Re: German tanks and dappled camouflage
Sometimes refered to as the "ambush scheme," this pattern was popular with German units late in the war. The effect was supposed to mimic the effect of light filtering from the trees above.
But, as more than one study of the effectiveness of camoflauge has shown such intricate patterns rarely, if ever do any good. At typical fighting distances for tanks the small bloches are indistinguishable from the larger pattern. You can try this yourself. Take a 1/35th model of a vehicle so painted and place it 15 yards from where you are standing. Look at it from ground level. With a 1/72nd model put it at 7 yards and do the same.
This is the approximate effect of looking at the vehicle full scale at 500 yards.
How did the pattern evolve? Since German units were left to their own devices on camoflauge of their vehicles and were provided a certain amount of paint base to put this on with they could come up with all sorts of elaborate camoflauge schemes given the inclination and time to do it. This one appears to have been popular that's all.
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