The Hidden History of Camouflage   by Cynthia Govern

in Hobbies    (submitted 2012-02-02)

Camouflage is a well-known feature of any clothing intended for hunting or the military. You may be curious as to what camouflage actually is. In French, camouflage is very similar to another word that denotes blinding something so that no one can see it. To be hidden almost completely while at the same time being right by someone else is to be fully camouflaged.

In order to better understand camouflage, we'll spend this article delving deeper into the history of camouflage. Japan is the source of the original use of camouflage, and its use stretches all the way back to the 1300s. Dark clothing and full body coverage were the standard outfits of Japanese ninjas, who used the cover of darkness very effectively in carrying out their missions. When missions were conducted in times other than night, they would continue the camouflage tradition and dress in a way that hid them in any environment they found themselves.

A few hundred years later, in the 18th century, smaller units of elite scouts or rangers started taking on colors of the environment around them, usually brown or green. It required a little more convincing to get larger, more public armies to also take on camouflage as a uniform style. Eventually, modern forces came around to the idea of camouflage, and it was an idea first taken on by English forces based in India, who finally abandoned the bright red coloring they'd been using for centuries and replaced it with a neutral khaki. Since red colors seemed to be drawing the enemy and leading to a sharp increase in the casualty rate, the British in India decided to make all their forces wear khaki around the year 1880. 1902 marks the year that Britain finally decided to truly protect their soldiers by making khaki the default coloring scheme for all of their soldiers.

The Americans followed suit soon after, making khaki the primary color in all uniforms. Once gun technology had improved in terms of rate of fire and accuracy, it became much more important to have a way to stay hidden.

The Italians became the next country to take on a camouflage system when they decked out their troops for the mountains in 1906; by the time 1909 rolled around, the entire Italian army had begun wearing the color. Russians, too, started wearing khaki in the military around 1908. Another country that took heed of the changing uniform technology was Germany, who began a campaign in 1910 wearing a grey uniform.

The story of ridgeline clothing reaches back hundreds of years and stretches to the present. It is very common today to see hunters and soldiers using camouflage almost exclusively. Camouflage hunting clothing australia is clearly a necessary tool for survival in the wilderness, and we are now in an age where humans can hide as well as animals.

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