Camouflage Camouflage has been used since the beginning of time. The first time a hunter hid behind a rock he had camouflaged himself. This may be a very basic example, but at the time it must have been world changing. What must the other hunters thought about the idea? You can bet they all started doing it. There have been some great examples of camouflage throughout history and making enemy armies go to the wrong areas was a big part of the deception. Armies, like the Roman army found out the hard way the value of camouflage when they were sometimes attacked by native armies which came unexpectedly out of wooded areas on both sides and an occasionally slaughtered the Roman legions. These native armies such as the Germanic armies, did a lot of damage before they were ultimately conquered. Maybe the idea of camouflage was prompted by nature. If nature is carefully studied you can find animals and insects pretending to be something they are not to attract victims. Ancient camouflage probably was used in hunting and attacks where animal skins might have been worn to hide the attacker. I can’t be sure of this, but it does seem obvious this method might have been used and even the smell from the skins would have fooled the prey when the hunt was on. There are so many stories about the first modern use of camouflage and who gets credit for using it. Many credit the first modern use of it to the French. They claim it was first used in 1914. Others claim it was used before that in the 18th century when rifle units were given drab color uniforms to help them blend into the background. After the French began using it in World War One, others were quick to adopt the practice. The British and then the Americans quickly adapted the idea. After applying camouflage to clothing they began to apply it to equipment and the next thing we knew, ships and planes were being camouflaged and even vehicles. Today, snipers wearing special suits named ghillies are hidden so well, they could be hiding within only a few feet of someone and not be seen. Camouflage has taken on a rather new meaning and it is real invisibility. Some of our aircraft are now all invisible to electronic detection and this is called stealth, but they can also be invisible to the naked eye by the placement of screens on the bottom of the planes and cameras on the top. The sky above is broadcast to the screens below hiding the planes completely. Even better camouflage is available or will be in the form of material that was developed that bends light around a person or object making them invisible. I am sure it is only a matter of time where it will be able to be completely applied to all military vehicles, planes and ships. In 1940 a very unusual type of camouflage paint was tried on ships. It was named razzle dazzle paint. It was a psychedelic pattern, while maybe hiding the shape of an object, it certainly failed because it really made the object stand out. There are people who claim however it was successful because it made it harder to determine what type of ship it was, the distance away and the speed. There was a time in World War Two, when the American army had to create a fake army group to fool the Germans. They made all sorts of fake tanks, trucks, and planes. They also had to somehow make believe there were huge amounts of people attached and used fake radio traffic from the so called group. Rubber tanks and vehicles along with planes were created, and from the air they looked just like the real thing. All this camouflage was good enough to fool the enemy. I believe the two greatest camouflage attempts in modern times, which succeeded were the hiding of the Suez Canal and the camouflage that hid the atom bomb complex in the United States which was developing the bomb. The British were deathly afraid the Germans were going to bomb and block the Suez Canal which could have meant losing the war for them. The Canal was desperately needed by them as a shortcut between Asia and Europe and saved them from having to sail all the way around Africa. The British government decided to get in touch with a famous magician named Maskelyne and see if he had any ideas on how the Germans could be fooled about the exact location of the canal. The magician looked the situation over and decided the best way to fool the Germans was with light. He developed a wave of light which blinded everything for 100 miles and hid the exact position of the Canal, preventing the Germans from honing in on the Canal. I guess this wouldn’t work very well today, they would just have to get the coordinates and use them to get the exact position. Google Earth even has all the coordinates for objects all over the world. The lights covered over 100 miles and the light device was named Whirling Spray. Another great camouflage job was as I said the hiding of the complex housing the Manhattan Project. The complex was huge, but from the air looked just like a common housing project. This was due to the excellent camouflage applied on the top of the buildings. Thousands of workers had created a completely fictious setting above the buildings. Nature uses camouflage quite successfully. Some of the animals which live in forests bear the color of the ground and trees. Some butterflies are the same color as the flowers they get nectar from. Color matching is a big deal in the animal kingdom. Another form of camouflage are designs on an animal which make other animals think they are part o f the environment. Another big deal in the animal world, as far as camouflage is concerned, is mimicry. That is where the designs on animals fool their enemies or prey into thinking they are different animals than what they really are. Katydids are insects which can mimic the call of the female cicada, luring the male to his death, because he then becomes a meal.
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