Showing posts sorted by relevance for query bache. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query bache. Sort by date Show all posts

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

What Is Camouflage? | René Bache

René Bache, "What Is 'Camouflage'?" (1918)
Above Full-page newspaper article titled “What Is Camouflage?” by René Bache, in The Daily Ardmoreite (Ardmore OK), March 6, 1918, p. 6. Born in Philadelphia, Bache (1861-1933) was a journalist and author who wrote for Scientific American and other periodicals. He was also the Great-Great-Great-Great Grandson of Benjamin Franklin.

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An excerpt pertaining to ship camouflage from the same article—

Up to now the warpaint of fighting ships has been slate gray, which was supposed to harmonize with the sea, but henceforth (though the problem has not been worked out satisfactorily yet) they will be "camouflaged" in schemes of colors. In the American navy this idea is being tried out on destroyers; and not long ago one of Uncle Sam's submarines, while taking part in maneuvers, actually got lost from the fleet because (being adorned in this way) the other ships lost sight of it.

The United States government now requires that all of its merchant ships shall be similarly treated, information for the purpose being furnished to owners and ship masters by the Bureau of War Risk Insurance. They are at liberty to choose their own painting scheme from several "recipes" supplied. Of these the simplest consists in painting the vessel in such a way as to eliminate highlights and shadows [called countershading]. The under part of the "overhang" Is made white, and the super structure dark, the result being a blend with sea and sky.

Other schemes consist in arrangements of the primary colors In various patterns, the effect sought being a blend that will produce visually the impression of gray. But this gray has to the eye much more "deadness" than gray paint. It is misty. Optically speaking, the same principle applies as in the case of the zebra, whose black and white stripes, vivid enough when seen close at hand, are meant by nature as a protective coloration—in other words, to make tho animal less visible. Seen from a distance on its native desert, its stripes blend into a gray that is much less conspicuous than a mule's "all-over" gray.

One of these arrangements is of wavy stripes, green, blue and white. Stripes of curvilinear and scroll forms, it is found, have a confusing effect to the eye, the outlines of a hull thus adorned being lost to view at any considerable distance. Incidentally they make difficult the focusing of a telescope or binocular upon the ship, rendering it harder to see the craft distinctly.

Some of those schemes, curiously enough, seem to split up the ship's hull and superstructure into several parts, visually, with an appearance as if sea and sky showed between. The whole puzzle is very difficult to analyze, but when it has been thoroughly worked out, and its elements reduced to a scientific basis, it may be possible to make a vessel actually invisible at a distance of a mile.

Meanwhile, and for present purposes, the object sought is to render ships less easy to see. The sea is blue. The sea is green. The sea is mottled gray. Its color depends upon that of the day, which it reflects. Take a bucketful of water from the ocean, and it has no color. In reality the sea has no color of its own. How, then, shall it be successfully imitated?

One expert [William Andrew Mackay], who has made long study of the subject, declares that the color effect of the sea is a mixture of violet and green. If, therefore, a ship be painted with these two colors in a suitable pattern (stripes wavy or in scrolls), it will be made relatively invisible, because at a distance the light rays will mingle and so affect the optic nerve as to produce a color impression like that of the sea.
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Tuesday, March 10, 2026

WWI hogshead on a tip-cart / deceptive artillery mimic

Above Two-part illustration that accompanied the article printed below. The signed pen-and-ink illustration in the background appears to be the work of American artist Edith Magonigle (1877-1949), whose interesting life deserves full recognition.•• To start, see "Edith Magonigle and the Art War Relief" by Tal Nadan, New York Public Library. Her husband was the architect Harold Van Buren Magonigle, in whose Wikipedia article, she is simply cited as Edith and her maiden name, Edith Marion Day. 

The photograph of a German soldier has been restored from a poor quality newspaper photograph using AI software. We might also mention that René Bache, author of the article, was a prolific news journalist and author during WWI. He was also the Great-Great-Great-Great Grandson of Benjamin Franklin. Despite his family distinction, his articles on camouflage should be read with caution, as they may not always be fully accurate.

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René Bache, POPULAR SCIENCE: Camouflage—The Art of Deceit in Warfare, in The Catholic Press (Hartford CT), November 19, 1917—

To deceive the eye of the enemy is no new thing in warfare, but in the present conflict it has become for the first time an important and even vital element of tactics. The new war word "camouflage" covers a wide range, from optical illusions to expedients for obtaining invisibility.

An example of the former is shown in the accompanying photograph, which represents a "fake" German forty-two-centimeter mortar in the Argonne forest. It is a hogshead mounted on a tip-cart; but an enemy aviator flying overhead would almost certainly mistake it for a big gun.

On the sea "camouflage" is of not less importance than on land. Some of the German U-boats disguise themselves as sailing vessels. As for ourselves, particularly with the object of defeating the Hun submarines, we are using all of our famous Yankee ingenuity in developing this new and curious art.

The Government is requiring all American merchantmen to carry apparatus with which to make a defensive smoke-screen, in case of submarine attack. To the imagination, such a screen figures itself as a cloud of dense black smoke. The fact is quite different. The so-called "smoke" is white.

It is the smoke of burning phosphorus, set afire on the vessel's deck in so-called "funnels"—contrivances of small size, but resembling in shape the ordinary, wide-mouthed ship's ventilator. Each funnel is provided with a draft opening, to make combustion rapid, and it gives out enormous volumes of what looks like white fog.

Were you ever in a thick fog at sea? If so, you will understand that, at a distance of only a few yards, it makes an object absolutely invisible. The white phosphorus fog, indeed, is much better for "camouflage" purposes than a screen of black smoke because in itself It has no visibility. It is simply obscuration.

This, however, is not the only method utilizable for the purpose. If preferred, the ship captain may take along with him a number of wooden boxes, each a foot high and two feet square, perforated with holes. These boxes contain a certain compound, a principal ingredient of which is common black gun powder.

Suppose an attack by a U-boat. Several of the boxes are at once thrown overboard. The seawater admitted through the holes, sets the stuff on fire (by chemical action), and dense clouds of a yellowish-gray smoke are thereby liberated, concealing the ship from the enemy's view while she steams away.

There can be no question of the fact that this smoke-screen defense is destined importantly to minimize the destruction of American cargo carriers from this time on. It is bound to prove immensely useful for the protection of our troop transports and supply ships.

But another requirement imposed by the Government is that our merchant ships shall be painted in such fashion as to render them invisible. This problem has already been solved in a really marvelous way by the adoption of certain methods based on familiarly known optical principles—one of several schemes being to paint the vessel with a series of longitudinal stripes of the various colors of the rainbow. The stripes are rather narrow and of wavy form. At a distance of a mile, a ship thus adorned literally fades out of sight.

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hunter becomes a normal irregularity in the landscape

Above Drawings submitted for US Patent No 5,572,823 titled "Hand Held Decoy and Hunter Shield," invented by J.R. Savaria (1996).

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René Bache, POPULAR SCIENCE: Pity the Poor Ducks, in the Portsmouth Daily Times (Portsmouth OH), May 24, 1919—

Duck hunters and other sportsmen in pursuit of game will no longer require "blinds" or other such means of concealment. They will wear snipers' suits instead.

The "cap of invisibility," which, when donned, rendered its wearer viewless, has figured in more than one fairy story. In the sniper's suit (as developed during the war) its miraculous function has been fairly realized.

What is a sniper's suit like? Most people have no definite notion on the subject beyond the fact that it is "camouflage" for the person. The matter, however, is easily explained, and can be made so clear that anybody may put together such a costume for his own use.

It needs no tailor's skill, goodness knows. The prime requisite of a proper suit of clothes is fit. But the sniper's suit must not fit at all. On the contrary, it must be vastly loose and baggy, not conforming in the least with the contour of the wearer. It must have no angles, for in nature angles are few.

The sniper's suit—for hunting snipe, or ducks, or what not—must be contrived and colored as to enable him to resemble as closely as possible his surroundings; to melt into them, as it were. It is made of the coarsest and cheapest kind of burlap, rubbed with mud or daubed with green or brown paint to imitate the color scheme of his immediate environment.

An essential part of it is a headpiece that can be pulled hood-fashion over head and face, the eyes of the wearer looking out through places that have been thinned for the purpose by the simple process of removing the burlap threads running horizontally. Tufts of grass or other natural vegetation growing in the immediate vicinity of the hunter's lurking place are fastened here and there to parts of his costume. He may even attach a few pebbles to it with short lengths of wire. His very gun is wrapped in a loose burlap bag, provided with a fringe of grass or leaves, leaving only the trigger and the sight free.

Now, if the hunter thus equipped were to walk about he would, of course, alarm the game. If he were merely to stand erect, he would attract attention (though immovable), because differing in form from his surroundings. But when he lies prone, and perfectly still, he becomes in appearance merely a normal irregularity in the landscape. In effect, he is invisible.

The noblest of all game animals is man. In warfare he becomes just that. During the recent conflict suits corresponding to the above description were commonly worn not only by snipers, but also by machine gunners, and by men who took part in raids across No Man's Land.

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