Dazzle Camouflage House Paint

WW1 ship camouflage motifs (1919)

Above Ship camouflage patterns from Robert G. Skerrett, "How We Put It Over on the Periscope" in The Rudder, Vol 35 Nos 3 and 4 (March and April 1919), pp. 97-102, as reprinted in SHIP SHAPE: A Dazzle Camouflage Sourcebook (2011). When initially published, it included the following caption:  

Patterns designed to produce interrupted margins and to blur outlines so that the periscopic observer would find it difficult if not impossible to keep his cross hairs upon any feature of the ship long enough to obtain an accurate measurement for the determination of the target craft's speed or range.

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Anon, ZIG-ZAG PAINTING MAY BE ANSWER in the Spokane Daily Chronicle (Washington), June 20, 1949—

NEW YORK, June 20 (AP)—Herman Rodenberger, 75, thinks maybe this paint job will last.

Many times Rodenberger has tried to paint his home in Brooklyn. Each time he's failed. His house is a favorite for ball-bouncing games played by kids in the neighborhood.

Each time Rodenberger slapped on a new coat of paint—wham! The boys gathered round and bounced balls off the walls, ruining the paint job.

But this time it's different. Rodenberger had a painter do a "dazzle job" on the house—"just like camouflage" with all sorts of irregular black designs on white paint. Now the kids can't see the ball coming back at them.

"Look," one of them told a reporter. "It drives me crazy. Bounce a ball there, and it'll be back in your puss before you know it."