Hiding In Plain Sight: Basic Camo and its Importance, by GuerrillaLogistician

Reference – 16A

By GuerrillaLogistician

@glogistician on X.com

 

Just to keep on track with the motif of submarine warfare, I’ll give you a bit of history in WWI and WWII ship camouflage. Camouflage paint has been a thing as long as paint and warfare have coexisted. There have been some very interesting camouflage techniques that didn’t always work out, from blue colored camouflage for the Navy to the Army’s UPC camouflage (Grandma’s couch).  Sometimes, camouflage technology is compromised by not understanding the enemy’s technology, and one of those interesting things was the Razzle Dazzle paint scheme.  I won’t dive too deeply into it, but I will leave a link to a very good YouTube video about World War I and submarines. That said, we all know there are different camouflage techniques, and I wanted to go back in time to look at some of the principles of camouflage from a different point of view than we normally see. While technology has changed the battle space, many of the core principles learned through death, sweat, and tears still hold true to this day.

I hope to engage you with a bit of historical knowledge, mixed with reflection on our current conflicts.   In my travels, I have picked up another book that I think is very relevant to today’s world, published in January 1994. The small book is called the Intelligence Bulletin Volume #5, and I’m flipping to Section 3, page 25. We’re talking about the German camouflage techniques in World War II from the perspective of the American soldier.  Before I go on I’m sure this is not important to say for most people reading this but I know someone will want to take this out of context to attack AP or myself. Reviewing information about the enemy, especially from the American point of view, is not condoning the actions of that enemy ever, nor does it mean that they are the pinnacle of expertise in all things. Case in point, their tanks were very technologically advanced but prone to breaking down, and the superiority in their technology ended up being a problem both in production and in field use. That said, learn from your enemy.

Let’s look at what this bulletin has to say about our former enemy and how they did things, so we can learn from them.

[German camouflage is excellent, experienced US fighting men agree. The enemy’s natural aptitude for painstaking craftsmanship seemed to serve him in good stead when camouflage is to be undertaken, no matter whether the German is making use of natural or artificial camouflage; his work is resourceful and thorough. He is aware that in camouflage, it’s the small touch that counts, the details that an impatient soldier or a lazy one might regard as unimportant.]

As we can see from the first few sentences, one of the critical things about camouflage is attention to detail, and this has gone over in the scout course quite heavily, but I think in practice, especially after class, we don’t see as much engagement in good quality camouflage as we should. One of the things that I tend to see a lot of is a lack of discipline when it comes to camouflaging ones and Bush points for training purposes. A key principle is to train to the point that you can’t get something wrong, and I think this becomes a little lacking due to the abbreviated time in most of our training schedules for any of this.

I also think this tends to be less involved in the US military doctrine, but it may have been previously due to the battle spaces we had been involved with during GWOT.  If any of you follow the war in Ukraine, you will see that camouflage is very important, and a lot of the time, the drone footage of enemies being attacked is from poorly/non-existent camouflaged positions. Many times, it’s either vehicles in transit, parked for various reasons, or unimproved fighting positions with obvious bunker setups. While this by no means proves either side is being lazy, this may just be a case of opportunity versus hasty establishment of locations. Below, we will have a video on vegetation and thermals, which should be viewed to understand why camouflage, whether natural or otherwise, can be advantageous to a guerrilla fighter.

With the advent of drones, the battle space has become a lot harder in general, now with drones being small handheld devices that are common off the shelf, thermal camouflage becomes even more important. With that said, most people these days are looking to camouflage from above, which is very important, but we still have to realize that no matter how many drones they make, there will most likely be more soldiers than there will be drones impacting the combat space. In so being, I think this is very important to the modern fighter and gorilla fighter. The book quotes a German, “Camouflage enables us to achieve surprise.”

As most of you know, the key hallmark of any guerrilla fighting force is the surprise attack. The fast reaction, grabbing what materials you can, and moving on before another reaction force comes to destroy you. However, one of the key aspects of a good ambush is not being seen until the enemy gets into a specific kill box. The Germans, according to American intelligence, were very good at doing this. This allowed the Germans to use the correct weapons in the correct engagement envelope for maximum damage to their enemy. The German army doesn’t consider camouflage the end state, but the initial preparation, and what should be driven primarily during setting up an ambush. There are many steps to an ambush, which you can learn at the scout course, from involving terrain decisions all the way to setting up good exit routes in case things go sideways. What is generally not done in the scout courses much is using camouflage in a more detailed manner.  This isn’t because of Scout not going over these points, but the lack of time for the most part.  It has become essential with modern thermal systems on the market in the hands of the average person, be it fighters in Ukraine or American citizens.

At this point, even the Russians have enough thermals to go around to their squads and have utilized them to detect ambushes. When you go to these classes, you will see people setting up ambushes and using screening material, both artificial camouflage netting and the trees and shrubbery, to prevent their view. Some do it better than others, and one of the downsides to the class is that most people don’t come back to be OPFOR. While Scout does tend to flip groups from being an attacker and a defender for the exposure, I think a lot of the major training cycles end up being done without the students being the target. Realistically, you could not keep the pace of education and do this, so I think the fact that Scout allows people to come back to be OPFOR is very beneficial if you take advantage of it. You start seeing how personnel decide to maneuver and try to camouflage themselves while doing observations and setting up ambushes in ways that you didn’t while you were initially learning the physical steps of the training.

As the Germans say, when time is short, it is better to camouflage a few objects well than to camouflage everything poorly. There should be something very important to forces in irregular warfare, such as Ukraine, or high-value weapons, that are constantly being targeted by various weapon systems beyond those of the infantry. If possible, you should be using some sort of deception along with your camouflage, but that is very dependent on the situation at hand. The Germans believe that artificial material should only be used if natural material is insufficient, unsuitable, or not available at all, which makes a lot of sense. No matter how good the camouflage netting is that you may carry around with your pack, people will be able to discern it a lot more easily than an actual bush you may have chopped down.

If you can use the camouflage netting behind natural vegetation to further break up your view, you will be way better off than using it alone. This also falls into the aspect of thermals and night vision. While the Germans had no real knowledge of this kind of issue, the advancement in those technologies is still susceptible to camouflage technology and techniques. I won’t go into all the thermal mitigation tactics that I believe both Scout and Joe Dolio have written and teach consistently, but the information is available. Things do change, however, as you get into urban combat, where artificial materials may be a better camouflage than that of natural shrubbery and bushes.

Do not take that for granted, there is a need for vegetation-style camouflage techniques in a city. Many people who have to suffer through going into large cities can tell you that the homeless people can be very knowledgeable in camouflage. They either learn this technique through experience or education by other homeless people. They tend to keep less shiny materials out of their shelter, making materials when possible.  Blue tarps get replaced with other materials quickly, or are covered up, and sometimes even painted.  I have found many homeless so close to walking paths they could reach out and grab people, yet many walk by never realizing they are there. Many homeless people like to use black or Gray umbrellas to shade themselves, but will also hide behind bushes and use those black umbrellas as a camouflaging technique so people can’t even see them in a small confined area of green. It just makes the shadows inside the bushes look even blacker, which doesn’t stand out as much as black normally does in the woods.

The Germans often used camouflage suits or jackets with or without hoods while on patrol as well. This is also something favored by the Russian and Ukrainian forces. Leaf suits are one of the predominant things that the Russians have taken away and come from a lot of German technology of World War 2, although we have advanced further along and made a lot of the artificial leaf products look like leaves. There is a balance between how much material you can wear and actually stay cool on the move, but there is also a benefit to having leafy or fabric that can catch the wind and cool your heat signature down. Unfortunately, the ungodly amount of heat that comes from this makes it detrimental in hotter environments, but those hotter environments also tend to have a lot more green, lush vegetation for you to hide in.

[Small objects are often camouflaged with garnished canvas or large objects with garnished netting. The Germans employ the familiar us principle of thinning the garnish gradually from the center outward so that the camouflage will merge with the surroundings.]

As I discussed previously, the homeless used umbrellas to hide themselves, and the Germans used umbrellas with different colors on both sides to make a temporary camouflage. These umbrella systems hid everything from anti-tank guns to machine gun nests.  Another trick of the Germans was also to paint vehicles, weapons, and other metal equipment with a darker-than-average color scheme for the environment they were in. They also tended to roughen up the material on flat surfaces, preventing reflection of light. The Germans may also have removed glass or smeared it with grime to prevent that reflection.

If you don’t have a kill flash on your rifle’s optics, a slight powdering of dust may still allow the optic to be used, but reduce the reflection seen by the enemy. This darker-than-average color scheme lets you blend into the crevices of bushes and darker holes without exposing yourself, while still camouflaging your environment. Even in World War 2, you can see that painting gear was a common practice on all sides, and in modern warfare, many combatants still don’t paint their weapons differently from the Black they are issued in.  Many weapons collectors seek out painted weapons because they are so unique, and even to this day our military frowns on painting rifles because of the nightmare they will deal with when they turn the weapon back in.

An interesting side note also comes from the logistical sides of the Germans. While many war movies present a logistical train of armored vehicles and trucks hauling materials, the reality is that Germany had a lot more use of horses and pack animals than we would think. Modern thinking drives us to look at vehicles rather than animals because animals are far less prevalent and harder to maintain. That doesn’t mean that they can’t be a core implement, especially in guerrilla warfare. We also see them being used by disaster relief personnel in many situations where the roads have been absolutely demolished by storms, so they are by no means a relic of a bygone era. How do you camouflage an animal that is white in color(grey for you horse snobs)?

The Germans accomplished this by spraying a solution of 10% permanganate of potash. They would make the animal darker by increasing the strength of the solution, and the color would be renewed every 8 to 10 weeks.  I also bring this up to remind people who have a greying beard, because that white stands out heavily.  Having been OPFOR, I have seen people who were very stealthily moving by their beard color being so Unnatural in wooded environments. It might be useful for you guys to look into darkening your beard with anything from wood ash to chemical products, especially if you plan to camouflage your face with grease paint.

On the visual side, this becomes increasingly important.  While this tactic is not fully confirmed, Russia and Ukraine use constant artillery attacks to destroy tree lines, denying hiding places, and FPV drones to single out one soldier at a time. When Russia sends a few troops to infiltrate an area, they get attacked by small explosive-dropping drones.  What is worse is the fact that many of these drones are dropping modified artillery rounds, so it is hard to tell if it is artillery or a drone strike.  The absolute necessity of camouflage comes into focus in the video below, where soldiers are trapped in a building being bombarded by drones.

Realistically, you can’t tell if a drone has spotted you, so your best action is concealment from these things. Once spotted, the only option seems to be to run for better shelter, which is very risky.  We won’t know just how bad these things are until the dust settles in this war, and even then, we may not know the whole picture for decades. What is known both from training, like what brushbeater does, and from war footage is clear.  If something can see you, they can engage you, and that has not changed much since the advent of artillery.  Now it has become even more difficult.

A first person perspective from a Ukrainian soldier of a sustained Russian FPV drone attack.

Most people – including Western military thinkers – can’t comprehend the sheer saturation of drones on the battlefield. It’s not one FPV you have to evade; it’s a constant stream. pic.twitter.com/ZsQNJJGyWc

— Jimmy Rushton (@JimmySecUK) November 1, 2025

https://x.com/JimmySecUK/status/1984565517667938433

https://www.chinatalk.media/p/ukraines-drone-war

Noise

Just like all submarine warfare, noise is a major factor in allowing your camouflage to be effective. Submarines use the camouflage of the ocean to hide their location, but one of the key tactics for finding them is just to listen for them. The German soldier was also quite aware of the fact that their ambushes and the camouflage they put into them could be mitigated by sounds. Orders were either in subdued conversation or written; hard ground was avoided as much as possible, and the equipment on soldiers’ uniforms was wrapped or fastened to prevent the standard noise from rattling gear.

None of this knowledge has changed in a warfare sense, and it is something that we as educators and students of regular warfare should understand prominently. Sound is such an important thing that, for short distances, the wheels of horse-drawn vehicles were wrapped in rags or other materials, and the horse’s hooves were padded. That is something you won’t see in most documentaries and is never talked about, but many of you can think of all the old westerns where the horse would clip-clop down the street or cross cobblestone. Those who have been around such large animals will know they are not quiet unless they want to be.

The Germans were also known to give feedbags to every animal that was standing still to keep them quieter. They also commonly loaded vehicles to keep the clatter and rattle of materials in the back down, and the horns were also disconnected so they would not be sounded by accident. When conditions permitted, such as artillery fire or friendly aircraft being overhead, ground vehicles would be moved so the noise from these other distractions didn’t give the ground vehicles away.

The last paragraph also talked about how the Germans would try to prevent Allied forces from finding artillery by sound ranging. I’ve never heard of sound ranging before, and I’ll have to do a little more Research on this topic. If any of you know anything more about this technique or technology, I’d love to know. What the Germans did do was carry out their fire ranging by using roving batteries or having a roving gun brought up expressly for that purpose. If such a system can not be employed, they would restrict the fire to close bursts or salvos.

They were also noted to use dummy batteries equipped with imitating the sound of fire to make sound ranging by allied forces more difficult.  I would think nowadays, with modern technology, this kind of technique or technology might be even more effective, just like the inner city using shot detection and triangulation technology.

Where this article originated, also there is a section on Japanese bayonet fighting in the book for you Joe Dolio fans.

https://archive.org/details/1944-01IntelligenceBulletinVol02No05-nsia/mode/1up