The revamped First World War gallery in London's Imperial War Museum includes a display of models used to test various dazzle paint schemes developed for merchant shipping by British artist Norman Wilkinson.
In the words of Wilkinson, the concept behind dazzle was to 'paint a ship with large patches of strong colour...which will so distort the form of the vessel that the chances of successful aim by attacking submarines will be greatly decreased.'
Whereas conventional camouflage seeks to conceal, dazzle camouflage was intended to confuse the enemy's perception of a ship's size, range, speed, and heading, thus making it more difficult for the enemy to establish a good attacking position. Each camouflaged ship was given a unique dazzle design to avoid making classes of ship immediately recognisable to the enemy.
Assessments of the effectiveness of dazzle camouflage were mixed, and it was not used to the same extent during the Second World War, especially on account of the increased effectiveness of optical range finders and the much greater employment of naval aircraft for reconnaissance and attack.
Photo taken 24 September 2015.
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| Models of ships sporting artist Norman Wilkinson's dazzle camouflage schemes and used to test and evaluate various designs and colour patterns. These models are on display in the First World War gallery of the Imperial War Museum, London, UK. |