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08-09-2016, 05:07 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: USA, Arizona, Mesa
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[High-Tech] Basic Camouflage, optimal terrain, and real-world patterns (OCP)
Page 77 of High-Tech defines Basic Camouflage as giving +2 (quality) to Camouflage in “appropriate” terrain, -1 in “other” terrain, and -2 in “contrasting” terrain. It further defines “most recent military camouflage” as being Basic Camouflage, including the Canadian CADPAT, USMC's MARPAT, and presumably the US Army's new (post-publication) Operational Camouflage Pattern.
For things like MARPAT and CADPAT, they come in discrete defined variants: desert/arid, woodland, arctic, urban. No trouble defining where they are and aren't effective. OCP, the related pattern MultiCam, and various other recent developments, however, are meant to be multi-terrain — and trials with OCP, at least, bear out that it is no less effective than simple OD or feldgrau in terrains that aren't extremely contrasting. Should there be a new category of camouflage patterns between (or rather, adjacent) to Basic and Advanced, offering better broad performance? Or are these new patterns something more like a TL9 version of Basic Camouflage (which Ultra-Tech is woefully disregarding of, assuming that everyone will move on to electronics: at least programmable camouflage if not chameleon or invisibility surfaces)? |
08-09-2016, 05:12 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [High-Tech] Basic Camouflage, optimal terrain, and real-world patterns (OCP)
If the experiments honestly reflect capabilities, I'd guess that OCP gives +2 in terrains it is rated for, however many types that is, +1 outside of that and maybe -1 in terrain that is extremely contrasting.
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08-09-2016, 05:20 AM | #3 | |
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: USA, Arizona, Mesa
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Re: [High-Tech] Basic Camouflage, optimal terrain, and real-world patterns (OCP)
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A hybrid between the two might be reasonable; call it +2 in woodland and desert, and a +1 in everything else except arctic, which is -2? |
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08-09-2016, 05:29 AM | #4 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [High-Tech] Basic Camouflage, optimal terrain, and real-world patterns (OCP)
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I note that khaki, olive drab or feldgrau get +1 that apparently applies everywhere. As written, even in arctic terrain. I'm a bit leery to say that wearing the best multi-terrain camouflage is -2 relative to wearing regular clothes and -3 relative to wearing WWII OD wool, in at least one kind of terrain. Doesn't seem very multi-terrain to me. On the other hand, I don't know much of anything about these new types of camo and how much they are real improvements and how much they are simply marketing speak.
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08-09-2016, 05:58 AM | #5 | |
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: USA, Arizona, Mesa
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Re: [High-Tech] Basic Camouflage, optimal terrain, and real-world patterns (OCP)
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Low-Tech gives simple “coloured clothing” (e.g., the Lincoln green famed by outlaws of lore) a +1 (quality) against appropriate backgrounds, and also specifies that bright and contrasting colours can instead give a -1 to -3 (quality) penalty. This seems to me like a much-clarified/more realistic version of the “simple camouflage” in High-Tech. Low-Tech also specifies that a “hunting shirt”, baggy and blotchy, with fringe and cord and loops to break up the silhouette (and attach bits of terrain in the fashion of a ghille suit) gives a +1 (quality). Given those, I might rewrite camouflage modifiers as follows:
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08-09-2016, 06:14 AM | #6 | |
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: USA, Arizona, Mesa
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Re: [High-Tech] Basic Camouflage, optimal terrain, and real-world patterns (OCP)
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08-09-2016, 07:20 AM | #7 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: [High-Tech] Basic Camouflage, optimal terrain, and real-world patterns (OCP)
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08-10-2016, 02:05 AM | #8 |
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: USA, Arizona, Mesa
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Re: [High-Tech] Basic Camouflage, optimal terrain, and real-world patterns (OCP)
I was doing some more research on this subject, and I found an (highly exaggerated, but) hilarious object lesson on why pattern is just as important as colour.
Consider:
I never realised Sam Axe was such a master of concealment! |
08-10-2016, 06:53 AM | #9 |
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: The Land of Enchantment
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Re: [High-Tech] Basic Camouflage, optimal terrain, and real-world patterns (OCP)
The guy who developed the US4CES camo pattern has a six-part series of web articles on cam effectiveness, including an in-depth treatment of camo patterns as seen under night vision goggles at the end. (It also explains some of the differences between the Army's new "scorpion" pattern and Multicam.) He's a little bitter that he didn't win the recent contract, so take what he says with a tiny pinch of salt, but it's a decent discussion. You can't believe everything he says because he engages in the classic cherry-pick of pasting camo patterns on a picture of vegetation at just the right resolution to make MARPAT look good, but otherwise a decent treatment of camo development and effectiveness, or at least how to think about it. Under his "Why not just use MARPAT" discussion he neglects to give the real reason- that the USMC cried and took their ball home because they insist upon having their own special camo pattern. Children.
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I'd need to get a grant and go shoot a thousand goats to figure it out. Last edited by acrosome; 08-10-2016 at 07:00 AM. |
08-10-2016, 10:22 AM | #10 |
Join Date: Oct 2004
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Re: [High-Tech] Basic Camouflage, optimal terrain, and real-world patterns (OCP)
It's assumed that simple works in appropriate terrain, which is what the paragraph above it implies. The major distinction between simple and basic is the existence of a pattern. It makes sense to treat advanced as basic in similar terrains, but the special bonus of advanced should really be only for a very specific locale. In any event, the distinction with all camouflage is determining "terrain," and that's a very amorphous definition which even the US DOD seems to fail to get right.
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camouflage, high-tech |
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