What's best for nighttime camouflage?

What color is best for blending in at night? Is it black? Or would brown or dark green be better? What colors does the military use, for example?

FWIW, in WWII the German Luftwaffe determined the most effective nighttime camoflage color for their aircraft was a squiggly dark grey pattern on a medium grey background. The trouble with pure black was that the silhouette would stand out easily in a searchlight or bright moonlight.

Googling “night camouflage” takes you to some scary sites. But it also finds some interesting images. None of which are black. Here’s one that backs up Jet Jaguar’s info. On the other hand, here’s one that makes no sense to me.

Planning on egging the neighbors? :stuck_out_tongue:

No…of course not…<< >>

I wouldn’t do that till summer. Too cold out. Hey, wait a minute…now, what’s the freezing point of eggs…be a real pain to scrape eggsicle off your car…Heheheheh

No, I wouldn’t do that.

Hehehehe as far as YOU know…

Just make sure the cloth is IR-suppresant. Infra red shines like a beacon to those with the right scopes.

Blue light is the color least noticable by the human eye (red is the color of light which does not interrupt night vision). Lights backstage, for instance, are always masked blue.

So, whatever you wear, carry a bluelight flashlight. :slight_smile:

Speaking from long-ago personal experience as a teenager causing mischief with school fire extinguishers…

Standard green U.S. Army issue camoflauge will render a person in high grass invisible to a police helicopter that is directly shining a million-candlepower spotlight on him.

That just looks like urban camouflage to me. I have a pair of pants like that.

During SWAT day of my Civilian Police Academy Class, our instructor informed us that the best camouflage for a night environment was dark blue, called tactical blue.

Camouflage patterns are more of an art than a science. The differences of opinion are shocking.

In my experience, I always tried to get my guys in new uniforms before a fight. Amongst the worst camouflage is a faded peacetime uniform. Also remember to get new helmet covers.

the second camo pattern is actually designed to fool early night vision devices. Apparently the grid pattern created some sort of masking effect on the sensor.

What exactly is “IR-suppresant” cloth? I think that’s an urban legend, for years they told us in the Army not to starch fatigues because of some hokey concern about “showing up on infrared.”

I mean, I can see how starched fatigues would present a more crisp visual silhouette, or maybe hold more body heat due to reduced breathability, but how could cloth have any special “IR-suppresant” qualities?

OK, I found the answer to my own question. The idea isn’t to suppress infrared, but rather to reflect it, and most precistly to reflect it in a camouflage pattern. If you too were wondering about this, scan this doc for “infrared” and it will tell you everything you need to know.

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6805957.html

Apparently, what looks like a highly-patterned camouflage cloth to the unaided eye appears as an unpatterned pale green silhouette when viewed in night-vision goggles. So the dyes used to paint the camo pattern must also be IR-reflective, so that the camo pattern is reflected in IR the same as it is in visual light.

Note that this doesn’t make it IR-invisible; when viewed in IR against an unpatterned background, it stands out just as much as a guy wearing green patterned fatigues standing against a solid white wall.