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40-656: It is unclear who developed the first tiger stripe pattern, consisting of 64 stripes. The French used a similar pattern called " lizard " in the First Indochina War . After the French left Vietnam, the Republic of Vietnam Marine Division began using a derived pattern which differed in having interlocking elements instead of overlapping ones. Variants of the pattern were later adopted by Vietnamese Rangers (Biệt Động Quân) and Special Forces (Lực Lượng Đặc Biệt). When

80-545: A disruptive pattern is to prevent, or to delay as long as possible, the first recognition of an object by sight... irregular patches of contrasted colours and tones ... tend to catch the eye of the observer and to draw his attention away from the shape which bears them. Further, Cott criticises unscientific attempts at camouflage, early in the Second World War , for not understanding the principles involved: Various recent attempts to camouflage tanks, armoured cars and

120-448: A highly irregular outline. For example, the comma butterfly , Polygonia c-album , is highly cryptic when its wings are closed, with cryptic colours, disruptive pattern, and irregular outer margins to the wings. The possibility of protective coloration in plants has been little studied. T. J. Givnish and Simcha Lev-Yadun have proposed that leaf variegation with white spots may serve as camouflage in forest understory plants, where there

160-454: A mother does not affect survival, Mitchell suggests that young giraffes must be extremely well camouflaged. This is supported by the fact that coat markings are strongly inherited. Conversely, far from hiding, adult giraffes move about to gain the best view of an approaching predator, relying on their size and ability to defend themselves even from lions. The outlines of an animal's body can be made hard to see by other methods, such as by using

200-422: A nonrepetitive configuration, that also provide camouflage by disrupting the recognizable shape or orientation of the animal", as in the cuttlefish. The strategy appears paradoxical and counter-intuitive as a method of camouflage, since disrupting outlines depends on using patches of colour which contrast strongly with each other, so the patches are themselves conspicuous. While background matching works best for

240-475: A plain background", but at once adds that conditions are hardly ever ideal, as they are constantly changing, as is the light. Therefore, Cott argues, camouflage has to break up the perceived continuous surfaces of an object and its outlines. In his own words, "for effective concealment, it is essential that the tell-tale appearance of form should be destroyed." He draws an analogy with a pickpocket who carefully distracts your attention, arguing that: The function of

280-544: A single background, disruptive coloration is a more effective strategy when an animal or a military vehicle may have a variety of backgrounds. Martin Stevens and colleagues in 2006 made what they believed was the first experimental test that "disruptive coloration is effective even when some colour patches do not match the background and have a high contrast with both the background and adjacent pattern elements (disruptive contrast)". They used "moth-like targets", some matching

320-457: A way of not being seen, since disruption of outlines depends on high contrast, so the patches of colour are themselves conspicuous. The importance of high-contrast patterns for successful disruption was predicted in general terms by the artist Abbott Thayer in 1909 and explicitly by the zoologist Hugh Cott in 1940. Later experimental research has started to confirm these predictions. Disruptive patterns work best when all their components match

360-422: Is a dappled background. Lev-Yadun has also suggested, however, that similar markings serve as conspicuous warning coloration in well-defended thorny plants of open habitats, where the background is uniformly bright. Givnish found a correlation of leaf mottling with closed habitats. Disruptive camouflage would have a clear evolutionary advantage in plants: they would tend to escape from being eaten by herbivores ; and

400-414: Is a form of camouflage that works by breaking up the outlines of an animal, soldier or military hardware with a strongly contrasting pattern. It is often combined with other methods of crypsis including background colour matching and countershading ; special cases are coincident disruptive coloration and the disruptive eye mask seen in some fishes, amphibians, and reptiles. It appears paradoxical as

440-574: Is apparently the basal and predominant use of almost all the bolder patterns in animals' costumes. Hugh Cott 's 1940 book Adaptive Coloration in Animals introduced ideas such as "maximum disruptive contrast". This uses streaks of boldly contrasting colour, which paradoxically make animals or military vehicles less visible by breaking up their outlines. He explains that in ideal conditions, background colour matching together with countershading would "suffice to render an animal absolutely invisible against

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480-579: The French Army on uniforms from 1947 to the late 1980s. It was based on the British paratroopers' Denison smock . The use of the pattern is widespread in Africa, despite its association with France, because armed factions and militaries tend to obtain them from whichever source has it available. There are two major types of lizard pattern, horizontal like the original French design, and vertical like

520-757: The United States began sending advisors to South Vietnam , USMAAG advisors attached to the ARVN were authorized to wear their Vietnamese unit's combat uniform with US insignia. Soon, many American special operations forces in the Vietnamese theater of operations wore the pattern, despite not always being attached to ARVN units. Tiger stripe was never an official US-issue item. Personnel permitted to wear it at first had their camo fatigues custom-made by local tailors, with ARVN uniforms being too small for most Americans; for this reason there were many variations of

560-536: The "tenue F-1", the forest camouflage CCE was introduced in 1991. However, the "tenue camouflee toutes armes" variant was worn by the entire Foreign Legion throughout the 1960s and by Foreign Legion paratroops into the early 1980s until finally replaced by the “tenue F1”. Vertical lizard patterns in different colorways were apparently developed in Portugal from the original French horizontal patterns. The lizard pattern had been in use in Portugal since 1956 with

600-575: The 1940s have been disruptively coloured, and with the issue of US Woodland pattern to United States armed forces from 1981, disruptive pattern became a dominant feature of military uniforms. From 1969, Disruptive Pattern Material (DPM) began to replace plain material for uniforms in the British Armed Forces and was later used by many other armies. Three major challenges face the design of disruptively patterned uniforms. Firstly, units frequently move from one terrain to another, where

640-656: The ARVN units. Personnel from the Australian Special Air Service Regiment and the New Zealand Special Air Service were the principal wearers of tiger-stripe uniforms (and ERDL uniforms) in theater, while regular Australian and New Zealand troops wore the standard-issue olive drab green uniforms. Outside of Vietnam, Thailand and Philippines have been the most prolific manufacturers of tiger stripe designs since

680-751: The Air Force's Paratroopers , being extended to the Army's Special Rifles units in 1960. With the Portuguese Military engaged in the Overseas Wars mainly fought in the African jungles, the camouflaged uniform was issued throughout the whole Army and some units of the Navy and Air Force. In 1963, a vertical lizard pattern was developed, this replacing the French horizontal pattern. Paradoxically,

720-683: The Animal Kingdom argued that animals were concealed by a combination of countershading and "ruptive" marks, which together "obliterated" their self-shadowing and their shape. Thayer explained that: Markings... of whatever sort, tend to obliterate ,—to cancel, by their separate and conflicting pattern, the visibility of the details and boundaries of form.... If the bird's or butterfly's costume consists of sharply contrasted bold patterns of light and dark, in about equal proportions, its contour will be "broken up" against both light and dark—light failing to show against light, dark against dark. Such

760-453: The British patterns, and the original form had a strong horizontal orientation, disrupting the vertical form of the soldier's body. Horizontal lizard patterns in different colour forms were made by the French. A copy of the French pattern, made in Asia, was adopted by some African countries such as Chad, Gabon, Rwanda, and Sudan. In around 1970 Cuba designed a gray variety, used by Cuba and by

800-644: The FAPLA of Angola. Greece has used a range of horizontal lizard patterns from the 1960s. Russian Spetsnaz and interior ministry troops wear horizontal lizard patterns. The Israel Defence Force used actual French lizard uniforms (donated by France) until 1968, alongside plain (unpatterned) battledress. Bulgarian Army used the surplus Israel Defence Force uniforms as official uniform in United Nation's mission in Cambodia (UNTAC), 1992–1993. French lizard

840-581: The Portuguese vertical lizard pattern become popular amongst some of the guerrillas that opposed Portugal in the Overseas Wars and was later adopted by the armed forces of some of the former Portuguese African colonies after their independence. The Portuguese vertical lizard pattern was adopted by Brazil, which developed a range of colorways for each of its armed services. Egypt, Greece, India, Lebanese Palestinians and Syria have all used variants of

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880-712: The Vietnam War. The pattern became popular throughout the Middle East and South America as well. The pattern was tested by the USMC prior to the adoption of MARPAT through the Scout Sniper Instructor School. Lizard (camouflage) The lizard pattern (TAP47 pattern or Leopard pattern for the French) is a family of many related designs of military camouflage pattern, first used by

920-408: The background colours and contrasts may differ greatly. A uniform designed for woodland will be too strongly contrasting for desert use, and too green for urban use. Therefore, no single camouflage pattern is effective in all terrains. The American UCP of 2004 attempted to suit all environments but was withdrawn after a few years of service. Terrain specific patterns like "Berlin camouflage", which

960-590: The background. While background matching works best for a single background, disruptive coloration is a more effective strategy when an animal or a military vehicle may have a variety of backgrounds. Conversely, poisonous or distasteful animals that advertise their presence with warning coloration ( aposematism ) use patterns that emphasize rather than disrupt their outlines. For example, skunks , salamanders and monarch butterflies all have high-contrast patterns that display their outlines. The artist Abbott Handerson Thayer in his 1909 book Concealing-Coloration in

1000-540: The basic tiger stripe pattern. In 1963, Marine Corps Advisors and from 1964, 5th Special Forces Group of the Green Berets contracted with Vietnamese and other Southeast Asian producers to make fatigues and other items such as boonie hats using tiger stripe fabric. Being manufactured by different producers in places like Thailand, Korea and Okinawa, Japan, there was a wide variety of patterns and color shade variations. They were made in both Asian and US sizes. During

1040-482: The boundary of the animal and the background". Disruptive patterns use strongly contrasting markings such as spots or stripes to break up the outlines of an animal or military vehicle. Some predators, like the leopard , and some potential prey like the Egyptian nightjar , use disruptive patterns. Disruptive patterns are defined by A. Barbosa and colleagues as "characterized by high-contrast light and dark patches, in

1080-409: The conclusion that their patterns are for camouflage appear counterintuitive: but when standing among trees and bushes, their camouflage is effective at even a few metres' distance. Further, young giraffes are much more vulnerable to predation than adults: between 60% and 75% of calves die within a year. Mothers hide their calves, which spend much of the time lying down in cover. Since the presence of

1120-529: The early variant developed by Portugal . In addition, the Vietnam War tigerstripe pattern is descended from Lizard. Lizard patterns have two overlapping prints, generally green and brown, printed with gaps so that a third dyed color, such as a lighter green or khaki, makes up a large part of the pattern. In this, it is printed like earlier British patterns used on that country's Paratroopers Denison smocks . Lizard patterns have narrower printed areas than

1160-601: The effect and render the work practically useless. The pioneering work of Thayer and Cott is endorsed in the 2006 review of disruptive coloration by Martin Stevens and colleagues, which notes that they proposed a "different form of camouflage" from the traditional "strategy of background matching" proposed by authors such as Alfred Russel Wallace ( Darwinism , 1889), Edward Bagnall Poulton ( The Colours of Animals , 1890) and Frank Evers Beddard ( Animal Coloration , 1895); Stevens observes that background matching on its own would always fail because of "discontinuities between

1200-468: The enemy observing the pattern. A pattern printed with small patches of colour blends into a single perceived mass at a certain range, defeating the disruptive effect. Conversely, a pattern printed with large patches of colour appears conspicuous at shorter ranges. This problem has been solved with pixellated shapes, often designed digitally, that provide a fractal -like range of patch sizes, enabling them to be effectively disruptive both at close range and at

1240-452: The eye with a disruptive eye mask , sometimes contrasting with a stripe above the eye , making it seem just part of a dark area of background. Cott called this a special case of a " coincident disruptive pattern ". Another camouflage mechanism, distractive markings , also involves conspicuous marks and has for a century since Thayer's initial description been conflated with it, but the two require different kinds of marking. For distraction,

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1280-513: The hypothesis is testable. Disruptive coloration is common in military usage, for military vehicles, for firing positions and other installations, and for individual soldiers, where uniforms, equipment such as helmets, and face paint may be used to break up outlines and features. Disruptive coloration, however, does not always achieve crypsis on its own, as an animal or a military target may be given away by other factors including shape, shine, and shadow. Many military camouflage patterns since

1320-687: The latter stages of the war, tiger stripe was gradually replaced in American reconnaissance units by the then-new ERDL pattern, a predecessor of the US four-color woodland pattern . The Special Forces-advised Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) used tiger stripe from 1963 until disbanded in 1971. Special Forces personnel wore tiger stripe when conducting operations with the CIDG. Besides American and ARVN forces, Australian and New Zealand military personnel used tiger stripe uniforms while on advisory duty with

1360-761: The lightness of the background oak tree bark, other mismatching it, each with a dead mealworm. If the mealworm was removed it was assumed a bird predator had taken it: this could be distinguished from visits by other predators. They found that disruptive coloration provided the best protection from bird predators when the pattern was matched to background luminance, but even when elements in a pattern did not match, disruptive patterns were still better at reducing predation than either non-disruptive patterns or plain (unpatterned) control targets. Disruptive patterns can also conceal specific features. Animals such as fish, birds, frogs and snakes can readily be detected by their eyes, which are necessarily round and dark. Many species conceal

1400-513: The markings should be small and should avoid the prey's outline so as to take attention away from it, whereas disruptive markings should contact the outline so as to break it up. Many poisonous or distasteful animals that advertise their presence with warning coloration ( aposematism ) use patterns that emphasize rather than disrupt their outlines. For example, skunks , salamanders and monarch butterflies all have high contrast patterns that display their outlines. These advertising patterns exploit

1440-574: The opposite principle to disruptive coloration, for what is in effect the exactly opposite effect: to make the animal as conspicuous as possible. Some Lepidoptera, including the wood tiger moth , are aposematic and disruptively coloured; against a green, vegetative background their bright aposematic coloration stands out, but on the ground their wings camouflage them among dead leaves and dirt. The presence of bold markings does not in itself prove that an animal relies on camouflage. According to Mitchell, adult giraffes are "inescapably conspicuous", making

1480-490: The roofs of buildings with paint reveal an almost complete failure by those responsible to grasp the essential factor in the disguise of surface continuity and of contour. Such work must be carried out with courage and confidence, for at close range objects properly treated will appear glaringly conspicuous. But they are not painted for deception at close range, but at ranges at which ... bombing raids are likely... And at these distances differences of tint ... blend and thus nullify

1520-875: The vertical lizard pattern. SWAPO guerrillas in Namibia wore a wide variety of camouflage, including Portuguese lizard. The Vietnam War tiger stripe camouflage is descended from Lizard. It began as a French experimental pattern during the Indochina war. It was based on the TAP47 lizard pattern, and was adopted by the South Vietnamese Marines . Tiger stripe differs from lizard in having its printed areas interlocked rather than overlapped; it also used smaller areas of dyed background color. Disruptive coloration Disruptive coloration (also known as disruptive camouflage or disruptive patterning )

1560-698: Was among the patterns used in Congo in 1978. After the Algerian War the "Troupes Aéroportée" (Airborne Troops) "Tenue Leopard"/"tenues de saut" was officially withdrawn from French service in January 1963 as it was felt to be a reminder of the Paratroops mutiny . It was initially replaced with the olive green M1947 "trellis/tenue de compagne" and later the newer green "trellis Satin M1964" in 1971 which became

1600-506: Was applied to British vehicles operating in Berlin during the Cold War , have sometimes been developed but are ineffective in other terrains. Secondly, the effectiveness of any pattern in disrupting a soldier's outlines varies with lighting, depending on the weather and the height of the sun in the sky. And thirdly, any given patch of printed colour varies in apparent size with distance from

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