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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Camo is supposed to make you look ‘wierd’ so that you aren’t instantly recognizable as a human.
Also at least for the US we never adopted ‘urban’ camo – the grey uniforms were supposed to be ‘universal’ but didn’t entirely work out that way…
The green ones we use now are also supposed to be universal (Multicam) but still aren’t-quite…
None of it does a damn thing if the people looking for you have thermals though…
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.
Other comments have explained it pretty good, but to sum it up: Camo isn’t supposed to make you look “invisible”; it’s supposed to “disrupt” your shape, so it’s harder to tell where the scenery ends and the person begins, making the person a much harder target to aim at from any distance.
Excellent example of urban camoflage [in this link](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/q3x4vu/soldiers_blending_in_during_a_counterterrorism/). Let me know how long it took for you to spot the 2nd soldier.
You could argue that wearing military fatigues is counterinituitive in an urban environment, but that’s entirely missing the point.
To go back to the example and to explain, the human mind is amazing at identifying patterns – even when none exists.
Once such pattern are faces – 2 eyes, a nose and a mouth. =^)
The reason you did not spot the soldiers immediately is because your mind was not able to complete the pattern fast enough.
Similarly, another pattern that the human mind is amazing at recognising is a human body – arms, legs, torso and head. o+<
Camoflage works by distorting patterns such that your mind essentially glazes over the infomation and disregards it. Now imagine you’re a soldier who turned the corner into the 2 soldiers waiitng to ambush you.
Of course, there are camoflage that works to completely turn you invisible (e.g. ghillie suit), but that usually serves another purpose.
Urban camo is “disruptive”, meaning it breaks up the outline of the figure making it harder to recognize. The older style is “blending”(pretty sure thats not the official term) making the colors/patterns ON a figure harder to spot, mostly works in forests etc. Because theres already plenty of thing around to block parts of a figure. If you want a real head trip look up “razzle dazzle” camo from ships in WW1 (that one is the official military term)
Cammo patterns don’t make you hard to spot by matching you to the environment as much as they make you hard to spot by breaking up your silhouette.
We’re very good at spotting human shapes, but it gets a lot harder when that shape is “contaminated” with a bunch of chaotic shapes or high contrast patterns.
Look up Disruptive patterning. You’d be surprised at how omnipresent it is in nature.
If you look at some of Ukraine urban combat footage, you will see the cities are mostly blown to pieces with lots of dust and debris. While original buildings might have been of various colors, the debris is mostly shadows if gray and brown from mud. Thats why it works. It wont realy work in undestroyed town
Camo patterns aren’t intended to make you “invisible”. Even the best camo can be seen in its intended environment if you’re actively looking for it.
Camo is intended to make things less noticeable at a glance by breaking up the lines and patterns that would otherwise be noticed as “out of place”.
So urban camo relies on colors that mimic urban backdrops and utilize hard edges and corners to blend in with man-made buildings and infrastructure.
Again, it’s not intended to make people or things “invisible” it’s merely intended to keep people and things from clearly standing out against the background.
In many urban areas, darker tones can be more common, especially in places with concrete and asphalt.
It’s not going to make you invisible for an observer ten feet away, but it’s going to make you a lot harder to pick out by a spotter/sniper a few hundred yards away.
In somewhere like Gaza the pallet is going to be whites, beiges, and greys.
In somewhere wet like Ukraine it’s going to be whites, greys, and darker tones that mimic shadow/soil.
Against a modern skyscraper the contrast is sharp. Cover everything in a layer of building dust and some rubble and it works a lot better.
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