Anyone want to talk tanks?
There is a land warfare version of Dazzle which is now called Caunter and it is a very controversial subject!
I will give you the short version of the controversy.
First I need to point out that that you could print an endless amount of history books on an endless amount of different subjects and nobody would buy any of them because there is no interest. However there are two large markets to tap into, reenactors and modelers. So go to any military book store and you will find 90% of the books are aimed at those two markets. But these people want accuracy and details, so you end up with controversies over really mundane details like paint colours.
Very few reenactors own tanks, and personally I couldn't give a fuck what colour modelers paint their tanks, but these things do exist in museums so there is a legitimate problem here, and frankly I find puzzles like this interesting.
All over the world, museums have painted tanks in colours very similar to that shown in the photo above.
Apparently this scheme was invented by Col. Caunter of the 4th Armoured Brigade and popular wisdom is that it is inspired by the dazzle scheme of ships, but seen through a heat-haze of Sahara desert, the blue helped it blend into the sky as well as the sand.
Now comes the controversy. Were they actually painted blue?
On the one hand you have the paperwork which includes paint codes which indicates they were actually shades of painted green. (This in itself requires a hell of a lot of research as although we might have British Standard paint codes for these colours, we might not have paint formulas or swatches). Over the years various documents have shown up, all indicating that they were painted in colours such as "silver Grey" which is actually a shade of green.
On the other hand you have anecdotal evidence, much of which describes them as being painted in sky blue.
This is the evidence on which most of the arguments are fought over. Documents vs anecdotal, prescriptive vs descriptive.
There is a large contingent of people who are very technically minded that say we should go with the paperwork and the paint codes, and frankly we all know that anecdotal evidence is unreliable. However they do seem to be ignoring some important evidence (because they never mention it) which is contemporary watercolour paintings done in the field.
Over the years some colour photos have shown up, some of which indicate that the green theory is correct, some indicate that the colour was actually grey. However, eventually one photo showed up clearly showing a nice bright blue.
http://s13.photobucket.com/user/Saduria ... 3.jpg.html
So then the argument changed to, how prevalent was the use of blue? The green camp argue that it was rare, but was so striking that it stuck in people's minds. Another theory is that the green faded to look blue in certain light.
There are many similar controversies to this, another very similar one is the colour of Afrika Korps vehicles. German camouflage theory at the time was based on the idea of hiding tanks in the shadows which is why they painted their tanks a Blue-Grey. This translated to the african campaign as a shadowy shade of sand with a darker grey-brown disruptive colour. This is what the directives and paint-chips indicate but there is absolutely zero evidence it was ever used and some physical evidence that they were painted in a colour approximating sand.
Anywhoo, I think the debate is interesting in it's impotency. You have one side pouring over old documents looking for official orders. The other side looking over anecdotal accounts or trying to colour correct old photos.
I did my own research and found some interesting things. Firstly that people's attitude to standardization right up to the 1960s was "Close enough", "That'll do", and "Good enough for government work". Paint was mixed up in big vats by a "bloke" adding a bit of this and a bit of that until it looked about right. If it wasn't quite right.... tough luck.
I found out that both sides constantly complained about the colour of equipment being too light or too dark, and in the name of "battlefield efficiency" would make their own corrective measures (e.g. Staining uniforms with tea).
I found out that there was a general shortage of green pigments for paint and the air force was given priority, leading to British tanks in Europe being painted shades of brown for the first half of the war.
British paints were supplied as a concentrate to be diluted with petrol, paint destined for the airforce and navy came through the same ports and supply depots... if the merchant ships carrying them weren't sunk. They often turned to local producers to make up the shortfall, and in the case of the Germans, paint was produced nearer the theater in Italy and Tunisia.
And somehow it has been forgotten that officers were trained to disobey orders... it was an essential part of German military doctrine, and British officers were encouraged to get creative. This lead to the creation of Jock Columns and the creation of a half dozen "Special Forces" groups, some of which painted their vehicles pink and purple.
I also discovered that boredom in the desert, the harsh conditions, the fact that some of these guys had been posted in the Middle east since before the war meant that on all sides they thought of themselves as a breed apart, separate from the rest of the forces. They had their own culture, own vocabulary, even their own fashion, and made their own rules, sometimes out of boredom, sport or spite.
So how do you apply Bayes theorem to this problem? :rimshot:
