![]() Rangefinders were based on the coincidence principle with an optical mechanism, operated by a human to compute the range. An observer would find it difficult to know exactly whether the stern or the bow was in view and it would be equally difficult to estimate whether the observed vessel was moving towards or away from the observer's position. Its purpose was confusion rather than concealment. The idea was to disrupt the visual rangefinders used for naval artillery. While dazzle did not conceal a ship, it made it difficult for the enemy to estimate its type, size, speed, and heading. a giraffe or zebra or jaguar looks extraordinarily conspicuous in a museum but in nature, especially when moving, is wonderfully difficult to pick up." John Graham Kerr, who first applied the principle to British warships in WW I, outlined the principle in a letter to Winston Churchill in 1914 explaining that disruptive camouflage sought to confuse, not to conceal, "It is essential to break up the regularity of outline and this can be easily effected by strongly contrasting shades. The vorticist artist Edward Wadsworth, who supervised the camouflaging of over 2,000 ships during the First World War, painted a series of canvases of dazzle ships after the war, based on his wartime work.įurther information: Camouflage: dazzle patterningĪt first glance, dazzle seems an unlikely form of camouflage, drawing attention to the ship rather than hiding it, but this technique was developed after Allied navies were unable to develop effective means to disguise ships in all weathers. ![]() So many factors were involved that it was impossible to determine which were important, and whether any of the colour schemes were effective.ĭazzle attracted the notice of artists, with Picasso notably claiming cubists had invented it. The result was that a profusion of dazzle schemes was tried, and the evidence for their success was at best mixed. Each ship's dazzle pattern was unique to avoid making classes of ships instantly recognisable to the enemy. Norman Wilkinson explained in 1919 that dazzle was intended more to mislead the enemy as to the correct position to take up than actually to miss his shot when firing.ĭazzle was adopted by the British Admiralty and the U.S. Unlike some other forms of camouflage, dazzle works not by offering concealment but by making it difficult to estimate a target's range, speed and heading. Credited to artist Norman Wilkinson, it consisted of complex patterns of geometric shapes in contrasting colours, interrupting and intersecting each other. For now this is only a hypothesis.USS West Mahomet in dazzle camouflage, 1918ĭazzle camouflage, also known as razzle dazzle or dazzle painting, was a family of ship camouflage used extensively in World War I and to a lesser extent in World War II. Such mixed-species herds offer more protection against predators. ![]() The message may not be for other zebras: in 2017, researchers suggested that the stripes signal to other grazing animals, encouraging them to graze alongside the zebras. There is also the simple possibility that the stripes are a signal. A 2014 study, based on computer modelling of how moving zebras would appear to a predator, suggested that the stripes would be extremely confusing. But this was based on tracking humans playing a computer game. A 2016 study suggested that the dazzle effect only really works if the stripes are parallel to the animal’s direction of travel, implying that zebra stripes don’t work this way. Think about the experience of watching a herd of zebras all dashing in different directions, and imagine trying to pick out one of them to bring down. But the stripes could create “ dazzle camouflage”: overwhelming the predator’s visual system and making it hard to track the zebra’s movement. One which at first seems ridiculous is that the stripes are a form of camouflage. But other ideas seem to have more to them. Some ideas don’t seem to stand up, notably the suggestion that the stripes help zebras cool down on hot days – if that were true, we would expect a lot more tropical animals to be stripy. The hypothesis backed by a lot of evidence, but does that mean it’s the only reason for a zebra’s stripes? Not necessarily. The implication is that the stripes were having a real effect. Putting striped coats on the horses’ bodies meant the horseflies landed there less often – but still landed on their heads, which were uncovered. Horseflies circled round both, but they landed on horses significantly more often. A team led by Tim Caro of the University of California, Davis tracked captive zebras and horses at a site in England.
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