British Military Bronze Green Paint

[Bruce_in_Oz]

A bit late, going around again:

Infra-Red Reflective?

Once "image intensifiers" ("Starlight scopes" and "thermal" devices started appearing, a LOT of re-thinking was required.

One of the key bones of contention was the use of "BLACK" in camouflage schemes.

"Black" absorbs light energy; reflecting very little. Thud "black objects get hot when left out in sunlight. Anyone who has used an L1A1 or L7 / MaG 58 with "plastic" furniture may have noted. The synthetic furniture was adopted because using a steam cleaner to decontaminate NBC-infected wood is very harsh on the furniture.

This "heat", being re-radiated shows up like a Christmas tree on Thermal sights and scanners and, to some degree on better "image intensifiers".

Hence the relatively short service life of the US "chocolate chip" battle-dress.

Walking Christmas trees.

A quick glance at "modern" combat clothing reveals muted browns, greys and greens in various combinations. (Then, there is the unusual Swiss cammo with blotches of "Autumn Red", but NO black, as I recall.)

Infra-red / thermal optics for small arms sights are now quite compact, light and robust.

Another aside: all serious "starlight" optics had, from memory, a 'mechanical shutter" system; this was to close the ocular lense exit when the user moved their head away from the eyepiece. Failure to do this results in a VERY bright flash showing up in the similar gear being pointed back at YOU..

The early image intensifiers used "stacked' chains of sensors coupled to equally compact cathode ray "TV tubes", all jacked up for high "gain". That was why they were generally "long" (and heavy) devices. All of that "high-voltage / high frequency" stuff as prone to emit "X RAYS". NOT good for your basic "Eyeball, Mk1, Mod 0. A LOT of the soviet era stuff was notorious for this. (This explains why swags of that very gear ended up on the Western collector market).

These days, the "toys" are MUCH better, do not run on special batteries made from unobtanium, and can, in some cases, be "networked", via "Bluetooth". This is very useful for vehicular use; (shame about the electronic "signature" of the networking).

No matter where in the "spectrum" you are working, it is very likely you can be "sen". If you can be "seen", you know the rest.