RE: [Epic] Dark colors vs Light colors

From: Miller, Chris <CMiller_at_...>
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 11:48:02 -0600

> I was asking my brother, the military history buff, about camouflage
> the
> other night and he told me something I hadn't heard of before. He
> said
> that vehicles with dark colors look smaller & farther away causing a
> tendency of the enemy to over shoot them, and that vehicles with
> lighter
> colors look larger & closer causing a tendency to shoot short of them.
>
> Has anyone else heard of this? Also, does the same apply to the game
> table? I've never thought about it. I have seen occaisions where
> units
> blended with the scenery well enough for the players to forgot about
> them.
>
> --Elaine
>
>
--------> I'd always heard the reverse - things haze with distance, so
lighter = farther. With larger objects, the goal often isn't so much to
hide something as to break up the outline, so that it's harder to
identify and assess damage/hits, etc.

I've also seen the too-effective tabletop camo in action. "Oops - forgot
to move him". My lesson has been that, whatever scheme you paint
(jungle, urban, desert), be sure to play on a different surface, as it
makes things much easier to spot. A ton of my Battletech stuff is done
in a basic grey with tiger stripe scheme which _looks_ like some kind
of camo scheme, but is difficult to miss on the tabletop. I'd say that's
the real trick - make it look like camo but not act as camo.

For some wild camo, naval units have had some zingers over the years.
There are several photos of carriers (mainly Japanese WW2) with turrets
and things painted on their decks to make them look like a cruiser or
even a BB as the carriers were primary targets. Don't know if any study
was done regarding effectiveness of these schemes, but they do look
pretty strange. Some of the side-view camo schemes for BB's and such
were pretty wild too. Might work for some of those giant land vehicles
people are so fond of.

Chris Miller
Received on Thu Mar 19 1998 - 17:48:02 UTC