Does every army in every country have a different uniform? Or do they all wear camouflaged suits or something.
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It’s difficult!
Countries that fight each other generally will have different camouflage patterns, but not always. (Especially for vehicles, it seems, for some reason.) That’s one reason you see Ukrainian soldiers wearing yellow armbands and Russian vehicles with Zs painted on them.
But hiding is really important in war. If you can see someone well enough to go “that’s enemy camouflage!” the camouflage isn’t doing its job well. So you can’t always tell by sight. Often soldiers will be shooting at other people they can barely see – or might want to shoot, just as long as they can be sure they’re not friendly.
One way to help with this is the simple (in theory) practice of knowing where your guys are and what they’re doing. If you’re launching an attack, know that the rough plan is for this squad to move here, that squad to move there. To know that there are survivors of a friendly unit in this area, but everyone has been pulled back from that area.
A good “command, control and communications” system will keep your side up-to-date. Your squad manages to rush on ahead, you radio in to tell your platoon HQ, and they tell others.
A simple principle, but very hard to manage in practice.
Aircraft also have “identification, friend or foe” systems, since they’re often shot at without being seen. These lets a friendly aircraft or ground system ping them and check if they respond with a ‘friendly’ code. I’m not sure if any other vehicles have incorporated these; I don’t think so.
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