I understand that a camouflage uniform could work for someone hidden in a forest as its patterns help you blend in.
but, how the black and grey “urban camouflage” pattern make soldiers harder to find in an urban setting? I don’t see how that helps you blend in with the walls of buildings
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Depends on what you’re thinking of as urban camouflage. There was a proposed U.S. military pattern that looked like the old woodland camouflage pattern that used white gray and black. But it turns out the world isn’t patterned like a black and white photograph. There was a grayish pixelated pattern that worked fairly well because it blended in with the grainy night vision technology of the era.
Some police swat teams use a modern pixelated or digital black, white and gray pattern not necessarily to conceal their position, but to emphasize they are not regular patrol officers but a “special force.” The army urban combat pattern attempted to make a pattern that concealed their position in, it didn’t work so well.
The big problem camouflage is how the human eye sees things. We see movement and shapes very well. Even from the corner of your eye you’ll see something move. Second, we see shapes especially faces very well, even on things that aren’t even alive. That’s why we can see the man on the moon, the lady on the side of a mountain, and so on. Camo has to conceal that both in the nearby and from a distance. It’s not so much hide entirely, although that’s highly desirable, generally it’s to break up the pattern. For example, this photo was taken close to the models, but you can see how from a bit of a distance where the body begins, and ends would be difficult to make out. https://imgur.com/a/O50RlGh
From a distance the pattern tends to blend together so we see an outline of a monotone-colored person agaisnt a multicolored background. A good modern example would be the battle in Fallujah, heavy urban fighting. Ambushes from people hiding in buildings nearby and snipers from a distance. Ignoring the old [woodland camo vests](https://mwi.westpoint.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/4813874-1200×640.jpg), you can see how the outline of the body is not as easy to see against the building.
The problem for the military is that they need “universal” patterns which isn’t easy. Modern hunter camo is often much better because it’s usually designed to be effective for a certain environment and season. Like deer hunting in the early fall in north american forests. Duck hunting in mid fall-early winter near wetlands and farmland or pastures. Geese in snowy fields. Etc. In my lifetime, the US Military has conducted operations in Grenada (tropical and suburban), Panama (tropical and urban), Kosovo/Bosnia (European farm/forest/suburban) and Iraq/Kuwait (mostly desert), Somalia again mostly desert and some suburban, Iraq/Afghanistan a lot of urban and rural combat. Afganistan had a lot of mountain terrain with very cold winters and fairly warm summers in the major cities.
It’s really difficult to make a pattern that conceals a person or at least makes it difficult to see them or exactly point where their body ends and where the background begins in one specific situation. It’s very difficult to do that universally. Should we fight in a place like China or Europe again, the patterns we’ve used the past 20 years will probably not be very effective again.
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