12/16/2023 0 Comments Navy camouflage plane war thunderInspired by Darwin’s observations, the eccentric American naturalist and painter Abbott Handerson Thayer published his own book, Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom, with his son Gerald in 1909. ‘When we see leaf-eating insects green, and bark-feeders mottled-grey the alpine ptarmigan white in winter, the red-grouse the colour of heather, and the black-grouse that of peaty earth, we must believe that these tints are of service to these birds and insects in preserving them from danger,’ he wrote in his 1859 blockbuster, On the Origin of Species. For Charles Darwin, camouflage in the animal kingdom was further evidence for evolutionary adaptation. The documentation for that patent includes the statement, ‘Camouflage is an art in the process of becoming a science’, but the story of camouflage actually starts not with art, but with nature. MARPAT (for Marine Pattern) is the intellectual property of the US Navy, the first camo pattern ever to be patented by a branch of the US military. The US Army had originally wanted to use the US Marine Corps’ camouflage pattern, but was denied permission. From the initial invasion in 2001 until about 2009, many US Army soldiers were sent into the country wearing a ‘protective’ camouflage pattern so ineffective that it actually seems to have attracted enemy fire. For nearly a decade, the American occupation of Afghanistan suffered from a grave case of the emperor’s new clothes. ‘This happened three times, on two different patrols.’ This soldier was not alone. ![]() ‘In 2010, in trash-canistan, I got shot at, while walking next to guys in (who were never targeted)!’ reads an anonymous comment at a military news site.
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