(TRUNEWS) For their celebration of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, China paraded soldiers and armored vehicles in Tiananmen Square, but instead of traditional camouflage they were painted in pixelated squares.
The digital pattern — or as referred to by its inventor — “texture match” camouflage, was first conceived in the late 1970’s by now-retired US Army officer Lieutenant Colonel Timothy R. O’Neill, PhD. Though seemingly counterintuitive, the blocky pattern outperformed the traditional variegated organic camo designs, in side-by-side testing, at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.
In an interview with BBC, O’Neill suggested a rule of thumb in the camo design methodology is large patterns tend to work well at long distances, and small patterns are better at close range. But as shown by O’Neill’s texture match design, a pattern made from both small squares or pixels can be painted to mimic both. During the tests at Aberdeen, the small patches were successful at mimicking natural patterns at close range, such as leaves on tree. At long range the clusters of squares created a macro texture that blended well with branches, trees and shadows.
Though the concept was validated in testing, its implementation was delayed due to push back from US Military officials who were skeptical of deviating from the more traditional blob-based camo.
In 2016, O’Neill’s designs are finally seeing the light of day, but instead of America leading the change, China has been one of the first to embrace the pixelated pattern on a large scale. In the parade, one specific color variant stood out, that being the bright and dark blue design.
Guy Cramer, the President and CEO of Hyperstealth Biotechnology was quoted by BBC saying the bluish tone could be used to break up the shape of vehicles against the sky on flat terrain, or for use in icy or snowy areas, but there are things to consider.
“If the vehicles are amphibious then they might have some concealment during their water-based maneuvers, but the trade off for being highly conspicuous on land is not worth having it permanently,” he said. Based on this Cramer
Based on this Cramer believes the blue schemes were used primarily for decoration.
South Korean army soldiers set up a camouflage net over their tank during a military exercise near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas in Paju, South Korea, March 7, 2016. REUTERS/Hwang Ki-sun/News
CAMOUFLAGE ADVANCEMENTS
HyperStealth Biotechnology is currently one of the worlds leading designers of modern camouflage. BBC said they are developing a version of digital camo that will “actively change like a chameleon”. Cramer calls it SmartCamo. “In applications where you have a powered vehicle, whether it be an aircraft, a ship or a ground vehicle, your best bet may be to actually be able to shift your camouflage colors and shift the pattern,” he said.
“In applications where you have a powered vehicle, whether it be an aircraft, a ship or a ground vehicle, your best bet may be to actually be able to shift your camouflage colors and shift the pattern,” he said.
BAE Systems — a UK-based defense contractor — is also actively involved in the advancement of camouflage technology, and previously developed a thermal cloaking system for armored vehicles named Adaptiv, that can alter heated pixels to make the vehicle resemble a car, person, or farm animal.
In 2012, Mercedes-Benz joined the camo revolution, with their “The Invisible Drive” PR campaign, which promoted their B-Class Fuel Cell vehicle by covering one side with flexible mats — embedded with thousands of light-emitting diodes — and the other with an HD Canon camera live-feed rig. This allowed the vehicle to effectively disappear in the center of a bustling German city.
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