^{A shot from the film “Predator”}

Camouflage (camouflage military uniform, plain or multicolor) began to be used by the military around the world relatively recently - from the end of the 19th century. Prior to this, the military uniform looked much more attractive - bright colors, mainly blue, red and white, epaulettes, shiny buttons. All this greatly facilitated the management of troops on the ground. Then technological progress and improving the methods of warfare demanded that the soldiers be made less noticeable against the background of the surrounding nature, and for over 100 years all kinds of camouflages have been solving this task with varying success. But now the military is no longer cunning to color the uniform, and scientists are looking for fundamentally different approaches to hiding people and equipment on the ground.

In 2004, the U.S. Army received a new digital camouflageUniversal Camouflage Pattern (UCP) is a universal solution for all types of environments. But after only a few months, as the fighting in Iraq intensified, each soldier already knew: UCP does not work in almost any environment . Thus, there was an urgent need to find a replacement for him. They announced the launch of the Camouflage Improvement Effort program, which the Daily newspaper aptly called the “ $ 5 billion confusion ” in 2012 . Hundreds of developers sent camouflage schemes to the competition, only four reached the final. Four years later (and investing several million dollars), the US Army decided on the winner.


^{Finalists of Brookwood, Crye Precision, Kryptek, ADS Inc. and Guy Cramer.}

The winner was Scorpion W camouflage, developed at Crye Presicion. Subsequently, he underwent some improvements ( Scorpion W2 ) and was adopted by the name of OCP (Operational Camouflage Pattern).

As for the Russian army, since 1998 the all-army camouflage was the HRV-98 Flora, which in recent years has been replaced by a digital version.





However, military technology is developing rapidly, and no one can imagine how to adapt camouflage schemes in the long run. We still do not know much about how the human brain interprets visual information. And many years of expensive military efforts to find the perfect camouflage have not yet been crowned with success.

A Brief History of Invisibility

The need to make the soldier less noticeable arose in the 19th century. after the appearance of long-range weapons. In different armies of the world timid experiments began on the use of green and gray protective colors of the form. During World War I, fleets of different countries began to use the so-called “blinding” camouflage patterns, which made it difficult to estimate the distance to the ship and its course, which was critical for guiding guns and torpedo tubes.





Soon, similar decisions began to be tested in relation to the infantry.



By the 1930s, more modern schemes appeared, for example, the Soviet "Amoeba".



And with the outbreak of World War II, camouflage began to develop very quickly.





In the late 1970s, Dual Texture camouflage appeared - the forerunner of modern digital camouflage. It consisted of large squares, large and small combinations of which were to break the silhouette at different distances.





Finally, in the 1990s, with the widespread use of night vision devices in the troops of different countries, the introduction of digital camouflage began. Their peculiarity is that the edges of the spots do not form curved lines, but a “pixel” grid of small squares, which makes the soldiers invisible in night vision devices. That is, in the eyepieces the person or equipment camouflaged by the “number” did not stand out against the background of the surrounding landscape.

In addition, digital camouflage works better in normal lighting, because it looks more like fractal patterns that the human eye (more precisely, the brain) interprets as white noise. In other words, digital camouflage looks less “natural”, therefore it draws attention worse.

However, the human eye is a very complex optical instrument, and the brain is able to isolate images even in very complex environments. And therefore, it is almost impossible to create a single universal camouflage that can “hide” soldiers in all possible situations - in the forest, in the mountains, in the desert, in urban areas, in the field, etc. Do not forget that the same forests are VERY different, and camouflage that works perfectly in the Scandinavian thickets can be almost useless somewhere in the Volga region. As a result, many companies around the world began to create all kinds of digital camouflage.


^{“See the gopher? But he is ”(c). In this photo, there is a man in US4CES camouflage designed by Guy Kramer and ADS Inc.}



To reduce the visibility of people, weapons, equipment, structures due to breaking the silhouette, camouflage is also used in games. In “ Armored Warfare: Armata Project ” you can arm yourself with a spray can and apply dozens of different camouflages (one at a time) to your tank, divided into three groups - “digit”, fractal and stripes.

Features of our vision

From the point of view of our brain, digital camouflage does not "pour" a person into the surrounding landscape, but as if artificially deprives the body. For the brain, digital camouflage is “uncomfortable,” so it tries not to notice it. Moreover, it is not enough just to randomly throw pixels on the fabric. Creating an effective digital circuit is not an easy task. An important role is played by the choice of colors and structural features of the human eye.

Consider the failed UCP camouflage mentioned at the beginning of this article:



All digital camouflages contain two visual logical layers: micrographs (pixels) and macrographs (the shape of spots formed by pixels). If the scale of the macro drawing is too small (as is done in UCP), then the optical phenomenon of “isolumination” arises. Its essence is that a carefully designed camouflage pattern turns into a light mass. As a result, a person is not only clearly visible, but even attracts attention on the ground.



Another fatal mistake was the lack of black in UCP. Officials explained this by the fact that black is absent in nature. However, this is completely wrong: black and brown are extremely important for the image of shadows. Therefore, for example, in the US4CES camouflage (fourth finalist of the Camouflage Improvement Effort program), the so-called “boundary luminance” is used: thin black lines around macro and micro drawings that make our eyes perceive them as three-dimensional objects.



In the absence of these pseudo-shadows, the pattern would lose depth and be perceived as two-dimensional.

Economies of scale

An unexpected problem when creating digital camouflage is associated with ... its mass production. Camouflage is designed to break the silhouette of a person at some key points, for example, wrists, knees, ankles.


^{Camouflage US4CES.}

Something similar can be observed in tigers: stripes run perpendicular to their limbs. But in the mass production of the form, when patterns are made from rolls of fabric for sewing hundreds of thousands of sets of clothes, it is very difficult to predict exactly where these visual “gaps” will go.



In addition, the human brain is perfectly able to recognize patterns. If we see some kind of image twice, we will immediately feel something familiar. Or, speaking of war, there is something wrong here. Therefore, it is imperative that the right and left parts of the uniform never match. However, many camouflage schemes have a similar disadvantage. Our brain notices some kind of anomaly on the right side of the chest, and if he sees a very similar picture on the left side, he will immediately compare these two facts and conclude that he sees the upper part of the human body.

The use of geometric fractals plays a huge role in creating camouflage patterns .


^{An example of a fractal landscape drawing in Google Earth .}

If, when looking at a fractal, it is not possible to evaluate its scale, then the eye cannot separate the fractal from the background environment.

Comprehensive test

The process of testing camouflage is almost as important as its creation.


^{In the eastern part of Baghdad.}

For example, in the US Army, snipers with perfect vision are used for testing. They are planted in front of a computer with a tracking system, and thousands of photographs are shown in slide show mode, which depict all kinds of landscapes with people in camouflage under test. Filming is done in all possible natural environments (from deserts to swamps) and in all possible weather conditions. The distance to the person also plays an important role, because camouflage should work well both close and at long range.

When viewing photographs, the system tests how quickly snipers manage to detect a visual anomaly in the picture - a person lying on the ground in combat conditions. In real-life situations, these milliseconds are crucial when making a decision. For most camouflages, the average sniper detection time is 8-12 seconds.

New round of development

In August 2013, a U.S. special forces detachment was withdrawn ahead of schedule from a mission in Libya because a group of terrorists stole weapons and equipment from a military truck. It would seem, where does camouflage work?

The fact is, among other things, a night-vision device capable of detecting short-wave infrared radiation ( SWIR ) with a wavelength of 1.4-3 micrometers was stolen . A device worth $ 45 thousand allows you to see people in any camouflage in the form of white figures.





As you can see, technological progress again requires a change in the approach to creating military uniforms. From the 19th century a very long way has been done so far, but soon equipping the soldiers will make it possible to nullify the enemy’s attempts to go unnoticed. Yes, there is already on sale a military uniform made of fabric that practically does not emit in the infrared spectrum. But this is a palliative decision. The next step in the development of camouflage is likely to be the emergence of “invisibility” technologies - for example, fabrics whose fibers allow the rays of light to “bend around” a hidden object. Or smart chameleon fabrics that generate a pattern depending on the current environment.


^{The concept of “smart” camouflage fabric.}

Today, such developments are a real high-tech in the field of camouflage, and therefore are carefully guarded. But there is no doubt that the synergy of technology in the relatively near future will nevertheless lead to the creation of an “invisible” camouflage. And this will make another revolution in military affairs.

Actually, we already wrote about the possibility of creating "invisible" materialon Hi-Tech Mail.Ru. Two technologies have been developed. One uses metal layers of the nanogrid, the other uses silver nanowires. The use of the developed metametals (artificial metals) allows you to change the usual distribution of light, forcing it to bypass the electromagnetic wave around the object. The reason for this behavior of light is a negative refractive index. Both materials achieve a negative refractive index by minimizing the energy lost when light passes through them.

PS We could not help but post this magnificent example of camouflage for urban conditions.



PPS The text is based on the article “ The History of Invisibility and the Future of Camouflage ” with our additions.