US Marines now painting F18s in 640*480 resolution

[Comstar]

It's a copy of thier new camo, so I supose it makes sense to paint the planes in the same style, for the same reasons ( don't *think* it's a photoshop, but I could be wrong).

[schild]

Can you provide a link to where this is described as 'camo?'

This guy is doing a better job hiding.

[geldonyetich]

Think clouds, perhaps?

[schild]

Think clouds, perhaps?

That's what I first thought too. Then I realized a monkey with an airbrush and cans of light blue and grey paint could have come up with a better pattern.

[Comstar]

Shilde- sure, can.

Digital Camo:
CADPAT, MARPAT, Digital Woodland and Jungle Stalker are all digital camo. There are however other types of digital camo, and many new digital patterns emerging. Digital camo reduces the pattern to a series of pixels, when viewed from a distance, the eye has a hard time recognising it. This is a similar effect to Flectar. The US Marines currently use MARPAT, and the Canadian army uses CADPAT.

Name tags showing the new digitigal camo

Type "new Digital Camo for marines" into google and you'll find lots of posts about it. It may look silly, but apperntly it works (it's based off the new Canadian uniform). You're not the first person to doubt it, but soon every moderen army looks like the'll end up using it :)

[eldaec]

Planes are not intended to be camoflagued against the sky.

Espeicially not on the top side.

afaik The intention is partly to make the type of plane harder to identify, and secondly to make it harder to see from a long way off on the ground.


(note that I'm not claiming to be talking from a position of any actual knowledge. This is just 'recieved wisdom')

[Comstar]

Actually the best colour is a pinkish purple (at least for night fighters).

The convential wisdom on why the F117 is not pink is because no US air force pilot is going to fly a pink airplane, no matter how much better it camoflarges it at night.

[schmoo]

Perhaps the pattern is intended to make the plane show up as noise in a digital picture.

[Murgos]

I was/am very impressed with how well tiger stripe (long vertical stripes alternating dark and light) camo works in certain (jungle, heavily wooded) enviroments.  Apparently once your accustumed to looking at it it becomes easy to spot though.

[Arcadian Del Sol]

(satellite image of Chicago).

I dont know about you, but I'm thinking the new camo is a brilliant idea.

[Shavnir]

(satellite image of Chicago).

I dont know about you, but I'm thinking the new camo is a brilliant idea.

Chicago sure has changed since I last saw it.

[Alrindel]

The idea of the digital camouflage patterns seems counter-intuitive but in the field it actually does seem to work.  I found this article on a USMC site that talks about the theory of camouflage, the tests that the Scout Sniper Instructor School did on different patterns and why they endorsed MARPAT.

Viewed up close, this pattern appears in small digital blocks, but with increasing distance serves to blend in with any numerous environments. Although the tiger stripe was found to be more effective than the current pattern, the MARPAT was considered the best of the selection due to its multi-environment flexibility, tactical effectiveness and ability to provide service distinctiveness.

[Murgos]

...and ability to provide service distinctiveness.

Hehe, I love the Marine Corps.  Read the above as:

"As long as we don't look like the Army we will take it."