Why ships used this camouflage in World War I

未能成功加载,请稍后再试
0/0

It was called " dazzle camouflage" , and the irregular shapes were paired with bright colors, like this blue.

So when artists painted scenes like this or this, they werent just playing with paint. They were showing the final defense that hundreds upon hundreds of ships used...against torpedoes.

British artist Norman Wilkinson painted scenes like these and specialized in nautical pictures. He ran the Royal Navys camoufleur program.

Yes - “camoufleur.” One who...camouflages.

Previous camoufleurs had tried shades of grey or blue, but Wilkinson suggested dazzle: unpredictable patterns, with a range of colors.

There were some really bright ones. Hiding a ship was hard.

The ocean and sky were constantly changing colors, and that made it hard to pick a single shade of paint that could help a ship slip by unnoticed.

But it was possible to hide what the ship was doing. The U-Boat submarine and torpedoes were the big new threat in World War I.

But the u-boat had limitations. To shoot a torpedo, you needed to know the angle, distance, and speed of the ship you

were shooting at. The ship was moving and so was the submarine.

下载全新《每日英语听力》客户端,查看完整内容