https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/digi ... -539d0fkqz
‘Digi camouflage’ makes tanks more difficult to see
A new type of camouflage with multiple patterns has made it 80 per cent more difficult to spot tanks compared with the “bog-standard” designs used before, trials have shown.
The army has been studying if a design called the “multi-coloured digital camouflage five” (MCDC 5) can cut detection rates for tanks in the field.
The design, which uses an array of squares that resemble scrambled pixels on a digital screen, has been shown to make it harder for trained soldiers to spot tanks, cutting detection rates to 20 per cent of what they were before.
The army has been conducting a project called “Hide, Deceive, Survive”, run by the Armoured Trials and Development Unit (ATDU). The trials have been done at the army’s tank training range in Bovington, Dorset, and have been described as a “big win” by Lieutenant Colonel Rob Page, commanding officer of the ATDU, who said that the army, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, and the Tank Museum had collaborated on the project, with some ideas sent in via social media. He told The Daily Telegraph: “Young soldiers with fresh ideas, combined with experienced instructors and professionals have attacked it in a different way.”
Major Charlie Brunskill said that confusing an enemy soldier or drone for even a few seconds could make a huge difference in active combat and said: “If I can delay that targeting cycle, that’s a win . . . Once an anti-tank team shows itself and goes through that cycle, if I can add three more seconds to that I can perhaps get a shot off first.”
Camouflage is designed to confuse the enemy’s eye, both to make a soldier or vehicle blend into their background and to make it harder to distinguish their exact shape and position. Patterns with large shapes tend to work best at long distances while smaller patterns work best at close range.
Armed forces around the world have in recent years been moving away from camouflage designs that mimic the shapes of nature to designs that look more like computer-generated or pixilated patterns, finding that they work at both long and close range and make objects harder to detect and identify.
Camouflage on tanks is largely ineffective at less than 300 metres because it would be easily visible however it is painted. At more than 1,000 metres, camouflage is largely unnecessary as even an unpainted vehicle would blend into its surroundings.
Most engagements involving tanks take place between 300 and 1,000 metres, however. The new digitally-inspired design has been devised to be most effective at this range.
Some anti-tank technology relies on artificial intelligence to identify its targets by their visual or thermal signatures. Paint schemes that use a wide range of colours from across the spectrum can fool these into thinking a tank is another type of vehicle or are in a slightly different location. Moving away from a “boring standard Nato green” can also have a psychological effect, said David Wiley, curator of the Tank Museum, adding: “Never underestimate the impact of heavy armour: what it looks like and what its presence is.”
Lieutenant Colonel Page said that the new designs had already proved popular across the army’s cavalry regiments.
He said: “This has created a buzz in the armoured community because it has shown that really low level innovation can have a massive impact.”