In a message dated 8/2/2000 10:23:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time, romeug_at_erols.com writes: << believe that this camouflage did not actually 'mask' the vessel but actually made it difficult to determine where the sensitive or weaker parts of the ships were located to deter an accurate aim. >> Haven't hear that one, but I really doubt it. Remember, this was not the Gulf War with computer guidance imagery (and even there the miss ratio was much higher than the public was originally lead to believe). The submariners of WWI and II had a hard enough time manuevering to get into position. They were lucky to get a decent shot off, much less try to "aim" for a vulnerable area of the ship. The dazzle paint scheme was developed in WWI, but put to very good use in WWII as just about the only defense against U-boats (until long range escort planes came into service later in the war, after which, the U-boat threat was virtually neutralized). Because there was no way to "mask" the ships like with traditional camouflage techniques, dazzle paint was developed as a way of fooling the visual sensory processes through breaking up solid images and playing with depth perception. From a distance the solid image of the ship would blend into the background of the sea. Here is a link with examples: http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~drmiles/camouflage.html The starboard view at the bottom of the page is a good example of how dazzle paint plays with our perception of depth. Robb *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Aug 02 2000 - 20:45:18 PDT
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