Re: DS2/SG2 Camouflage - LONG REPLY

On Tue, 24 Feb 1998 20:47:42 -0500, Thomas Barclay
<Thomas.Barclay@sofkin.ca> wrote:

>As for how one does real life camouflage: My experience in Militia 
>excercises and paintballing have been that motion is the worst give 
>away. 

Right you are! In spite of neat camouflage, the human eye catches
motion better than the brain handles pattern recognition. 

>And for face camouflage, its 
>contrasts you are trying to break up

This is the whole point of camouflage. Humans have amazing pattern
recognition hard wired into the brain. We look for patterns in
everything. The idea behind camo is to break up the human outline. two
shades of green or brown with black blotches tend to blend into the
background and foliage at a distance. This makes the human outline
blend into the background. The human brain looks for patterns, and the
camo destroys the pattern. This is how ghillie suits work. Even close
up, it looks like a guy in green burlap. Beyond a few metres, you just
don't see a pattern. I have proof of this in my living room. I turned
35 last December, so my wife bought me a full size GI-Joe as a
nostalgia trip. The one I got was the US Marine sniper in a ghillie
suit. He sat on top of the TV cabinet for a full 4 hours, partly
obscured by a plant, before anyone "saw" him (and it was his bare,
pinkish hand that gave him away).

>When I went out in paintball, 
>I'd wear a boonie hat (like the OUDF minis) or an Aussie bush hat 
>(great in the rain!), carry webgear (where is this on most of the 
>minis? Do these guys have porters?), use the light/dark green blended 
>cam on face, arms, neck, ears, hands, wear green wool gloves and 
>black boots.

I wore the boonie hat, US woodland camo jacket, t-shirt, and pants.
Nothing on the hands or face, and old high-top running shoes (I needed
the comfort and light weight more than anything). I saw guys in
t-shirts that were never seen or hit. I saw guys in full camo that
insisted on running everywhere and stuck out like sore thumbs.

>Urban (Grey/Black) pattern is okay in cities or rubble or rocky 
>hills. 

Have you seen the blue shaded urban camo? I heard that it's for night
time. I would have thought that all black would be best, but
apparently this is better in many cases because you don't see a black
blob floating around...

Allan Goodall	     agoodall@sympatico.ca

"Once again, the half time score, 
 Alien Overlords: 142,000. Scotland: zip."
  - This Hour Has 22 Minutes