They question the effectiveness of World War I ship camouflage

Dec. 5 () –

World War I ships painted with a disruptive camouflage pattern to make it difficult to be identified and destroyed by submarines, They were not as effective as originally believed.

It is the conclusion of a study carried out by researchers from Aston University and Abertay University.

This was a distinctive style of pinture of contrasting patterns and colors at striking angles. The various geometric shapes, angles (and in some cases, colors) were intended to confuse enemy submariners looking through periscopes, making it difficult for them to identify the ships and confusing their calculations about the speed and direction of the target. .

The concept, which some attribute to biologist Graham Kerr and others to artist Norman Wilkinson, was developed during the First World War, when the British fleet faced the threat of German submarines. However, although test facilities for model ships were used on both sides of the Atlantic during World War I, no quantitative data was recorded at the time.

An article on this topic, titled “Disruptive Camouflage: Benefits and Problems Revealed,” appears in Royal Society Open Science.

The authors created a computer model of the ship RMS Mauretaniawhich the British government put into service as a troop ship during World War I. The team “painted” it with various achromatic disruptive camouflage designs and then presented them on computer screens at addresses 24 hours a day and asked 16 participants to indicate the direction in which they believed the ship was moving.

HORIZON EFFECT

When they reviewed feedback from participants, they found that displays that included a texture gradient in the camouflage pattern looked crooked and moved away from their actual direction, exactly as intended. However, They found that the benefit of this was largely masked by another effect they called the horizon effect or hysteresis effect.. This is the tendency for the perceived direction to be drawn parallel to the horizon regardless of camouflage.

Their analysis showed that these two effects added or subtracted perfectly, depending on the actual direction of the ship. This means that disruptive camouflage, or dazzling with distortion, would sometimes help the ship (adding a perceptual bias towards the horizon), but sometimes it could help an attacking submarine (reducing the perceptual bias towards the horizon).

Professor Tim Meese from Aston University School of Optometry said in a statement: “If you ask me ‘Did the dazzling camouflage work?’ My answer is yes, but the benefits of perceptual bias would not have been as valuable as the Allied navies of World War I would have liked.”

Dr George Lovell, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociological and Psychological Sciences at Abertay University, added: “Overall, we found that the perceptual pull towards the horizon was lower for our participants with more maritime experience. Assuming this would apply to enemy submarine captains, then this suggests that anti-glare camouflage would have been valuable, although our computer simulations of torpedo attacks showed that this would be true only for fast, distant ships.”

The research paper was published just after it was reported that The Ukrainian Navy had revealed a new coat of paint on some of its ships, which appear to have adopted dazzling camouflage. In November 2024, Ukrainian forces shared images on social media showing versions of the painting.

Professor Meese commented: “Although dazzling camouflage fell into disuse between the wars, it is notable that the Ukrainian Navy has recently shared images on social media where ships are dressed in a form of dazzling camouflage. The precise purpose of this is not clear. clear, “but one expert surmised it might offer some protection against drones.”

Dr Lovell added: “Human vision has not changed significantly since 1918, so if glare fooled it then, it will fool it now. The key question is whether targeting involves human perception and a prediction of the future location. If a weapon (a torpedo, a missile or a drone) is aimed visually by a human, then a misperception of direction could be key. If the drone uses an AI trained in natural scenes, then you could be fooled by forced perspective cues.”

The team’s study only looked at the impact of camouflage on perceptual steering bias. Glare was also thought to have other benefits, including introducing uncertainty about direction and uncertainty and biases about distance and ship class, which are important for estimating speed. Good estimates of both speed and direction are needed for successful torpedo attacks, and these and other factors await scientific investigation.