UCP-Delta pattern in Kandahar province, Afghanistan
Defense Tech has the first exclusive look at the Universal Camouflage Pattern — Delta being worn by US Army personnel in the field in Afghanistan.
Also check by at Soldier Systems for additional pictures, including the MultiCam competitor in the field trials.
MultiCam in Kunar province, Afghanistan
Finnish M-05 snow camo on Strike-Hold!
Over at Strike-Hold!, Lawrence has been as busy as Santa’s elves collating a wish-list of currently available (although how available might depend on who you are!) snow camouflage. Have you written your letter to QM Claus yet? If not, check it out!
Over on Strike-Hold!, Lawrence has put together a bunch of photo’s showing how Bulldog’s Mirage camouflage compares to MultiCam and the US Army’s Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP). The States are re-evaluating their ground-troops’ camo uniform in the light of a less-than-satisfactory performance from their grey* toned UCP in Afghanistan. It’s expected that Crye’s MultiCam will participate in the contest, and maybe some other recently developed patterns will be in the running too. Lawrence’s photo shoot gives some idea of how these likely contenders appear side-by-side in the same light and environmental conditions.
Mirage, MultiCam, UCP side by side
*UCP’s colours are officially Desert Sand, Urban Gray and Foliage Green. To all intents and purposes that’s cream, light steel grey and medium slate grey.
Those wacky bureaucrats at the Chinese Ministry of Defence! I don’t know, not satisfied with hollowing out islands in the South China Sea to build secret Thunderbird naval bases, or reverse engineering several different jet plane technologies to make one cut-and-shut that doesn’t quite work, they’ve decided to stretch the remit of the PLA (Peoples Liberation Army) to encompass entertainment for bored dignitaries. The PLA have been training hard to perfect a number of choreographed song and dance routines, executed in colourful costumes. Here they are singing their version of The Weathermen’s It’s Raining Men, in a subtle little clouds-and-sky patterned camouflage. Sweet.
Chinese PLA soldiers wearing cloud-patterned camouflage
So, what would you do with two and a quarter million troops, a growing defence budget and no enemies? Party, of course!
Thanks to T. Zeng and ICUS for the tip.
A MASTER of disguise has been uncovered living in Australian waters.
Photo: Dr Karen Cheney
The blue-striped fangblenny is the first fish found to be able to change its colour at will to mimic a variety of other fish.Its repertoire of colour changes includes olive, orange, and black and electric blue, and it appears to use colour vision to achieve its incognito exploits, new research shows.
University of Queensland biologist, Karen Cheney, said that her examination of the little fish’s eyes showed they should be able to detect different hues. They also have a habit of curling their tail around to touch their head, so they can see their body. “It is possible that fangblennies can view some of their own colouration,” Dr Cheney said.
The only other creature known to be able to imitate other species is the mimic octopus, which alters its colour and shape to resemble lionfish, flatfish and sea snakes.
Dr Cheney and her colleagues had studied the habits of fangblennies on coral reefs in Australia and Indonesia. Their results are published in the journal Proceedings Of The Royal Society.
For food, fangblennies dart out and attack larger reef fish, nipping off tiny pieces of their fins, scales or mucus.
In olive mode they tend to hang out in shoals of similarly coloured damselfish, and in orange mode they mingle with yellow anthias.
“Their repertoire of disguises appears to prevent, or reduce detection by potential victims,” Dr Cheney said. “They may also escape from predators by hiding in a large shoal.”
Their most striking talent is to impersonate black-and-blue juvenile cleaner wrasse – fish that provide a cleaning service for other reef fish by picking parasites off their backs.
The researchers were surprised the fangblennies did not attack reef fish that came to have their parasites removed.
Dr Cheney said this probably helped maintain good relations with cleaner wrasse.
“Otherwise the cleaner fish could get aggressive and chase them away.”
She has found that when the fangblennies are removed from a shoal they can revert to what appears to be their default colour, brown, within a few minutes. Brown ones tended to hide away in holes in the reef, Dr Cheney said.
March 3, 2009
Boa Constrictor
Here’s a great BBC slideshow for fans of animal camo, with a voice-over provided by Professor Innes Cuthill from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol.
“Appearance, it seems, is key to survival in the animal kingdom – with some species able to blend in perfectly with their surroundings, while others behave quite the contrary.”
Images may be subject to BBC copyright.
It’s been a while since I put up any pictures of camouflage in nature, so it is fortunate that the Scienceray web magazine has just published an article by Chan Lee Peng on that very subject.
I particularly like this photo of some ibex against a rock strewn mountain side, demonstrating both the effectiveness of their khaki coloured, countershaded bodies at blending, and the magical way that their black-and-white striped legs can break up and disappear against a ‘noisy’ background.
More fantastic pictures of leaf mimics and disruptively patterned creatures here.
I love Dark Roasted Blend. I could (and do) spend hours wandering and wondering through their vast archives of the bizarre, banal and sublime.
One particular entry, though has some crossover relevance to this blog – it’s all about the weird and wonderful dazzle camouflage designs painted on merchant and military ships during the World Wars, which provided effective deception against optical range-finding and target tracking, until seaborne radar was adopted.
Saw this on Soldier Systems and just had to share it with you: If you already have some camouflaged toilet paper, but need to remain tactical when travelling to and from the bathroom, these bathrobes (dressing-gowns in the UK) manufactured in Multicam fabric should do the job. Multicam is designed to be effective in many environments, which maybe even includes the bedroom or bathroom, who knows?
They are made by Wilderness Tactical Products and come in short or long flavours, as shown.
I’m offering a prize for the best caption to this pic (photo courtesy of Wilderness Tactical Products) – post your suggestions in the comments box.
Buck Denton has some great photos of camouflaged critters over at his Can You See Me blog. I’ve already highlighted the effectiveness of the flounder’s colouration on my own page about the science behind PenCott™, but these pics below show the versatility of the animal’s chameleon-like colour changing ability.
Stone Flounder
Have a look on his site and see if you can spot all 15 sparrows on the ground in one of the photos.
