"Best 'general use' camoflage scheme?" Topic

Hello,
I'm working on a sci-fi scout vehicle that I want to use for a couple situations- urban, light ruins, light woods.

I was wondering if anyone has a favorite 'one size fits all' camo scheme, historical or fictional.

Thanks!

For Sci Fi this has been one of the schemes that I always thought fit the genre'

As to Historical I have always liked the German "Ambush" pattern,

Robert

I like the "ambush" pattern as a general-purpose camo scheme – its what I use for my 40K tanks

The white-black-grey "Berlin Brigade" camo scheme is great but pretty much purpose-done for urban combat

I love dazzle patterns for just about anything, particularly the WWI/WWII naval style with slanty jaggedy color bars. Change color sets as needed and you've got most bases covered. I'm also very fond of the flecktarn patterns, especially for infantry.

Doug

Multicam(tm) works obscenely well across most of the world. It needs some green in the environment, but as long as you have some, the wearer is nearly invisible from less than 50 yards away.

The Brits have decided on Multicam for all their organizational equipment (packs, body armor, etc), with a more-green and a more-brown variant of the pattern for the uniforms themselves.

The 'dazzle' patterns are my preference for vehicles, as well. Use something like Vallejo Stone Grey and Bronze Green for the light and the dark tone, and you can use almost anything for the mid-tone.

Thanks for those photos Robert – been trying to find some again for a while of that urban scheme.

Chris

Thanks all, interesting stuff. The urban camo in the tank pic Robert posted appears pretty effective, at least in that situation (middle pic).

Multicam appears to be pretty versatile- I may keep that in mind for ground pounders but I'm not sure that will work on my scout car. A three-tone angular pattern is probably the way to go.

Thanks again!

There's an excellent book by Tankograd Publishing on AFVs of the Berlin Infantry Brigade, which includes full painting schemes.

BTW, the colours were brown, grey and white.

Here are some more Berlin Brigade vehicles, found at link

Another angle on it…. assume multiple layers of scanners and advanced targeting sights, maybe there would be no point to camo? Just a plain, drab, light tone… tan, grey, whatever, so as not to jump out at any Mk 1 Eyeballs looking your way.

Chalfant

I'm going to be doing some of my lower-tech sci-fi vehicles in camo schemes, but for those where active camo becomes a possibility, I'm also thinking of painting them in their "dress colours", which will be more colourful (and fun to paint). They may stand out on the gaming table, but if I paint them in multicam and they're fighting on the purple sands of Tantos XI, they'll stand out anyway.

All of the above schemes have merits and make for good inspiration when painting SF models. I'm also particularly fond of the concept behind differential camo, where one splits a soldier top and bottom into dark jacket over light trousers.

The way this works is that the lower body is darker, so you make it light, while the upper body has more light on it, so you make it darker.

You'll have seen it lot where British troops were wearing a green DPM jacket with desert trousers. It really breaks up the body's shape.

Same principle with some face camo schemes. The areas of the face, where light traditionally strikes are darkened (nose forehead chin, cheekbones etc) the areas normally in shadow are lightened, (eye sockets hollows of cheeks etc). This dehumanisation supposedly makes it harder to discern the traditional human face, an ability hard wired into our hind brain.

I read that multicam schemes are great when stationary, but moving a uniform colour scheme is better. So a sci-fi vehicle might have a stationary scheme and a moving scheme.

<Another angle on it…. assume multiple layers of scanners and advanced targeting sights, maybe there would be no point to camo? >

Interesting point. If optical sighting effectively becomes obsolete for whatever reason, there is no reason why soldiers wouldn't give their wagons personalized paint jobs, Flying Circus style.

Just write some fluff that xyz technology detects the vehicle by any means other than seeing it visually and you can have platoons of tanks with Hot Rod flaming paint jobs, or with airbrushed babes on the side, panel van style.

Multicam is for people who don't understand camo.

Like this boob: "Afghanistan is primarily brown, and there's no brown in the universal pattern," said one Army officer.

So is Afghanistan brown or green? Or grey or red? And are you talking about those colors in the morning, the mid-day sun, in shade, or overcast?

link

Guess what? It's a lot of colors – usually within the same 20 meter square area.

UCP was designed for an army that could find itself fighting anywhere in the world at a moments notice – without time for specialized camo – which as you can see doesn't work any better anyway.

All you are doing by jumping on the Multicam bandwagon is helping the News Media perpetuate the myth of the wasteful and incompetent military industrial complex. And, of course, their agenda is nothing more than castrating the military completely.

So wear your Multicam. If I were your squad leader I'd put you in the lead to draw fire.

Beg pardon? UCP – that green-tan-gray stuff in the ACU? The stuff that doesn't blend *anywhere*, and tends to make troops more visible?

If it worked as advertised, the military wouldn't be retiring that pattern.

I'm not talking about what Multicam's advertising wonks claim, I'm talking about what I see (or don't see, more precisely) when I'm out in the field. Multicam works in a really large number of environments. If you replace one of the browns with another green, it works better in the woods, but it still works well. If you replace one of the greens with another brown, it works better in the desert. But even the standard mix works reasonably well in sandy deserts, rocky deserts like Afghanistan or the western US, and even in Europe (at least during the summer and fall, it's not green enough in the spring).

There are two 'theories' for making working camouflage. One is shapes. That's what the Berlin Brigade, naval dazzle, and various digital patterns all rely on.

The other theory is color. That's what the German ambush and Multicam patterns use.

Paint it Pink,

One very interesting variation I've seen used in the winter by Canadians, Norwegians and British Royal Marines was to wear white overtrousers with dark OD/DPM jacket. It works brilliantly for patrolling in snowy woodland, where the legs blend with the snowy forest floor and the upper half blends with the dark background. Not so good on open snowfields though!

This is a great demonstration of the Berlin camo:

Unfortunately in most cases camo isn't "one size fits all". As pointed out with the US Army ACU, which is being replaced. R Mark makes good points in his last two posts. And I do remember, in the desert, within a few days of maneuvering, everything was covered in gritty dust … helped things blend in a little better …

Keep one thing in mind. The colors in the pattern have to contrast with each other. Otherwise, you might as well paint it black.

That sounds like a good song title….

I see a line of tanks and they're all painted in grey, brown and white squares…

It doesn't really scan… :o)

As I recall, test show that solid dull colors work the best in the most situations.
Dull green, or dull grey being the best.

But dull is…well, dull. So paint them however you like.

Never understood the argument that advanced sensors will make camo obsolete.

We have more advanced sensors than they did in WW2 and way more than Napoleon's French had. Guess who has the most camo? Us, now.

This is not because simple optical camo works better against advanced sensors, true. The fact is that not everyone has advanced optical sensors… what if the advanced optical sensor is knocked out by enemy fire? Gotta use them eyeballs, then. Now, if I've just successfully blinded the enemy, do I want to be wearing bright red and yellow or do I want to be wearing camouflage? Camouflage, thanks. Even if the enemy's sensors are working, no reason to not be careful…. the eyeball might see me before the sensor if I'm too obvious, anyway!

That said, paint whatever you want.

Also there are "hard" reasons to not wear camo… peace keeping forces, PMCs, boarding forces (space ships are such tight corners/weird colors that its probably best to be able to identify your troops quickly than to try to use traditional camouflage…. blue and white may be camouflage on a space ship anyway)… improvised troops… whatever. My own military troops are:
1) Camo
2) Somewhat camouflagey uniforms (browncoats, grey uniformed Alliance troops, grey hardsuits, etc)
3) peacekeeping uniforms/space ships' troops/similar… Alliance in purple belly uniforms, Mass Effect troops (though these are mostly greyish so most of them are actually pretty camouflagey… as seen in the game where many of the uniforms, or at least alternate uniforms, actually blend in pretty well, including some actual camo suits).

Non-military, para-military, etc, are painted in whatever looks cool.

I'd go multicam or multicam inspired OR a medium-dark grey OR light-medium brown for all purpose camouflage.

I agree … not every one on the battlefield will have or has advance sensors … I'm pretty sure very, very, very few, if any, Iraqis, Al Quada, Taliban, Somali, etc. have'm …

I usually paint my "WWII and "Moderns" in the patterns that were/are used. For Sci-Fi I like to use my imagination with whatever catches my eye rather then what I think would really be useful as camouflage . Robert

Kaos-- thats a good point. I paint mostly camo on my military types because I think it looks cool on military gear. I also think other schemes are cool but in more particular situations (even if its on the same model). The terrain/scenarios you use them in is important too, is what I'm getting at.

Some very interesting camo there !!!

I thought so too Legion 4 Robert

Dual-Tex scheme

link

And some nice ones here,
link

Oktoberfest/Mardi Gras camo?

Well its said that it is an Indian pattern. I haven't found anything else about it though . Robert