oh but that has always been the case. Bridge to far?

Maj. John Frost and his men has reach the nothern bridgehead of a bridge we now call the John Frost Bridge. They ring the bell of a house that they are going to occupy because it overlooks the bridge when Frost says:

"You know what occurs to me?", "We are wearing the wrong camouflage, it works fine for the countryside but i doubt it will fool anybody in the city". This while staring at his own helmet full of leaves and twigs.

What i learned about camouflage while i was in the Dutch army (almost 20 years ago) was that it is to break the patterns, hide sharp lines, to look like something else for a moment. Just an extra moment of confusion might be enough, but when you close and personal than it is not much of use anymore.
Anyway in a city the normal kind of camouflage would stand out, so they resort to grey, black and white instead of greens, black and khaki, straight lines and angles (just like buildings) instead of the flowing lines that you see normally. Its not to make it invisible, but to confuse and gain that extra moment of time.

I remember an excersize when we had to ambush a large patrol (platoon size), we actually gave them something to look at in the form of a vehicle in the distance that was badly camouflaged. The whole platoon passed without noticing us while we sat in a ditch about 7 to 10 meters from the road because they where distracted by the vehicle in the distance, once they passed we opened up fire with blanks and threw some thunderflashes (grenade imitators), it would have been a massacre if it was for real. Without that vehicle they might have spotted us before they passed us and we would have been the dead ones.

Our CO was rather pissed because the educational element was lost, but one thing was learned, things out of the ordinary might not be what it looks or what you are looking for.
Camouflage is just a small thing, but sometimes it might be just enough to make a difference.

Robert van der Veeke Basugasubasubasu Basugasubakuhaku Gasubakuhakuhaku!! "Better is the enemy of good enough." Dr. Mikoyan of the Mikoyan Gurevich Design Bureau.