During the American War of Independence in the late 18th century some British units took to wearing buckskins in place of their traditional red coats. The men found that red made a good target for the American riflemen, whereas the dun-coloured buckskin was not so readily visible.
The use of such camouflage was taken further during the Afghan War in 1880. A colour known as khaki (the Urdu word for ‘dust’) was generally adopted to make the soldiers’ movements less obvious to the natives. Veterans who had served in India – and who had stained their white helmets brown with tea – knew that lack of visibility was the key to their survival in wartime.
During the Boer War of 1899-1902, however, British troops were still wearing bright scarlet uniforms. They had been traditional since the English Civil War, 250 years earlier, when Parliamentarian soldiers were provided with red coats simply because a large amount of red cloth was made the British soldiers easy targets for the Boer riflemen.
When the First World War broke out in 1914, dull colours such as khaki and grey had become the standard colour for uniforms, enabling soldiers from both sided to blend in with their combat surroundings.
Even so, the use of spotter planes left troops dangerously exposed on the ground. Camouflage netting and the ‘dazzle painting’ of weapons in zebra stripes was gradually introduced.
During some military manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain, the commander of a British army division – a survivor of the Boer War – told his men to attach pieces of foliage to their helmets, conceal their vehicles with drab netting and take advantage of the natural cover to hide themselves from aircraft.
The ruse was so successful that the division indistinguishable from the surrounding countryside. The idea of an entire unit losing itself in the landscape grew so attractive to the military command that camouflage gradually became accepted as an important weapon in the modern arsenal.
During the Second World War, camouflage was widely used as a technique of deception. As in the First World War, vulnerable installations such as fuel depots and munition stores were covered with netting so, from the air at least, they merged with the background. Decoys were deliberately displayed close by to draw enemy fire. Conspicuous area of water like the canals, used by bomber navigators as landmarks at night, were sprayed with coal dust to prevent them reflecting moonlight.
During the North African campaign of 1940-3 a dummy railway line was constructed to resemble a new supply spur to a tank assembly point. It even carried a fake train, complete with freight wagons and flat cars, and an impressive-looking locomotive with a disused camp stove billowing smoke from a cardboard funnel.
The hoax diverted attention away from the genuine rail head which was used to support General Auchinleck’s offensive against Tobruk in November 1941. His main forces and fuel dumps were so well hidden that the enemy never found them.
Camouflage has also been used to reduce the visibility of aircraft and ships.
When the underside of a bomber is painted light blue, it merges with the daytime sky, and when painted black, with the night sky. Some planes are painted on top so that – when seen from above – they merge with the ground below. Similarly, the familiar outline of a warship can be distorted by skillful paintwork designed to reduce the silhouette and even give the impression of a less threatening outline, perhaps that of an unarmed merchantman.
A false bow wave painted onto the hull of a warship can mislead a submarine captain about the speed of his target, and a false water line can confuse the range.
Camouflage techniques have been used to deceive air reconnaissance. During the Falklands campaign in 1982, British commanders were advised that the beleaguered Argentine forces could not be resupplied because Port Stanley’s only airfield was serviceable, having been damaged by the RAF’s bombs. Reconnaissance pictures showed what appeared to be a deep crater across the main runway.
In reality, heavily laden Argentine planes flew in every night, under cover of darkness, right up to the day before the surrender. It was only discovered much later that each morning a group of raw conscripts – equipped with nothing more than buckets, spades and wheelbarrows – left a circular pile of earth on the runway. When viewed from a height, their handiwork resembled a bomb crater.
Picture Credit : Google