ART OF "CAMOUFLAGE."

Taihape Daily Times, 27 October 1917, Page 2

ART OF "CAMOUFLAGE."

AVOIDING SENSATION DECEIVING SUBMARINES. The advent of aeroplane observation in war, allied with long-range and accurately-laid guns, has given rise to a new military art, generally known by its French name of camouflage. The work consists in so colouring or adding to objects as to make

them blend with their surroudings and escape observation. The art has become highly developed. There are two branches, invisibility and imitation. A supply-train may look like a row of cottages, that is imitation. A screen tops a great gun so that the green of the screen blends with the grass of the meadow; that is invisibility > There is a third offshoot—the art of making compelling replicas of camps, guns, piles of supplies trenches, ammunition depots, and the like, which are not bona fide at all, but the airman thinks they are, and wastes his bombs and en-

ergy attacking nothing worth while. Such is the great game of deception. The French, grasping the idea of the zebra's stripes and the leopard's spots ; paint their tents in maplike shapes of strong green and bright yellow. At short distances the objects so painted are completely swallowed up in the landscape. Other things are concealed with chickenwire screens woven with reeds.

Some great feats of camouflage have been achieved in the past few months by the clever French camouflers. At one time the German positions commanded a railway track far into the distance behind the French lines. That whole track signals, rails, and ties, and the trees that fenced in the line and the hills on the horizon, were all painted on a wide screen and set up in t-he night across a village street which was needed The enemy never found out the trick.

Camouflage is not confined to land campaigns. It is practised on the high seas, where at first thought it would not appear that Nature offered any characteristics that could be duplicated by the art of man. At present the camouflaging of steamers has advanced little beyond the deceptive coat-of-paint stage, but even this is said to be most effective. Of the many methods either tried out .or suggested, two are most promising, namely the Brush system and the Mackay system. In the former the camouflage artist paints out all shadows and softens or destroys all outlines, and the entire superstructure is painted a sky-blue or some other colour which blends with the horizon. In this manner, if the work is carried out with consummate skill and patience, the vessel is indistinct even a short distance away, especially if the submarine commander is making his observations through a periscope. In the or Mackay, system the canlouflage takes the form of a leopard-spct design, so that all outlines are broken up by the blotchy coat of paint, and parts of the vessel are even painted with wavy lines so as to match with the surrounding water_ Clever feats of camouflage enable vessels to appear much shorter than they are, tending to deceive the submarine marksman to a greater or lesser degree. In the same class is the painting of bow waves, which give the vessel the appearance ,of travelling along at a n *g n ra te of