The life of this unique camou-
flage pattern was rather short
and turbulent. The research
works were launched around
1967 when the US Armed Forc-
es started to look for a camou-
flage pattern that would conceal
soldiers in early Soviet night
vision devices. It was directly
linked to USA possible involve-
ment in combat operations in
the Middle East region where
enemies could be equipped
with such night vision devices.
This situation led to the devel-
opment of the famous "Choco
Chip '' six-color desert camou-
flage pattern around 1972. But
the problem was printing and
dyeing technology at that time
and the lightly colored uniform
fabrics were ineffective in night
vision. In the European condi-
tions the problem was solved
– Woodland camouflage adopt-
ed in early 1980's was working
in both daytime and nighttime
(under night vision). But the
problem was near infrared re-
flectance of tan/sand-colored
fabrics – they worked perfectly
during the day but in the dark
they became ineffective.
Idea of the pattern was
brought to life when the first
Soviet night vision devices
made their way to the United
States. Due to their low reso-
lution, it seemed that the most
effective way to disrupt the
image is to create addition-
al "noise" making the user of
camouflage harder to detect.
During the tests it appeared
that a two-shade complex grid
pattern (light and dark green
colored, Axolotl and Laurel
Green) with some irregular
S T O R Y B Y : B A R T O S Z S Z O Ł U C H A
P H O T O S : M A R C I N L O T K O W S K I , J A N S O B C Z U K
"IS THAT A REAL CAMO??? DON'T
BULLSHIT ME. ARE YOU SERIOUS?
I GUESS SOME OF THE DESERT NIGHT
CAMOUFLAGE (DNC) USERS WERE
ASKED ABOUT THAT PATTERN. THE
HISTORY OF THE DNC IS A PERFECT
EXAMPLE OF HOW YOU CAN CREATE
A CAMOUFLAGE PATTERN WHICH AT
THE DAY OF FIELDING WAS ALREADY…
COMPLETELY USELESS.
FROM FROM HELIKON-TEX HELIKON-TEX
65
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