Dazzle camouflage in WWI had surprisingly little impact, study suggests

The effectiveness of the iconic dazzle camouflage used on British Royal Navy ships during the First World War could be “substantially overestimated”, according to a new study.

Instead, the research, published in the journal i-Perception, finds that another type of illusion called the “horizon effect” was more influential in confusing enemies at sea during the Great War.

During the First World War, American and British ships were widely painted with unique zig-zag and checkered geometric shapes and stripes in shades of grey, black, or white to confuse German U-boat captains as to the vessels’ speed and direction of travel.

A 1919 study by MIT naval architecture student Leo Blodgett suggested that dazzle camouflage worked, but now the new research casts doubt on the earlier findings.

November 1918: Airmen and sailors cheering the King from the aircraft carrier ‘Argus’, on his visit to the Fleet at Rosyth, Scotland. The carrier is painted in ‘dazzle’ camouflage. (Getty Images)

The latest study finds that a separate “horizon effect” played a much bigger role in saving ships from German U-boats.

The horizon effect is when a person looks at a ship in the distance and it appears to be travelling along the horizon, regardless of its actual direction of travel.

For instance, ships travelling at an angle of up to 25 degrees relative to the horizon may appear as travelling directly along it.

The new findings claim that the original study “substantially overestimated the effectiveness of dazzle camouflage”.

In the new study, scientists from Aston University ran their own version of Blodgett’s experiment.

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