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Message no. 1
From: Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@***.NEU.EDU>
Subject: camouflage
Date: Tue, 11 Oct 1994 13:40:44 -0400
Something nifty I discovered over the weekend about imaging gear. Military
grade imaging gear is tweaked to chloroflourescence, that is the
flourescence that chlorophyl gives off. So that forest camouflaged tank in
the forest looks greenish while the surrounding vegetation looks purple.
Nice contrast, don't you think?

--
Rat <ratinox@***.neu.edu> |When not in use, Happy Fun Ball should be
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/ratinox|returned to its special container and kept
PGP Public Key: Ask for one today! |under refrigeration.
Message no. 2
From: Adam Getchell <acgetche@****.UCDAVIS.EDU>
Subject: Re: camouflage
Date: Tue, 11 Oct 1994 10:50:08 -0700
On Tue, 11 Oct 1994, Stainless Steel Rat wrote:

> Something nifty I discovered over the weekend about imaging gear. Military
> grade imaging gear is tweaked to chloroflourescence, that is the
> flourescence that chlorophyl gives off. So that forest camouflaged tank in
> the forest looks greenish while the surrounding vegetation looks purple.
> Nice contrast, don't you think?

Yup. Our big concern at Ft. Belvoir was duplicating the
"chlorophyl curve" of the surrounding vegetation.
Very cool.

> Rat <ratinox@***.neu.edu> |When not in use, Happy Fun Ball should be

+-------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|Adam Getchell|acgetche@****.engr.ucdavis.edu | ez000270@*******.ucdavis.edu |
| acgetchell |"Invincibility is in oneself, vulnerability is in the opponent"|
+-------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Message no. 3
From: Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@***.NEU.EDU>
Subject: Re: camouflage
Date: Tue, 11 Oct 1994 13:55:29 -0400
>>>>> "Adam" == Adam Getchell <acgetche@****.UCDAVIS.EDU>
writes:

Adam> Yup. Our big concern at Ft. Belvoir was duplicating the
Adam> "chlorophyl curve" of the surrounding vegetation.
Adam> Very cool.

How well have you duplicated it? Or is that something I "don't need to
know?" :)

--
Rat <ratinox@***.neu.edu> |When not in use, Happy Fun Ball should be
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/ratinox|returned to its special container and kept
PGP Public Key: Ask for one today! |under refrigeration.
Message no. 4
From: Adam Getchell <acgetche@****.UCDAVIS.EDU>
Subject: Re: camouflage
Date: Tue, 11 Oct 1994 11:43:53 -0700
On Tue, 11 Oct 1994, Stainless Steel Rat wrote:

> How well have you duplicated it? Or is that something I "don't need to
> know?" :)

Well, I gave a report of results to a group at UDC, so I don't
think it's too classified. Bear in mind this was in '86, things may have
radically changed ...
We determined that, unfortuately, various backgrounds required
different camouflages. Now, the Israelis were supposed to have a good
desert scheme (and desert is a relatively simple, uncluttered background
with some reflectance spikes thrown by the facets in the sand-crystals)
so we concentrated on a heavy forest background such as that found in
Virginia or Germany.
In a nutshell, it was tricky. Chlorophyl has a reflectance
spectrum which continously varies through differing wavelengths. From 100
to 25000 nanometers, it was pretty much continous (as in smooth,
diffrentiable continous function) except for the gap at 570 or so (the
"green"). Now, we got some materials that could pretty closely match the
curve, but generally not through the full range.
So, say the 2500 nm region would look pretty close, but at 25000
it was nothing like it. There was no simple way to put close-matches of
desired portions of the spectrum together, because they generally interfered
with each other. Generally.
Most of the stuff did worse than just covering the vehicle with
fresh vegetation.
Now, I think others were working on computer modelling the
compounds (better ways of mixing?). We wanted stuff with good visual, IR
and radar characteristics and the last two especially conflicted. I think
they got around it by playing with shapes. (One person's job was to test a
huge array of shapes and characterize the radar return. She used felt
material and a ground radar, and I never found out what shapes worked.
But some of them seemed to do okay, especially layered.) I think they were
also testing some of the stuff against lasers, as there was a trailer with
a high-quality thermal imager and a laser set up as a test bed for the
camouflage. But the IR images of the lasers were classified, so go
figure.
There was some British stuff that seemed to do well in light
woodlands. Came in one day and they spent a week looking at it. Got
dragged down to "the trailer".
I don't know how far they got. I do know they had a real good
idea of what kinds of backgrounds they were blending in with, and I also
know they did develop an issue camouflage net that was supposed to be
draped over the soldier or equipment, with some IR properties. But they
had ambitious goals, and they expected to make a prototype in Fiscal
'89. Now, not being in the military, I can't say for certain but I
haven't heard of any newfangled camo gear, and it seems they still can't
hide tanks.
Aha! My memory seems to be working. One of their big successes,
apparently, was being able to hide a 10 kilowatt field generator. Of
course, I can't quantify what criterion they used for success, so ...

"Close counts, in horseshoes, hand-grenades, and government work."

> Rat <ratinox@***.neu.edu> |When not in use, Happy Fun Ball should be

+-------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|Adam Getchell|acgetche@****.engr.ucdavis.edu | ez000270@*******.ucdavis.edu |
| acgetchell |"Invincibility is in oneself, vulnerability is in the opponent"|
+-------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Message no. 5
From: HALOWEEN JACK <SBC3KCB@*******.ac.uk>
Subject: Camouflage
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 14:09:42 GMT
The suggested rules for camouflage where good and a nice idea for a
usefull skill.

I must say though that I have used the stealth skill differently.e.g.

Haloween Jack has been trailing a rival Jak boss for the last three
blocks now. His target is starting to suspect that he is being tailed
, so I have Jack make his stealth roll against a TN=4 +2 (because
target is suspicious) etc.
Jack rolls his stealth skill 6(10) he is a physical adept with
increased stealth. against a TN=6. and gets 3 successes.
Now the Jak boss makes his perception test against Jack, base
TN=4 +modifiers -1 as jack is moving ,+1 as the streets have a few
people around,-2 because he thinks there is someone following him.
Final TN=2, Now if the Jak boss rolls 3 or more successes on his
perception test at TN=2 then he spots his tail.

If I you have any suggestions on how this could be altered please
respond but this is the House Rule I use for stealth.

Haloween Jack
Message no. 6
From: neon@******.backbone.olemiss.edu (Mike Broadwater)
Subject: Re: Camouflage
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 10:15:32 -0600
>If I you have any suggestions on how this could be altered please
>respond but this is the House Rule I use for stealth.
>
>Haloween Jack
>
The way the people I game with play it is slightly different
Halloween's t# would be the other guys perception plus any modfiers the gm
thinks is appropriate

The other guys t# is Halloween's stealth skill plus modifiers at the gm's whim.

Whoever gets the most success, wins. The number of success determines how
well. Keeps it simple.

Mike Broadwater
http://www.olemiss.edu/~neon
"You only need two things in this world. WD40 to make things go, and
duct tape to make them stop."

Further Reading

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Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.