 2014 Liverpool Biennial art festival;{{cite web |last1=Dixon |first1=David |title=SJ3489 : Dazzle Ship, Canning Graving Dock |url=https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4455057 |publisher=Geograph |access-date=4 February 2019 |date=1 May 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180622180739/https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4455057 |archive-date=22 June 2018 |url-status=live}} and Tobias Rehberger painted {{HMS|President|1918|6}}, anchored since 1922 at Blackfriars Bridge in London, to commemorate the use of dazzle, a century on.{{cite web |author=Brown, Mark |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jul/14/dazzle-ships-recreated-first-world-war-centenary |title=First world war dazzle painting revived on ships in Liverpool and London |work=The Guardian |date=14 July 2014 |access-date=14 July 2014}}{{cite web |url=http://www.hmspresident.com/dazzle-ship-london/ |title=HMS President Dazzle Ship London |access-date=22 May 2015 |archive-date=15 February 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150215154224/http://www.hmspresident.com/dazzle-ship-london/ |url-status=dead }} Peter Blake was commissioned to design exterior paintwork for {{MV|Snowdrop}}, a Mersey Ferry, which he called "Everybody Razzle Dazzle", combining his trademark motifs (stars, targets etc.) with First World War dazzle designs.{{cite web |url=http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/arts-culture-news/razzle-dazzle-mersey-ferry-unveiled-8968150 |title=Razzle Dazzle Mersey Ferry unveiled by Sir Peter Blake |date=2 April 2015 |first=Catherine |last=Jones |publisher=Liverpool Echo}}
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|{{HMS|President|1918|6}}, painted by Tobias Rehberger in 2014 to commemorate the use of dazzle in World War I
=Other uses=
File:Red Bull RB11 16355850249 45c5240d97 o.jpg
File:Erlkönig BMW 2er Gran Tourer 2.jpg
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.{{cite web |last1=Rabe |first1=Mattias|title=Lamborghini kör med vidvinkel-extraljus i Norrland |url=http://teknikensvarld.se/lamborghini-kor-med-vidvinkel-extraljus-i-norrland-177292/ |publisher=Teknikens Värld |access-date=9 March 2015 |date=9 March 2015 |language=sv}} 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.{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/31142004 |access-date=22 February 2015 |work=BBC Sports |agency=BBC News |title=Formula One Testing:Tom Clarkson's Jerez Round-Up |author=Clarkson, Tom}}
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{{'"}}.{{cite web |title=The Anti-Surveillance State: Clothes and Gadgets Block Face Recognition Technology, Confuse Drones and Make You (Digitally) Invisible |url=https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/anti-surveillance-state-clothes-and-gadgets-block-face-recognition-technology |website=AlterNet |date=21 April 2015 |access-date=3 November 2015 |first=Janet |last=Burns|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161117010506/https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/anti-surveillance-state-clothes-and-gadgets-block-face-recognition-technology |archive-date=2016-11-17 }} It uses occlusion, covering certain facial features; transformation, altering the shape or colour of parts of the face; and a combination of the two.{{cite book |first1=Ranran |last1=Feng |first2=Balakrishnan |last2=Prabhakaran |title=Proceedings of the 21st ACM international conference on Multimedia |chapter=Facilitating fashion camouflage art |s2cid=1547688 |publisher=ACM |date=2013 |isbn=978-1-4503-2404-5 |pages=793–802 |series=MM '13 |doi=10.1145/2502081.2502121}}
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has used dazzle patterns on its fleet since 2009 for recognition rather than camouflage.{{cite web |title=Sea Shepherd Fleet Gets Ready for Upcoming Campaigns |url=http://www.seashepherd.org.au/news-and-commentary/news/sea-shepherd-fleet-sets-sail-for-summer-campaigns.html |publisher=Sea Shepherd |access-date=5 January 2016 |date=15 April 2011}}
English football team Manchester United used a football kit during the 2020–21 season that resembled a dazzle design.{{Cite web |date=2020-09-08 |title=Manchester United reveals dazzle camouflage kit for 2020/21 season |url=https://www.dezeen.com/2020/09/08/manchester-united-kit-2020-21-dazzle-camouflage/ |access-date=2023-04-07 |website=Dezeen |language=en}}
See also
Notes
{{notelist}}
References
{{reflist}}
Sources
- Forbes, Peter (2009). Dazzled and Deceived: Mimicry and Camouflage. Yale University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-300-17896-8}}.
- Williams, David (2001). [https://books.google.com/books?id=0vomT0cjY9ICNaval camouflage, 1914–1945: a complete visual reference.] Naval Institute Press. {{ISBN|978-1-55750-496-8}}.
External links
{{Commons category}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20111116220642/http://dazzle.risd.edu/ Newly discovered dazzle plans at Rhode Island School of Design]
- [http://www.shipcamouflage.com/1_4.htm The development of naval camouflage 1914–1945]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20090130132547/http://bobolinkbooks.com/Camoupedia/CamouflageArtists.html Artists and other contributors to camouflage in the 20th century]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20100303055428/http://www.bobolinkbooks.com/Camoupedia/DazzleCamouflage.html Camoupedia: dazzle camouflage]
- [http://www.gotouring.com/razzledazzle/articles/dazzle.html Razzle dazzle camouflage]
- [https://books.google.com/books?id=7igDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA55 "She's All Dressed Up For Peace", Popular Science (February 1919), p. 55.]
- [https://books.google.com/books?id=_CgDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA17 "Fighting the U-Boat with Paint", Popular Science (April 1919), pp. 17–19.]
- [http://www.ussslater.org/tour/exterior/exterior.html Destroyer Escort Historical Museum: USS Slater] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181210003804/http://www.ussslater.org/tour/exterior/exterior.html |date=2018-12-10 }} painted in 1945 Dazzle camouflage
- [http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/05170.htm US Navy PT Boats in Dazzle Camouflage]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20160207234035/http://usndazzle.com/1Web/Index Catalogue of US Navy World War II ships in Dazzle Camouflage]
{{Camouflage}}