Interesting look on the effectiveness of German World War II SS camo patterns.
They look like pretty effective designs, even today.

What are your thoughts?
Not surprisingly you'll likely detect their faces, hands and rifles (obviously besides movement) first.

many armies still use patterns based on them

I think I remember reading somewhere they had a computer up with a pattern for today’s use and it was very near what the Germans were using in WW2

I always dug the flecktarn, but could never find the stuff in my size...

Effective pattern.

I would have liked to see how US, British and Wehrmacht uniforms compared.

Didn't the Germans also do a lot of research on color as well?  It's been years but I seem to recall there was some reason the purple color made it into the patterns of some of the early war  smocks.

I've always thought they were very elaborate patterns.  And they do seem to be rather effective.

I only watched the first three scenerios but l saw the guy on the left each time.

The first one l knew was him.  The second one l saw him but really did think he was a log until he moved and the third one l finally saw his helmet just a second or two before he moved.

I'll have to finish watching later.

Cool vid! Thanks for sharing it.

Yep. I'm big fan of German Flecktarn and Wüstentarn. Between those and Multicam, I'm covered for camo.

The SS patterns were leagues ahead of the rest.

Panzerfaust mmmm

The Russian stuff (gorka? partizan?) looks a lot like the ww2 German stuff.

thanks for sharing this

very impressive

I tried to spot them but failed every time

Good enough that the Marine Corps tested them prior to adopting MarPat.  Man, wouldn't you like to get your mitts on that set???

Anyone sell repros of this stuff?

I'll post some more of his videos of other patterns from different countries

Very interesting. Will have to watch completely tonight.

As an aside, wonder how many American GI's were spotted and killed since they had taken a lighter to the rough out leather on their boots then spit shined them?

Cool video I have a question for the military guys.

You are on a patrol and see something not quite right you think might be an enemy solider in camo,  you can’t just fire a few rounds at it (or can you) what do you do.

I bet you could make a perfectly effective pattern by just taking a picture of some generic woods and washing it through the pixelating filter in Photoslop.

...

It’d be interesting to compare to straight up OD.

Maybe atthefront.com?

Heck yeah: lost battalions

"At the Front" is the most economical for decent copies.  "SM Wholesale" makes awesome stuff... but they're rather proud of it!
Also check out "1944 Militia ".

<--- WWII reenactor. I'm in a group who does 2nd SS

The US Army  briefly issued camo uniforms for use in France after D-Day but their use was quickly discontinued for fear the users would be germans.

He didn't wear a camo helmet cover... it was a piece of camo parachute silk.  (Was done from time to time by GIs)

Thanks!

The Krauts had better uniforms but we won

Quantity has a quality of its own?  

I love flecktarn, have a ton of stuff in it, but my favorite is the lightweight jackets, I'm wearing one now.  I'll have to watch the video when I'm on a wifi connection.

US camo had some friendly fire incidents but IIRC the contracts for it had been cancelled in late '43 or early '44.

Ed Walton of Lost Battalions posted tjis on another forum:

"Generally speaking, the combat arms branches were opposed to camouflage due to their feelings about the use of camo in the Pacific in 1943, but the engineers believed in camo and were pushing the idea for Europe. As a result, it was decided that there would be three test battalions in Normandy wearing the camo in July. One battalion of the 30th ID - which earned them the nickname of "Roosevelt's SS", the organic combat engineer battalion of the 2nd Armored, and one battalion of the 2nd ID. I've not found any reference to the specific battalions by number for the infantry divisions, nor the regimetns. So you have a coverage of less than 1/14th table strength in each of the three divisions wearing these uniforms so that's a very small pool of people and all in front line positions with very high turnover. For instance, the second ID had 15,000 battle casualties from 6/44 to 5/45 against a table strength of 14,000. The British published books about US uniforms claim the camo was quickly withdrawn due to battle casualties from friendly fire as a result of mistaken identity for Waffen-SS dot camo. While researching this, I found that there were in fact friendly fire incidents between the 29th Division and the 2nd Division right after the 2nd ID came ashore, but it was caused by the dark green OD7 HBT fatigues being worn by the 2nd ID. The 29th had not seen that color before and it apparently looked to them like German reed green. I never found any specific historical incidents of friendly fire against the test battalions. I discussed this many years ago with Jonathan Gawne, editor of the defunct US edition of "Militaria Magazine," publisher of the old lamented "G.I. Journal" and author of "Spearheading D-Day" and many other books, who is probably the foremost authority on US uniforms. Jon told me he had researched the AARs in the National Archives specifically to find out about these alleged friendly fire incidents involving camouflage and he found nothing. Not one incident. Then he researched for the orders pulling the uniforms and found nothing. This British theory about US uniforms is further disproved by the fact that photos show these uniforms still being used by personnel in those units in late September 1944. The decision had already been made before the fact that camo would not be used in Europe and this "test" was merely a sop to the camo agitators in the Engineer Corps. The uniforms were issued to a relatively miniscule number of people and the uniforms were allowed to live out their combat lifespans of a few weeks and never replaced. It's notable that in the photos in September, such as the 2nd ID at Brest, there is usually only one or two men in each shot still surviving who has camo as compared to early July photos where everyone in the photo is wearing camo. The average lifespan of a combat infantryman with his unit in Europe was reckoned to be about 15 days. At that point, he was either dead or sent back wounded. Of course, we all know of guys who bought it immediately and others who survived straight through from June to May unscathed. However, you get the point. These uniforms didn't last long because the guys wearing them didn't last long."

@TX-Zen
@nictra

@shifty_one

I was able to get some stuff for me recently from sportsmans guide that was about as good as it gets

I am 6'2" and about 190 pounds

It wasnt really that primative,  While there is a good deal art as well as science involved and they were arguably ahead of their time considering the production methods of the time, roller printing and silk screening.  The patterns generally include a macro and micro pattern for use at different distances,  they experimented with different diameter rollers to avoid pattern repeats within the garments.  With zeltbans they even went so far as having matching patterns when assembled as a tent in order to break up the entire structure.  They used reversible seasonal patterns and eventually produced universal seasonal patterns.  So called 44 Dot for the SS and Tan and Water For the Army are good examples of the universal patterns.
That was already an issue in WWII and the Germans developed a carbon black overprint to enhance the patterns effectiveness under period active IR night vision.
We directly copied the concept with Engineer Research & Development Laboratories' (ERDL) in 1948.  You see that used in a few late war patterns and in so called Leibermuster.

I'm unlikely to ever drop below 220 again.....

Interesting picture of what is supposedly an SS sniper being captured by Brits in Normandy. Note the US camo.

That was pretty cool. The helmet was the easiest thing to spot.

Too busy watching Back To The Future II to watch the video, but I always thought Splinter was pretty bad-ass.

wow

I have some repro SS camo I'd be willing to part with.

Your inbox is FULL, btw.

So did the Bulgarians.  Who used it into the 1990's.

See guys on the left.

Step 1 to good camo is limit movement.  Keep in mind that once moving, an object is much easier to detect given the way our eyes work even if the pattern matches well.   Step 2 is making sure to realize that you aren't necessarily matching color as much as contrast.    While it might seem like getting the exact shades of brown, green, grey, etc. are the key, it is less about that and more about the contrasting patters of light and dark and how those compare with the background.

In a wide open space with little variation in color, then the color becomes more important and a solid color is going to be more important.  But in the woods or in a terrain with lots of colors and shapes, it is as much about matching things like shadows, branches, etc. which are "dark" relative to the background.   Likewise things like faces would be too bright vs the background so face paint is a good idea.

damn it looks like they filmed that at my place.

How do

To be fair, US Herringbone camouflage was quite green.



If that picture was color, he would of stood out a lot more against the building.

does anyone remember the so called "Syrian Camo"  used in the 2009 Natick report “PHOTOSIMULATION CAMOUFLAGE DETECTION TEST”??

http://soldiersystems.net/2009/09/17/syrian-camo/

"Although the performance of the Natural Gear pattern was consistently better than UCP, it is not a viable pattern to consider for possible near-term military use because it does not have military near-infrared properties and the Government has no rights to the pattern. Natural Gear was also the lowest performer of this group of five patterns. Therefore, further discussion is focused on the remaining four uniforms – Desert MARPAT, Desert Brush, MultiCam® and Syria. Syria, although a foreign uniform and not practical for U.S. military use, yielded very favorable results in the environments tested and may be useful in future research on pattern / color effectiveness in multiple environments.“



post war BGS jacket:


It was meant to be more of a universal pattern in WWII so it isnt surprising it did so well across the board in the Natic tests.

see the test resultels here:

https://www.scribd.com/document/19823845/Photosimulation-Camouflage-Detection-Test

I would love to have seen SS 44 Dot thrown into those tests as a historic control or something.

I have a couple of flecktarn parkas, never issued, still look brand new. They blend in great with the vegetation around here, especially in the wet weather.

Same as this one:

Apparently it didn't work well enough.

I buy flektarn surplus camo's for use in Georgia, the rust, dark/light green pattern matches the piney woods here perfectly. It's especially useful during bow season and spring turkey season when there is still some foliage and leafy trees around.

Several years ago in October I was at a rifle match where a guy about 25 yards away was wearing a repro WW2 German smock in the Fall (brown) oak leaf pattern. He walked in front of a stand of trees and his torso vanished. It was almost like watching Predator. By far the most effective camo I've ever personally seen.

Centerfire Systems carries flecktarn surplus, that's where I get mine.