WW1 Camouflage

[Kurttis Thomas]

the ship camo hurts my head.

[Wustenfuchs]

While there's no color photographs, or surviving examples, to illustrate the ship colors there are written descriptions as well as drawings and artwork.

Photograph:


Drawing:

[Kurttis Thomas]

I always thought they were just black and white. because of the sky and the water.

[Wustenfuchs]

Originally Posted by Kurttis Thomas

I always thought they were just black and white. because of the sky and the water.

Light colors match the sky well and dark colors match the sea. But in the open ocean a ship may be up on a swell one moment and down in a trough the next making the light color stand out against the dark and the dark colors stand out against the sky. I'm not sure why they decided on bright colors to make up for this, unless perhaps at a distance the colorful camouflage tended to blur into either background.

There's no way to really know if the color made any difference. By WW2 the color was dropped and ship camo did become shades of light and dark.

[Wustenfuchs]

Even passenger liners took on the new camouflage.

Photo HMS Mauritania:


Artist's version of the Mauritania (a colorized photo?):

[cyberia]

This is a very good thread idea and a lot of great info.

Kudos, Bill.

[Wustenfuchs]

Another "colorflage" ship:

[Wustenfuchs]

A WW1 German field gun in original colors:

[Brett]

While not strickly Camouflage, I heard a German sea raider was painted
white on one side & black on the other.

I believe it was escaping a battle around the Falklands showing white
(early 1915?), hotly pursued by the enemy. It ducked into a rain squall & reversed course. When the enemy saw a black ship it asked if they had
seen a white ship.

The Germans answered they did, sailing on their original course & made
there getaway when the enemy tore off after the phantom white ship!

[Wustenfuchs]

This photograph gives a good example of how, even at this close range, "Dazzle" camo breaks up the outline of a ship. While it doesn't hide the ship it does confuse things, especially at the range a U Boat would be stalking.