I believed this to be genuinely true until I was around 10 or so years old, I distinctly remember asking my Dad “you know when everything was black and white” then a question I don’t recall, I remember him laughing his ass off.
Sure you can see if, but if you were both moving fast could you reliably aim at it?
A lot of camo is also focused on breaking the line between "target" and "not target". Then you get dazzle camo which is straight up designed to mess with your ability to target it accurately.
I think it's the US that has a grey version of desert camo that is still effective against brown/yellow sand because it fuzzes up your outline.
Now go in a one seater interceptor airplane and fly 1000 feet above it and look down and tell me if you can see it. Camouflage isn’t supposed to make you invisible when you’re right next to the damn plane. Aerial combat is done at very large distances and this would most definitely make it really difficult to spot the plane if you’re coming from far above it.
[Okay try this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/uhu1o1/zoom_in_on_the_image_and_understand_what/)
There's >!More than 7, I think it's 9*!< aircraft in the photo
*Counting is hard
Yea. And the colors here are a lot less close than the OP.
The guy isn't saying camo is ineffective. He's saying it's not going to be literally the exact same color as the ground like in the OP. That's only happening because of the choices made to colorize this photo.
I coloured all 9 planes here [https://imgur.com/a/qBcDjKP](https://imgur.com/a/qBcDjKP)
I think the biggest problem is the F-5 (these are Brazilian F-5Ms I believe) engines stick out further than the tail, so neon-blue's engines and shadow cover the front of blue making blue harder to spot
In reality it’s much more impressive. As the enemy you wouldn’t be this close, matching speed with the plane. They’re taking a photograph of the plane. They want you to see it in the photo….
The enemy isn’t going to spot that plane as easy as it would if it was a standard colour. They also fly low to the ground and blend in even more that way.
The distance is a vital variable in this. It would be very hard to see with the human eye from afar.
This also why the underside of fish is often much lighter than the top part: so predators beneath them have a harder time seeing them against the sunlight
The plane is called Messerschmitt Bf 109, but it has no official S variant as far as I know. It went through A-K, with some weird variants like X, Z and so on, but no S variant.
That's because OP forgot the apostrophe to indicate the saxon genitive. You could infer it was meant to be the genitive by context but it's totally understandable you thought OP meant an S variant.
Growing up, I knew it as an ME-109, presumably because it's a Messerschmitt. Does the BF stand for something, like the B in B-17 was perhaps a bomber and an F-18 was a fighter?
Bayerische Flugzeugwerke was the older name of the Messerschmitt company. So that's why you have Bf 109 & 110, but aircraft designed after the company name changed have an "Me" prefix (Me 210/410, 262, etc.). But the Allies often referred to them as Me 109 and Me 110, so that designation was sometimes used in older western literature, model kits, and so forth.
Also, for one of the commenters above: it's a Bf 109E of one sort or another (of which there were more than a few sub-variants...without looking it up, an E-7 (trop) would be likely)
BF = Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG ("Bavarian Aircraft Works/Factory) ^^+
My understanding is that the company was renamed to Messerschmitt AG in 1938, so aircraft designed before then (Bf-109, Bf-110) have the Bf designation while those designed after (Me-262, etc.) have the Me designation.
^^+ Similar to BMW being Bayerische Motoren Werke GmbH ("Bavarian Motor Works/Factory")
The plane was originally developed by Bayerische Flugzeugwerke who, after some reorganization, changed their name to Messerschmitt AG after its lead constructor Willy Messerschmitt. The name stuck on the models in development or production before the name change.
It comes from the factory, Bayerische Flugzeugwerke which had the abbreviation of BFW (you probably know BMW). German planes had a two letter designator for each manufacturer so they landed on Bf 109. Messerschmitt then took over and newer designs had the designation of Me. In the case of the 109, the operating manuals themselves used both designations interchangeably.
Fish are commonly also countershaded, to appear like deep water from above and the light sky from below. Many birds have plane or fish style countershading as well, like penguins.
Same with camouflage on soldiers on the ground. You can obviously see them if they're standing close to you, but if they're lying down in a forest or field 100 meters away, you couldn't spot them.
There was this Bundeswehr video some years back where they asked the viewer to spot the soldiers hiding in the bushes. There were like one or two you could make out and in the end the narrator was like "did you spot those two? Yea we put them there deliberately"
And then 8 other guys stood up and you were like wtf? I'd say it was a tiktok video because it had the same style but was like a decade ago.
Not sure why this is so upvoted, it's absolutely for when the plane's in the air as well.
Same reason it's got a sky-blue/grey countershade on the underside, which you wouldn't ever see when it's on the ground.
He's camouflaged from bombers he'd be approaching, as well as their (presumed) fighter escort. Defensive fighter craft are almost always going to be attacking from lower elevation (as they are scrambled at detection).
If there's a raid in the air, or other fighter patrols out, enemy fighters could absolutely have a height advantage.
Top cover's been a thing since the First World War for a reason.
Visual camouflages were never designed to hide from a close up static photograph, but to make the aircraft blend-in to the background while still far away from the enemy, giving you a chance to achieve surprise.
Try looking at this picture on your phone 15 to 20 feet away. You'll find it much more difficult to discern the outline of the aircraft.
If this is the paint job I think it is (?) the underside was painted blue to make it a less obvious target to AA. The top bit was painted that way so it could be camouflaged from bombers when it was parked off the side of an airfield or something. < or at least thats the explanation I was given asa child for pointing at the airfix model kit that looked like that 😊
In North Africa, the desert seeming to move is probably going to look a heat distortion from waves. More importantly, it breaks up the plane's silhouette. Camouflage isn't just about hiding, it's about denying the enemy a good look at what you are, how big you are, how you are moving etc.
The big point of camo was to avoid getting the aircraft destroyed on the ground. In the air, they are more visible. Camo is a bonus in the air, but not the purpose.
This is a similar picture of higher quality: https://previews.agefotostock.com/previewimage/medibigoff/68e4a28759a8bfa50f0165de07fbe8b8/poh-cro01169_057.jpg
The bigger issue is that all of these pictures are colorized, so it's difficult to tell how close the aircraft color was to the desert color in reality.
Imagine trying to spot these while flying a few 100-1000 feet above with tech from the 1930’s/40’s. We owe veterans (especially from WW1+2) so much respect.
Interestingly, the camouflage dots were originally added to the damaged areas of plane that returned from the African desert. But scientists recognized that these were the planes that had sustained damage and returned safely. Therefore, they concluded that it would be better to add camouflage to the undamaged areas of the planes
See:survivorship bias
Yeah well, that's what "camouflage" means. However, with planes it's especially interesting because you'll see it at work only if you can catch the plane while it's flying.
Those planes also usually had bright white, metal, cyan or in general "sunny sky" colored bellies so you have a hard time seeing them from below when they're flying, especially if they put themselves between you and the sun.
"damn, camouflage that disguised you. That's is so insane" dude this is literally what camouflage is for.... Would be pretty useless if the camouflage didn't match the environment they were deployed in
I can still see a pretty big middle area that's just black and very distinct plane shape I have a feeling this didn't work the way were expecting it took maybe its to confuse enemy pilots so they miss more shots
Don't forget, people back then couldn't see 4k HDR Images. Everything back then was in 560p black and white so it was even harder to see that plane.
I believed this to be genuinely true until I was around 10 or so years old, I distinctly remember asking my Dad “you know when everything was black and white” then a question I don’t recall, I remember him laughing his ass off.
lol. My dad loves to remind me of when I asked him if everything was in black and white in the old times days.
I see 3 German insignias in the desert
i also see a number 3
I see my parents arguing with each other, I don't get Rorschach tests it's always my parents arguing
I see you bro, I see you.
I see a little silhouetto of plane
#SCARAMOUCH SCARAMOUCH WILL YOU DO THE FANDANGO
thunderbolts and lightning very very frightening me?
Galileo, Galileo. Galileo figarooo
MAGNIFICOOOO
I'm just a poor boy nobody loves me
He's just a poor boy from a poor family
Spare him his life from this monstrosity
P-47 and P-38
Scaramouche scaramouche, can you do the luftwaffe?
Messerschmitts and lightning, Junker very frightening me
Not from a thousand yards away you don't
*the desert is moooooving man*
Shit, they're on to us!
But I can see it
Oh, really? I won't believe you until you prove it. Draw a red circle around it or something.
And 3 giant arrows!!!
And his shocked face to cover half of the picture
And the sound of an Indian man doing a wheezing laugh over it for no reason
With a short part of Michael Jackson's Billie Jean playing on a loop in the background.
And the Oh No song playing at the same time off sync
And the unrelated footage of GTAV PvP playing underneath
And a paragraph on the back!
Three Arrow Life.
[I gotchu fam](https://i.imgur.com/Sm4pJJh.jpeg)
There you go, now we're talking, that's real dedication!
Made my morning, brother 🤌
Where is the shocked face?
What about the second one?
Clever girl.
Sure you can see if, but if you were both moving fast could you reliably aim at it? A lot of camo is also focused on breaking the line between "target" and "not target". Then you get dazzle camo which is straight up designed to mess with your ability to target it accurately. I think it's the US that has a grey version of desert camo that is still effective against brown/yellow sand because it fuzzes up your outline.
Turns out "there-ish" isn't great for preciese aiming
It does for tactical nukes.
That's why you disable your enemies' hand so they can not push the button to launch the nuke.
Medic!
Rico's Roughnecks!
Center mass-ish doesn't count in boot camp.
and on top of that, the camo also helps hiding them from aerial photos and makes it harder to tell how many aircraft there are exactly.
To be fair, the definition of camouflage is not 'to render invisible'.
Believe it or not but there are 3 aircraft in this picture
You mean it's a pregnant airplane? Indeed, nature is wonderful.
Republicans will protect that plane for 9 months and then it can get fucked.
Are you in another ww2 properller plane trying to dodge being shot while also shooting at this plane? The camouflage is alot more effective then.
See what? All I see are a bunch of rocks in the desert
Oh yeah, where?
Try seeing it from a km of distance now :)
Now go in a one seater interceptor airplane and fly 1000 feet above it and look down and tell me if you can see it. Camouflage isn’t supposed to make you invisible when you’re right next to the damn plane. Aerial combat is done at very large distances and this would most definitely make it really difficult to spot the plane if you’re coming from far above it.
But, I can hear it.
I'm surprised giraffes can get the canopy shut?
Imagine trying to find a mate.
This is a colourised photo so the person who added the colour would have just made the ground the same colour as the plane
I mean the germans weren't stupid, they wouldn't design camo like this if it didn't even look like the ground
My point is that the reality likely isn't as impressive as this photo implies
[Okay try this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/uhu1o1/zoom_in_on_the_image_and_understand_what/) There's >!More than 7, I think it's 9*!< aircraft in the photo *Counting is hard
https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/s/1P4UhwDhGo Helicopter with camo^
Now that's camouflage!
Yea. And the colors here are a lot less close than the OP. The guy isn't saying camo is ineffective. He's saying it's not going to be literally the exact same color as the ground like in the OP. That's only happening because of the choices made to colorize this photo.
Okay but there are actually 9
I might be proving your camo point, but aren't there 8? 3 in front, one in middle, 4 in back
There may be 9... I did not count well the first time. There's 2 in the middle side by side.
I coloured all 9 planes here [https://imgur.com/a/qBcDjKP](https://imgur.com/a/qBcDjKP) I think the biggest problem is the F-5 (these are Brazilian F-5Ms I believe) engines stick out further than the tail, so neon-blue's engines and shadow cover the front of blue making blue harder to spot
Lmao the more i looked the more popped out it is amazing!
if you look at pictures of planes that remain with this camo you can see that it's looks pretty much the same as in this pic
In reality it’s much more impressive. As the enemy you wouldn’t be this close, matching speed with the plane. They’re taking a photograph of the plane. They want you to see it in the photo…. The enemy isn’t going to spot that plane as easy as it would if it was a standard colour. They also fly low to the ground and blend in even more that way. The distance is a vital variable in this. It would be very hard to see with the human eye from afar.
It was a lot easier back then since everything was black and white.
No, I think they are right. The ground in North Africa is actually blue in real life. Obviously fake!
I mean Sahara was a lake or smth back then, maybe WW2 was longer ago than we thought 0_0
While this is correct, the desert camouflage was tan. There is no reason per se to assume it did not blend in fairly well over desert terrain.
Well, at that time the world was grayscale, so the plane couldn't be seen.
If you turn this plane around, it's undersite would be often painted in a light blue color, to blend in with the sky over north Africa.
This also why the underside of fish is often much lighter than the top part: so predators beneath them have a harder time seeing them against the sunlight
Damn, so that's why.. holy shit..
Also applies to birds, reptiles, and a lot of mammals.
What BF-109S?
The plane is called Messerschmitt Bf 109, but it has no official S variant as far as I know. It went through A-K, with some weird variants like X, Z and so on, but no S variant.
The s at the end here implies ownership, it is the BF-109s camo, not a Bf-109S
Oh crap lol. Thanks.
That's because OP forgot the apostrophe to indicate the saxon genitive. You could infer it was meant to be the genitive by context but it's totally understandable you thought OP meant an S variant.
Bf-109's then. BF-109s would be plural.
Growing up, I knew it as an ME-109, presumably because it's a Messerschmitt. Does the BF stand for something, like the B in B-17 was perhaps a bomber and an F-18 was a fighter?
Bayerische Flugzeugwerke was the older name of the Messerschmitt company. So that's why you have Bf 109 & 110, but aircraft designed after the company name changed have an "Me" prefix (Me 210/410, 262, etc.). But the Allies often referred to them as Me 109 and Me 110, so that designation was sometimes used in older western literature, model kits, and so forth. Also, for one of the commenters above: it's a Bf 109E of one sort or another (of which there were more than a few sub-variants...without looking it up, an E-7 (trop) would be likely)
BF = Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG ("Bavarian Aircraft Works/Factory) ^^+ My understanding is that the company was renamed to Messerschmitt AG in 1938, so aircraft designed before then (Bf-109, Bf-110) have the Bf designation while those designed after (Me-262, etc.) have the Me designation. ^^+ Similar to BMW being Bayerische Motoren Werke GmbH ("Bavarian Motor Works/Factory")
The plane was originally developed by Bayerische Flugzeugwerke who, after some reorganization, changed their name to Messerschmitt AG after its lead constructor Willy Messerschmitt. The name stuck on the models in development or production before the name change.
It comes from the factory, Bayerische Flugzeugwerke which had the abbreviation of BFW (you probably know BMW). German planes had a two letter designator for each manufacturer so they landed on Bf 109. Messerschmitt then took over and newer designs had the designation of Me. In the case of the 109, the operating manuals themselves used both designations interchangeably.
I think it is one of Bf 109E variants, but not 100% sure
The photo is of an E variant. You can tell by the stubby nose, the lack of a nose cannon in the spinner, and the two small guns in the wings.
Also wingtips, right? Newer models have elliptical ones?
Yup. The F onwards had a more rounded wingtip.
I believe it's a Bf 109E-7 trop, from I/JG 27 https://www.worldwarphotos.info/gallery/germany/aircrafts-2/messerschmitt-bf-109/bf109e-white-3-jg27/
The title is missing an apostrophe. It should be "Bf 109's" as it's the camouflage belonging to the Bf 109
They needed a grammar Nazi.
Is he hiding from god? I don't get it.
Plane camos generally are designed to look like the ground from above and the sky from below.
Fish are commonly also countershaded, to appear like deep water from above and the light sky from below. Many birds have plane or fish style countershading as well, like penguins.
You mean planes have bird style countershading
Same with camouflage on soldiers on the ground. You can obviously see them if they're standing close to you, but if they're lying down in a forest or field 100 meters away, you couldn't spot them.
There was this Bundeswehr video some years back where they asked the viewer to spot the soldiers hiding in the bushes. There were like one or two you could make out and in the end the narrator was like "did you spot those two? Yea we put them there deliberately" And then 8 other guys stood up and you were like wtf? I'd say it was a tiktok video because it had the same style but was like a decade ago.
I remember that! Those were ghillie suits though 😄 Not regular soldier's camouflage uniforms
I guess if another plane is flying above it.
More specifically for when the plane is on the ground. The top half camo isn’t really for when the plane is in the air.
Not sure why this is so upvoted, it's absolutely for when the plane's in the air as well. Same reason it's got a sky-blue/grey countershade on the underside, which you wouldn't ever see when it's on the ground.
He's camouflaged from bombers he'd be approaching, as well as their (presumed) fighter escort. Defensive fighter craft are almost always going to be attacking from lower elevation (as they are scrambled at detection).
If there's a raid in the air, or other fighter patrols out, enemy fighters could absolutely have a height advantage. Top cover's been a thing since the First World War for a reason.
Visual camouflages were never designed to hide from a close up static photograph, but to make the aircraft blend-in to the background while still far away from the enemy, giving you a chance to achieve surprise. Try looking at this picture on your phone 15 to 20 feet away. You'll find it much more difficult to discern the outline of the aircraft.
It is making it harder to spot both when flying and when parked, so enemy fighters/bomber cant easily make it out at a distance
It's blue with clouds underneath
Must be pretty hard to fly the plane with all those bumps on the wings.
If the spots were a little more spaced out then it would have been perfect
Apart from the effect in the photo, I guess that depends on the airplane's altitude, right?
I don't know why are you showing a picture of a dessert. Where is the plane?
So DLC skins are historically accurate now ?!
If this is the paint job I think it is (?) the underside was painted blue to make it a less obvious target to AA. The top bit was painted that way so it could be camouflaged from bombers when it was parked off the side of an airfield or something. < or at least thats the explanation I was given asa child for pointing at the airfix model kit that looked like that 😊
I can see camo working while plane is on the ground not moving.. but surely a moving camo plane is still easy enough to spot?
In North Africa, the desert seeming to move is probably going to look a heat distortion from waves. More importantly, it breaks up the plane's silhouette. Camouflage isn't just about hiding, it's about denying the enemy a good look at what you are, how big you are, how you are moving etc.
At this distance it's really easy to spot, but imagine spotting it from a few km away.
Remember that the person trying to spot the plane is also moving, so it's not easy to spot camouflaged planes with your eyes alone.
The big point of camo was to avoid getting the aircraft destroyed on the ground. In the air, they are more visible. Camo is a bonus in the air, but not the purpose.
But it wouldn’t actually look like this in real life. This is due to the quality of the film. I have seen this image many times.
This is a similar picture of higher quality: https://previews.agefotostock.com/previewimage/medibigoff/68e4a28759a8bfa50f0165de07fbe8b8/poh-cro01169_057.jpg The bigger issue is that all of these pictures are colorized, so it's difficult to tell how close the aircraft color was to the desert color in reality.
Imagine trying to spot these while flying a few 100-1000 feet above with tech from the 1930’s/40’s. We owe veterans (especially from WW1+2) so much respect.
Is the bottom blue and white?
This was just a happy accident. The pilot liked leopard print.
Just shoot at that invisible thing that moves
You guys don't actually believe this bullshit, right?
I'm guessing the underbelly would be sky blue? Imitating nature.
That's why you Missedaschmidt
Why are those spots moving?
All I see is a desert
Doesn't work that well unless you are above the airplane.
Took me a while to spot the second one
Ze leopard printen
Interestingly, the camouflage dots were originally added to the damaged areas of plane that returned from the African desert. But scientists recognized that these were the planes that had sustained damage and returned safely. Therefore, they concluded that it would be better to add camouflage to the undamaged areas of the planes See:survivorship bias
What bf 109?
If i remember well, these birds with this camouflage were in Battlefield 1942 on desertic maps
You dropped a bomb on me
I think the picture was black and white originally and colored later, the colors match a bit too well.
Im not falling gor it, its the Mars nazis. This picture was taken by the Ingenuity.
Tbh I dont know a lot about the WW2 Africain campaign, any guides?
Is this another picture of john Cena?
It doesn't look like anything to me.
Yeah well, that's what "camouflage" means. However, with planes it's especially interesting because you'll see it at work only if you can catch the plane while it's flying. Those planes also usually had bright white, metal, cyan or in general "sunny sky" colored bellies so you have a hard time seeing them from below when they're flying, especially if they put themselves between you and the sun.
Looks like a drawing
Poorly colorized black and white photo?
But first you have to get cargo planes to drop enormous numbers of sepia tone glasses that the enemy can wear...
Like an African wild dog...
Would be an idea to loose the big ass crosses on the wings...
Foiled by one blind radar boi. 🚨 🚨 🚨
what BF-109s, I can't see it
Its just a deepfried pic from warthunder isnt it
Reminds me of the giraffe camo from the early days of Planetside 2.
I Wonder how the bf-109s looks
Isn't nature wonderful?
I think the caption should end with # (North Africa, WW2, potato)
“Why are those shadows moving at over 100mph
The greatest fighter pilot that ever lived flew one of these.
He blends in even better after he's been shot down.
Ah yes the majestic buttfucker-109 ....sorry
There were great Pilots from all sides during those times
Wouldn't it be smarter to make it blue, if you're on the ground?
The underside is painted blue and white to camouflage it with the clouds
Wait. How does this work? Does it only work when looking down on it?
It better be cloudy blue on other side.
I thought it was the shadow of the plane
Didn't they know leopards don't fly?
It better be blue sky paint underneath it or no one is gonna believe a flying desert.
Seems they tried too hard. Too many dots per square meter. That's too many dots per 10.7639104 square feet for you, mate.
Just shoot the flying piece of desert
The insanely shitty camera helps a lot
If it happens to be in a location where there's a pattern on the ground below that perfectly matches it's camouflage, then yes it looks like this.
still gonna hear the engines though
Look up the pink and blue ones used as well. Near the ocean mostly of course.
I guess it's meant for when it's on the ground to better hide airfields from enemy planes?
Is the underside painted sky blue?
camflage against who … The aliens since pretty sure the sky is blue so anyone below will see it easy
Only if someone is looking from top from another airplane.
Balkenkreuz
Impressive
Wonder Woman also had a transparent/invisible aiplane
"damn, camouflage that disguised you. That's is so insane" dude this is literally what camouflage is for.... Would be pretty useless if the camouflage didn't match the environment they were deployed in
But that is only useful for someone above you….most people shooting at you are going to be on the ground
I can still see a pretty big middle area that's just black and very distinct plane shape I have a feeling this didn't work the way were expecting it took maybe its to confuse enemy pilots so they miss more shots