A dazzling misdirection? Researchers suggest that WWI dazzle camouflage was not as well-understood as it might have been
Researchers from Aston University and Abertay University have found that World War One dazzle ships - vessels painted in a type of camouflage pattern to make it difficult for enemies to identify and destroy - weren’t as effective as originally thought.
The ships were named after the distinctive paint style of contrasting patterns and colours at striking angles. The various geometric shapes, angles and, in some cases, colours were intended to confuse enemy submariners peering through periscopes, making it hard for them to identify ships and confuse their calculations about the target's speed and direction.
The concept, which has been credited by some to the biologist Graham Kerr and by others to the artist Norman Wilkinson, was developed during the First World War when the British fleet was facing the threat of German U-boats. However, although test facilities for model ships were used on both sides of the Atlantic during World War One, no quantitative data were recorded at that time.
The article, ‘Dazzle camouflage: Benefits and problems revealed', has just been published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. The authors created a computer model of the ship, RMS Mauretania, which was put into service as a troop ship by the British government during the First World War. The team 'painted' her in various achromatic dazzle camouflage designs and then presented these on computer displays at directions around the clock and asked 16 participants to indicate the direction in which they thought the ship was travelling.
