WHTV Advent: urban tank camouflage

[Jolemai]

 

Thoughts on this? I'm actually after an urban camouflage but for whatever reason this doesn't feel "right". What do you folk do for this type of camouflage?

[greycat]

A good place to start is always looking at real military vehicles. I am sure you have done this (if not get on it). Personally I prefer a more rigid urban camouflage of blocks of varying colour. I feel the pattern used in the video would be suitable for jungle or ice as the pattern looks more organic.

 

You just need to choose a colour scheme for your army and then work around that.

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

That's a take on the WW1 dazzle camo that they used to use on Warships. It's not a particularly effective urban scheme. I'd suggest using a dark grey base, with 1 or 2 lighter grey colors for the blotches. Use blotches, since the human eye is drawn to straight lines and angles. One of the things I was taught in in escape and evasion is to camouflage the V's. That is, distort the human shape, have cloth or leafy branches over the neck and shoulders and disguise the armpits and crotch, so there are fewer distinct angles.

 

Now that doesn't work on vehicles, so what you do is add blotches around the hard edges of differing colors. The Idea being to break up the outline in large chunks. That confuses the human brain. However it's rather hard to be stealthy with a large vehicle so most forces don't bother camouflaging them.

 

Military Camouflage works against negative space, the space between objects, and is designed to work best during movement. So when trying to hide you use two elements, camouflage and distance. The farther you are from the observer the better your camouflage will work. 

 

In urban combat environments the distances are magnitudes closer, and lines of sight are often clearly established, and corners are blind, making armored warfare extremely hazardous. 

 

You could also use similar colors that are in the video, instead of using black though, use a brown, because using black stands out against those lighter colors. You don't want the camo to be stark contrasts, but you want it to have depth, which further confuses the human eye. 

 

I hope this helps.

[WarriorFish]

Stealing from real life is always a good start as mentioned, I think this scheme looks a bit off for two reasons. First is it needed a bit more of the camo, there was too much plain grey and second the blue used could have done with having more contrast to the grey. That or maybe a third colour perhaps. Camo is as much getting the colours right as anything else, so that's the first thing to get right.

[Papy carni]

Hello,

If I can suggest you some inspiration for a more realistic tank's urban scheme, please have a look at this:
https://www.google.fr/search?q=berlin%27s+brigade+tanks&rlz=1C1NNVC_enFR492FR492&espv=2&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjnqOGPxOrJAhVOhhoKHf8dC2cQsAQILA&biw=1902&bih=979

 

That's a realist scheme used during cold war by allied forces stationed in Berlin. It summarise quite well posts before mine: a whitish grey, a bluer one and a cuting but still in the tone colour. The cam scheme is good at breaking the vehicle's lines and integrate it in an urban, all angular city environment.

And on a good point for us modellers: it's quite easy to do, yet time consuming, with masking tape.

[our_baz]

I use a series of four colours, from black, adeptus grey, codex to fortress grey for my "urban" colours, and I use what Ulrik describes as a WW1 dazzle camo.

[Myrkul]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UVFtFa4M8n4

 

You can try some thing like this. Pretty easy to do up.