Austrian Semi-Random Hex Camo (Work in Progress)

[Bullethead 12]

While trying to learn more about Austrian camo, I came across a photo of a real Austrian plane in a museum in the Czech Republic. So, I decided to try to find out more about it, in the process finding a bunch of other photos from differen angles, allowing me to see what the camo looked like on just about every surface. And I discovered something very interesting. While the fuselage has a totally random arrangement, the wings have more of a pattern than not, which I call "semi-random". These hexes make lines and loops alternating dark and light. Thus, I became curious as to how this camo scheme would have looked in the air and started skinning it.

 

I also looked up the plane. Apparently it was restored about the time more info about Austrian colors was coming along, and they seem to have had the remains of the original paintjob to go from. The colors were, in fact, pretty close to the ones I'd been using, so I was happy there. So I tweaked my colors to match this plane's, which involved making the darks darker and the lights lighter, which created more contrast to make the semi-patterns show up better.

 

The plane in question is a Knoller C.II(Lo), number 119.15. Thankfully (because these planes were total crap), we don't have one in OFF, so I applied the scheme to our beloved DFW, for which I already have a template. The DFW is a bigger plane with different proportions and shapes here and there, but the scheme fit on it fairly well. I copied it from the real plane hex-to-hex, except for a few areas where the DFW's bigger structure stuck out beyond the pattern, or where I lacked a photo. Then I looked at it in the game.

 

Because I spent almost all day and now about 1/2 the night laboriously copying and pasting individual hexes together, I wanted to show it off. As you can see, this is still very much a work in progress. For instance, I still have to hex the lower wing. I'm sure that once I'm done, I will never want to play another board wargame again :).

 

Anyway, it's quite interesting. Up close, it just looks weird. At medium distances, you can really see the stripes and squiggly lines on the upper surfaces. And at long distances, the plane's outline is pretty well broken up. The camo thus seems strangely effective.

 

Oh well, I suppose I'll finish this in a few days and post some better pics.

[Hasse Wind 46]

Looks good to me. Something different from the usual German camos.

 

I wonder if the Austro-Hungarian camo works even better in the alpine terrain of Northern Italy? Because that's where the majority of the Austrian aircraft were operating in.

[Olham 164]

Looks very good, Bullet! Your colours feel very believeable to me.

Here is a website with some models with Austrian hexcamo - but they all seem too colourful to me.

 

http://aviatik-berg-berg-di.airplane-gallery.com/

[Panama Red 22]

Bullethead:

Looks great.

 

After you are through, you could then try skinning a few of Stephen1918 new FE2 Austrian planes since there is now both an Italian and Eastern Front Campaigns for FE1/2 that we can play.

[NS13Jarhead 6]

Sometimes it's strange what works and what doesn't. I remember seeing an attempt to hide incoming aircraft by putting lights on the leading edge of the wings.

 

Early attempts at camouflage were a somewhat hit or miss affair and as noted often resulted in what we would call odd coloring. It's not limited to aircraft, either. Here's a shot of a camo paint job on a pre war armored car.

Edited August 25, 2012 by NS13Jarhead

[Hauksbee 103]

The most unusual camo (and successful) I've ever run across is the SAS pink Land Rovers used in North Africa. 'Seemed to be begging to be shot at, until I discovered how rust-red deserts tend to be. From the air, pink Land Rovers virtually disappear.

[Bullethead 12]

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

 

@ Hasse Wind

I tried to see what it looked like against a snow background but I suppose my QC pilot I use for testing is in a unit stationed too far south because the ground was still green in winter.

 

@ Olham

The pics on that page illustrate the problem with Austrian camo colors. The wilder ones (that are mostly red, orange, and yellow) use colors now known to have been derived from fraudulent artifacts. And notice that they don't agree on the color of Linke-Crawford's personal markings (the wide band with the L on it). The 12th pic down (a painting with a couple of Italian planes in the background) is actually the same Berg (Linke-Crawford's) based on a reappraisal of the colors, and is just 1 of many. The 5th pic down is a different Berg but also uses an interpretation of the "new" colors.

 

In other notes, the 3rd pic from the bottom (photo of guy standing beside plane) isn't an Aviatik D.I. It's actually the Aviatik 30.14 prototype, the earliest ancestor of the D.I. Note that on this plane, the upper wing is well above the fuselage and the forward fuselage is low, giving the pilot a good view ahead. This was totally contrary to Austrian design policy so in the final D.I, the forward fuselage was built up higher to totally block the pilot's view (see the cockpit photo) and the upper wing was set down right on top of it, just to make sure. In the cockpit photo, the pilot's eye level was about where that tube with all the valves on it is, just above the steering wheel (another interesting feature). But most of the planes shown on this page are later models with the guns raised up to the top of the cockpit. This required cutting away the forward fuselage and the trailing edge of the upper wing, but only right there so the gun breeches could be opened. Further forward, the fuselage still was above the pilot's eye level, so these modifications didn't improve visibility very much. Also, even though the high part of the fuselage was pretty narrow, the radiator at the front was much wider, just to make sure the pilot couldn't lean over and see ahead.

 

Finally, look closely at the exposed wing structure in the last pic. See how the tops and bottoms of the ribs come together well forward of the trailing edge, leaving single sticks from there back? That was how Professor Knoller designed wings and Berg copied the idea for his fighter. The wing trailing edge was intended to flex so the camber would flatten out as speed increased, thereby reducing drag. Needless to say, this made a very weak structure that often failed, both on Knoller's own planes and the D.I.

 

@ Panama Red

Once I get done with this, it'll be a LONG time before I touch another Austrian hex camo scheme. I've made hex camo before but they've all had repeating patterns. Thus, I could make a small part and paste copies, all quick and easy. This scheme, however, has no repetitiion at all, so I have to assemble it 1 hex at a time. Very, very laborious and tedious.

 

@ Jarhead and Hauksbeb

Sometimes camo wasn't designed to hide the object but just make it hard to aim at. For instance, all those weird and highly obvious black and white (plus some other colors) dazzle or "disruptive" camo schemes painted on ships in WW1 and WW2. In those days, shooting guns and torpedoes accurately required fairly good estimates of the target's range, course, and speed, most of which were obtained by eyeball observation. So the idea of these schemes was to make it hard to tell which way the ship was going (and thus how fast, and thus how far away).

 

The Brits also painted some of their ships pink like those landrovers. They called it "Mountbatten Pink". It was great for blending into the horizon at dusk and dawn but was highly obvious when the sun was up, so eventually it gave way to "Admiralty Disruptive".

 

In Desert Storm, the Brits discovered that if they hung floodlights on vehicles, they blended into the heat mirage of the desert. However, by the time I got there, it was winter so there wasn't any heat mirage and pretty soon the oil wells started burning so you couldn't see more than a couple hundred yards anyway. Thus, my unit never tried that.

[Hauksbee 103]

Sometimes camo wasn't designed to hide the object but just make it hard to aim at.

Agreed. It was a minor revelation for me when I found a book on the subject. The author pointed out that if you ask most laymen about the function of camo, most everyone will say, "To hide the target", i.e., to make it invisible. That rarely happens. Mainly, camo works to deceive the enemy gunner/bombadier into thinking (let's say, in a target-rich environment) that you are the least important choice. If a bombadier is in doubt for two seconds too long, the bombs miss the target and the camo's done its work.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

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Fine work again there BH. Be sure to share that one with the rest of us once you have it all dialed in. If this keeps up we might actually be ready, at least paintwise, to move to the Italian front.

 

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[Olham 164]

Italian front? Here is a classic beauty to fire your appetite for the Italian front:

 

 

[Hauksbee 103]

Here is a classic beauty to fire your appetite....

That is a real beauty! For more in a similar vein, check out the Hayao Myazaki animated film, "Porco Rosso".

[Von Paulus 8]

The most unusual camo (and successful) I've ever run across is the SAS pink Land Rovers used in North Africa. 'Seemed to be begging to be shot at, until I discovered how rust-red deserts tend to be. From the air, pink Land Rovers virtually disappear.

Sorry for the OT, but that reminds me an artistic depict of the desert war (from a game). That pink would look like a degradé from the desert colours in this picture. So perfect for camouflage.

 

 

 

ANd your skin, is looking very nice, BH.

Edited August 25, 2012 by Von Paulus

[Olham 164]

Hauksbee, I had almost added a "Porco Rosso" video link. Here it is:

 

[Olham 164]

Von Paulus, that Chevrolet truck in your picture is from the British "Long Range Desert Group";

also called "the Desert Rats". AFAIK the truck was sand colour, not pink.

 

http://anzacsteel.hobbyvista.com/othervehicles/lrdgchevyph_1.htm

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Range_Desert_Group

 

But the "Pink Panthers" of the LRDG - Landrovers with lots of weapons - were really painted pink.

 

 

[Von Paulus 8]

Von Paulus, that Chevrolet truck in your picture is from the British "Long Range Desert Group";

also called "the Desert Rats". AFAIK the truck was sand colour, not pink.

That pink would look like a degradé from the desert colours in this picture

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Sorry for the OT, but that reminds me an artistic depict of the desert war (from a game). That pink would look like a degradé from the desert colours in this picture. So perfect for camouflage.

 

 

 

ANd your skin, is looking very nice, BH.

 

That scene (if swapped to Italy) is pretty much what my Late Father found himself involved in...When he ended up on a Jeep firing at Attacking 109's in a ravine.

The Pilot's where too concerned about not hitting the cliffside...and my Dad was being bounced around too much to shoot accurately....so, no-one got hurt...though one cheeky German waved at my Dad as he flew past.... and my old man, in true British Spirit..returned the gesture, with his two fingers.

 

The War ended a week later

[Bullethead 12]

...and my old man, in true British Spirit..returned the gesture, with his two fingers.

 

The War ended a week later

 

The important question is, were the 2 fingers your dad used on 1 or 2 hands? :).

 

I'm glad nobody got hurt. With 1 week to go, the issue wasn't in doubt so there was nothing worth dying for on either side.

[Dimus 0]

Coming back to Austrian planes, this is about to be released for FSX:

 

More info and pics at SOH here:

 

http://www.sim-outho...er-A2A-AF-label

 

Btw a friendly hello to all, it's been a long time of lurking and no posting for me, but I'm still there. The hex paint looks excellent Bullethead!

Edited August 29, 2012 by Dimus

[+elephant 36]

Γειά σου φίλε!

Ι've been following the progress of this fantastic project since day one...

As a matter of fact Lukasz (one of the creators) offered me to test it, (before the contract with A2A),

but unfortunately I don't have FSX...

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

That is a beautiful aeroplane Dimus, well done Sir. And I see you were able to make use of the swirl camo 'fabric' I worked so hard on and shared here in another thread a few weeks ago. Very nice.

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

 

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[Dimus 0]

No, Lou, it's not mine unfortunately (I wish...). The plane is a work of more than a year of effort by a team of designers. They managed to market it through the A2A/Aircraft Factory label. Reading his post above, elephant was offered to test it during its making. I don't know if they did use your 'fabric' though. This you would have to investigate maybe.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

Dimus on August 19 I posted the link to my fabric image here: http://combatace.com/topic/74411-heres-one-for-bullethead-austrian-swirl-camo-for-off/?do=findComment&comment=587091

 

It has been downloaded from my website quite a few times since then. As I explained in the linked thread I worked from original photos and templates which were posted at The Aerodrome. To get the original pattern to accurately repeat took a lot of time and tweaking and I shared it in order to save others the same work. I am fine with the A2A/Aircraft Factory using it, but I would like credit for my work, and if they make any money from it they could send me a gift certificate.

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

 

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[Dimus 0]

I checked your post. You have done some excellent work. I agree, you should at least get credit if they did use it.

 

Reading the post of the painter, Lucas, at SOH:

"Personally, I love the Austro-Hungarian paint schemes on their aircrafts. The one you mentioned is perhaps the most spectacular. I was lucky to find black-white picture of this pattern which was a source for mine. It is very hypnotical and I think that it takes it's origin from the art of that times. I had lots of fun creating this one. Note for the repainters: I will prepare and publish the paintkit. The plane uses single 4096x pix texture for the external model so plently of detail can be applied."

 

Can't really be sure if it is your fabric unless you compare the textures. If the paintkit is made publicly available and includes this texture perhaps that would be possible.

[Hauksbee 103]

To get the original pattern to accurately repeat took a lot of time and tweaking and....

You're absolutely right, Lou. I made a screenie from Olham's colored version and took a shot at it. I figured that since this is a step-and-repeat pattern, how difficult can it be? Damned near impossible! Since it is a commercially printed cloth, I know there has to be a repeat pattern somewhere. Maybe you have to go six swirls up and seven across, but it's there. (if you have a full width yard or two off the bolt.) Patching together a continous pattern was a certifiable labor of love. Good on y'.

Edited August 29, 2012 by Hauksbee