Posted on 03/01/2013 10:59:41 AM PST by Saint X
Friday’s deployment of USS Freedom (LCS 1) will revive a tradition of camouflaging warships. Outside of smaller patrol boats, the U.S. largely abandoned elaborate color schemes and stuck with haze gray.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.usni.org ...
I thought one of the big selling points for these new ships was reduced crew size. Now every vessel will need an onboard scenic designer.
This is what they need:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wlLqdFsMnCE
BAE’s Adaptive Camouflage
As an old ship modeler, I can confirm that those patterns are beastly hard to paint, especially on the smaller scales. But they make amazing conversation peices when finished.
The photos look really interesting. Some seem to make it difficult to say which way the ship is pointing through tricks of perspective, others to perhaps make the ship appear to be some smaller type of craft?
They aren’t actually bringing back the dazzle camoflage.
Dazzle/zebra was not intended to hide the ship, but rather to confuse the viewers ability to judge aspect, which was required for gunnery and torpedo solutions.
The modern paint job probably won’t have any meaningful effect, except in very low light or obscuration situations.
In these days of radar, sonar, infrared tracking, night vision equipment, electronic signal detection, and all the rest why is the Navy using camouflage for their ships? Do the honestly think that someone who really wants to target it will be thrown off by the paint scheme?
Why do you think they discontinued Don’t Ask Don’t Tell?...They want their ships to look FABULOUS!.........
I was stationed at a USAF base in West Germany in the late 70’s - early 80’s. I recall the AF experimenting with a form of dazzle camouflage on the taxiways in front of the hardened aircraft shelters. Geometric shapes were painted onto the taxiways, mostly triangles, in the hope that an attacking pilot, flying very low at high speeds, may be distracted by the patterns and drop his bombs on the pavement rather than the shelter. Don’t know if it ever would have worked.
They should plaster sponsor’s logos all over them like NASCAR. It would defray expenses. ;)
Too Small to stand up to bigger ships, too large to be a deterrent to the smaller ones, yet still not big enough for long endurance missions.
U.S. Navy FAIL!!!
In these days of radar, sonar, infrared tracking, night vision equipment, electronic signal detection, and all the rest why is the Navy using camouflage for their ships? Do the honestly think that someone who really wants to target it will be thrown off by the paint scheme?
To the contrary! Visually, it is very, very easy to see those high-contrast white-deckhouses on cargo ships many miles off through a periscope. Same from a low-flying aircraft. Light “haze grey” with NO contrasting colors - they need to paint out the black smokestacks too! - is very valuable in protecting a ship against submarine attack.
Now, whether these colors will work against subs is unknown. Without looking a through a periscope, and I doubt ANY surface or air qualified officer has EVER looked through a scope once commissioned, the targets have no idea how vulnerable they are.
What works against a periscope, works against a low-waterline pirate or torpedo/missile boar just as well.
If all you have is your periscope. But the submarine sonar will track the ship miles before it gets into visual range and can target it without even using visual identification.
That's all you need, jack !
I have the same curiousity about sailors I see around here (Bremerton area) wearing blue and gray cammo. On land, I can't imagine they are stealthy. And at sea, with modern electronics, what difference does it make?
They can paint the LCS’s however they want I still won’t like them. Better to buy Arleigh Burkes, something with weapons. This thing is fast in shallow water, that’s it.
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