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Digital camo on a Hornet!


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wow....never seen this before...not on a real fighter plane, i mean :blink:

ur right...Jung made the VF-1J 'Blue Roses' with the digi-camo scheme

here's the link...

http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/toys/m...stoms-148-3.htm

Edited by Dat Pinche Haro!
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i like that design alot it looks good on a jet, i am not sure what purpose it serves but it looks cool, I have seen this alot on Gundams as well. does anyone have any real info on this style of camoflauge

chris

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Interesting, since camo is only effective in a visual battlefield, maybe this means a return to close in combat training. I believe the digital camo may actually be a throw back to an old WW1 submarine camo scheme. Back in WW1 the brits discovered that by painting their subs in multiple shades of grey that where the colors were all in sharp geometric patterns that it threw off visual tracking. It made it much harder for attacking sub commanders to get a good distance estimate or keep good eye tracking on the target. Seems almost a little pointless considering that even gun engagements are made a distance where those patterns won't really be visible, and modern gun reticles make such a scheme pointless as well IMHO.

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Digital camo has a dithering effect between colors so there are no solid lines so it'd break up your shape against the environment.

Never thought I'd see that on a plane.

Edited by Gaijin
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Interesting, since camo is only effective in a visual battlefield, maybe this means a return to close in combat training. I believe the digital camo may actually be a throw back to an old WW1 submarine camo scheme. Back in WW1 the brits discovered that by painting their subs in multiple shades of grey that where the colors were all in sharp geometric patterns that it threw off visual tracking. It made it much harder for attacking sub commanders to get a good distance estimate or keep good eye tracking on the target. Seems almost a little pointless considering that even gun engagements are made a distance where those patterns won't really be visible, and modern gun reticles make such a scheme pointless as well IMHO.

Hmm, I wonder when the press release on Minovsky particles will come out...

Vostok 7

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I think this is more along the lines of "outline break-up" rather than disruptive/confusing. It's only disruptive at a range of like 10 yards, pointless for even the closest air-to-air. Look at it from far away----overall effect (especially considering the colors) isn't too far off from current F-15C camo.

I think digital camo is supposed to be like "perfectly random" so that the eye can't really make a pattern or shape out of it. Because even the best "hand-drawn" patterns still have some sort of shape or pattern, or are identifiable as camo. I mean, if you see swoops of green/tan/brown, you think "standard jungle camo". This is so "nothing" that you can't really "see" anything. At least, I think that's how it's supposed to work.

PS--people over at the jet modelling forums are collectively groaning at the masking job this'd take to do. :)

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I think digital camo is supposed to be like "perfectly random" so that the eye can't really make a pattern or shape out of it.  Because even the best "hand-drawn" patterns still have some sort of shape or pattern, or are identifiable as camo.  I mean, if you see swoops of green/tan/brown, you think "standard jungle camo".  This is so "nothing" that you can't really "see" anything.  At least, I think that's how it's supposed to work. 

Yes, it's mainly to break up the outline (though that's what all camo is). It works well in natural settings in the 100 yard range. A little better concealment from night vision. But that's for clothing. On people. On the ground.

Why they'd do it for a plane is a little odd.

Edited by Gaijin
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Yes, it's mainly to break up the outline (though that's what all camo is). It works well in natural settings in the 100 yard range. A little better concealment from night vision. But that's for clothing. On people. On the ground.

Why they'd do it for a plane is a little odd.

Cause in the near future, all branches of the U.S. military use the F-18.

Introducing.... the next generation MBT: M-18 Hornet!!

err... it's been a long day, cut me some slack <_<

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The night vision thing is pretty close. Most older night vision goggles are pixilated when you look through them (but not as bad 8-bit mario). So the digital camo is alot harder to see with older night vision goggles. The newer night vision goggles that the military uses are highter quality and don't have the problem. I have to agree that the digital camo concept seems to be more appropriate for uniforms than aircraft, but it still looks damn cool.

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Forgive my naiveness but what purpose does digicamo serve?  Perhaps mountain camo?

VMFA-314 is a CV going Marine Squadron based out here in MCAS Miramar. With '314, being a Marine squadron and the Corps' slowly converting to digital camouflage for it's uniforms, this is, IMO, just a unique paint job for the unit.

Traditionally, especially with the advent of the Dept. of the Navy standardizing all naval aircraft to gray, fighters/bombers with the modexes having "nuts," i.e. 200, 100, can have a unique color scheme. Some commands have the "CO's bird" retain colorful schemes reminiscient of the old Hi-Visibility color schemes.

Since the jet shown here had a modex of 200, it's just a color scheme the command wanted to try for that jet. No breakthroughs or anything like that. OTOH, I have never seen real digital urban camouflage. I've only seen and have woodland & desert MARPAT camouflage. The use of grey tones though for this jet's digital pattern just looks more pleasing for the aircraft and still maintaining a somewhat adherence to the plain gray color schemes.

Nice work BTW to the Corrosion Control team for making that camo. I'll have to stroll around the base to see if it's real or just a display jet.

EDIT TO ADD: Okay, nevermind. Seems real enough. It has intake covers and remove before flight pins/tags hanging on it. The location of the picture definitely is not MCAS Miramar, though.

Edited by Warmaker
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I think this is more along the lines of "outline break-up" rather than disruptive/confusing.  It's only disruptive at a range of like 10 yards, pointless for even the closest air-to-air.  Look at it from far away----overall effect (especially considering the colors) isn't too far off from current F-15C camo.  

I think digital camo is supposed to be like "perfectly random" so that the eye can't really make a pattern or shape out of it.  Because even the best "hand-drawn" patterns still have some sort of shape or pattern, or are identifiable as camo.  I mean, if you see swoops of green/tan/brown, you think "standard jungle camo".  This is so "nothing" that you can't really "see" anything.  At least, I think that's how it's supposed to work. 

PS--people over at the jet modelling forums are collectively groaning at the masking job this'd take to do.  :)

From what I've read (and I could be wrong here), digital camo is supposed to make it difficult to resolve an object when you're using an imaging device, not your eyes.

Most forms of indirect imagery (satellite, electro-optical, etc.) nowadays is digital, and images displayed by said devices are reduced to a finite number of pixels of varying brightnesses and colors - like your TV. The individual pixel information can then be transmitted (to a display on the device itself, or out to a remote receiver elsewhere) and recombined. The resulting image is only as good as the resolution of the optics/digitizing circuitry, the amount of noise picked up during transmission, the display itself, and a number of other factors.

The digital paint scheme supposedly breaks up the outline of the object by "faking out" whoever's looking at it the recombined image by creating what looks like a bunch of random pixels of different colors, instead of say, an aircraft. So in effect, the digital cammo'd object blends in with its surrounding pixels and becomes less distinct.

And as Gaijin and PAO70 mentioned, this also works on analog imaging devices that are inherently noisy, like night-vision systems.

This doesn't work with normal analog optics, like your eyes or a pair of binoculars.

So if you were looking at the thing through a pair if binoculars, you'd still see the outline of the hornet with a funky paint scheme.

Now the real question is...

Now maybe I'm missing something, but how is this even effective in this day and age. All of our current "enemies" are fairly low-tech, guerilla-style fighters, and have none of the imaging capability for this type of cammoflague to be useful against. So unless we go to war with a more technologically advanced foe, this is pretty much just eye candy. Conventional cammoflague would work just as well.

Still looks cool, though!

BTW, here's some interesting info (from an armor modeling website) about old-school "digital" camoflauge the Brits used in Berlin back in the day...

Centurion cammo

Felix

Edited by flyboy
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I'd think you'd be surprised at how much Soviet surpls 1st gen nightvision gear is out there. during Desert Storm we used a revesible day/night camo. The day side was the first pattern "choc-o-chip" desert and the nigt side was dark grey with a lage white grid pattern. It looked really stupid to the naked eye but to those older NV's you were practically invisible. ;)

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I'd think you'd be surprised at how much Soviet surpls 1st gen nightvision gear is out there.  during Desert Storm we used a revesible day/night camo. The day side was the first pattern "choc-o-chip" desert and the nigt side was dark grey with a lage white grid pattern. It looked really stupid to the naked eye but to those older NV's you were practically invisible. ;)

You have a point there. Doesn't work on night vision, but once you go to infra-red, all bets are off again. But it's useless in the daytime, when you need it the most.

Interesting. I've seen pictures of the night cammo, but I didn't know it was actually the reversible side of the standard BDU...

Felix

Edited by flyboy
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I'd think you'd be surprised at how much Soviet surpls 1st gen nightvision gear is out there.  during Desert Storm we used a revesible day/night camo. The day side was the first pattern "choc-o-chip" desert and the nigt side was dark grey with a lage white grid pattern. It looked really stupid to the naked eye but to those older NV's you were practically invisible. ;)

You have a point there. Doesn't work on night vision, but once you go to infra-red, all bets are off again. But it's useless in the daytime, when you need it the most.

Interesting. I've seen pictures of the night cammo, but I didn't know it was actually the reversible side of the standard BDU...

Felix

It was more of an overgarment. It's like a smock and pants you wear you BDUs underneath. It kinda reminded me of the stuff the SS wore. :unsure:

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I think the 'bits' of the digi-camo on this plane are too small. As it stands now, it just looks like somebody got bored and doodled over the plane with a square stencil.

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k im little bored but this is what i think of digi camo on aircraft.

And Mario fradulently acquires ANOTHER title...

Crpenter, plumber, doctor, race car driver, pilot ... WHERE WILL IT END? WILL THIS VILLAIN EVER BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE?

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