morganbj
Posts: 3634
Joined: 8/12/2007
From: Mosquito Bite, Texas
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quote:
ORIGINAL: CheerfullyInsane
On a side-note, I love the pictures from Normandy showing German tanks sporting all kinds of improvised camouflage sticking out at absurd angles, while they're moving happily along a road........
Exactly who are they fooling here?
Spoken like someone with little or no military experience who wants to besmirch soldiers with several years of combat experience and who may have had good reason to camoflauge their equipment that that manner.
ANY reduction in the probability that you will be noticed increases the probability that you will see another day. While it looks silly when the picture is taken by a camerman 30 meters away, it is much less obvious to a plane flying at 200 mph and several miles away whi has to detect the vehicle amoung other vergitation. Does it guarentee non-detection? No, but it may reduce the chance some. It can also be utterly confusing to the antitank gun who has to precisely aim at a vehicle that is near other bushes, hedges, trees, etc. A 2 second delay while the AT gunner makes sure he's on the correct target can mean the difference between a hit, or a miss. What if I told you to climb in a tank and drive down a road. If you camoflauge your vehicle you've got a 80% chance of making it. If not, you have a 60% chance. Are you going to say that it looks stupid and not do it?
Now, if it is camoflauge that is out of place, then yes, it might be silly, but then again, it might not be. I've seen forest green camoflauge nets used in the desert to conceal sand colored vehicles. The logic was that while the net would aid in aircraft detection of the vehicle it might otherwise not see, it might cause a person with a hand-held AT weapon to misjudge where the target was behind the net, so as to cause a miss or perhaps a "bad" hit in a non-critical location. If your side had complete air superiority, and the other side had great potential to sneak in AT killer teams on the ground, especially at night, what would you do? I'd put up the net.
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Occasionally, and randomly, problems and solutions collide. The probability of these collisions is inversely related to the number of committees working on the solutions. -- Me.
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RE: for history buffs&grognards: WHY is airpower insuff... - 
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