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The dazzle camouflage paint job applied to a new Royal Navy patrol ship was originally used on an array of vessels in the First and Second World War in the hope that it would confuse enemy German U-boats and ships.
Military chiefs have resurrected the colour scheme on HMS Tamar, which will head to the Asia-Pacific region later this year.
It boasts shades of black, white and grey in strange, jarring shapes which were added by shipwrights at the A&P yard in Falmouth, Cornwall.
Dazzle camouflage owes its existence to Royal Navy officer and artist Norman Wilkinson and the height of the first Battle of the Atlantic in 1917.
HMS Tamar with her new dazzle paint scheme in the water in Falmouth. Royal Navy picture. Royal Navy OPV HMS Tamar Gets Dazzle Camouflage Ahead of Pacific Deployment New patrol ship HMS Tamar will head to the Asia-Pacific region with a ‘dazzle camouflage’ paint scheme – various shades of black, white and grey in strange or jarring shapes.
Royal Navy press release
The paint scheme, introduced by the Royal Navy towards the end of World War 1, was adopted by many of the world’s navies at the time – and repeated again between 1939 and 1945.
The different shapes, angles and colours were intended to confuse submariners peering through periscopes, making it hard for them first to identify ships and confuse their calculations about the target’s speed and direction – hopefully causing a torpedo to miss.
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A NEW Royal Navy warship, trumpeted as the ‘Swiss Army knife’ of defence, has welcomed a hi-tech submarine-hunting helicopter to her deck for the first time.
Royal Navy commissions 4th Batch 2 River-class OPV December 22, 2020, by Naida Hakirevic
On 17 December 2020, the Royal Navy commissioned HMS Tamar, the fourth new River-class patrol ship, during a short ceremony in Portsmouth.
Twelve months to the day that ten sailors mustered in a dry dock in Glasgow and began Tamar’s transformation from lifeless hull to warship, the 2,000-tonne vessel joined the navy as a fully-fledged member of the Overseas Patrol Squadron.
Photo: Royal Navy
Tamar is the fourth of five Batch 2 River-class OPVs to join the Fleet, having arrived in Portsmouth from BAE Systems’ shipyards on the Clyde at the end of March.