OKB Krasnaya Zvezda Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 (edited) I hope its not only one Fulcrum comming out with that painting but all of them, as I recall many of them were beggin for being re painted. I must be honest I hate gar cammos but when it´s something like this I completely turn into love specyaly in a MiG. Hope you like it Edited December 23, 2007 by OKB Krasnaya Zvezda Quote Link to post Share on other sites
slick95 Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 That is FRIGGIN COOL! SLICK Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ross blackford Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 :lol: Maybe it's just me. It looks alright, but I don't understand the purpose of digi camo either on aircraft or AFVs. Can someone please explain what the advantages are, if any. It seems to me it would be much harder to paint than normal disruptive camo and I not sure if there's really any advantage to it. Seems like a lot of extra work for no real tactical gain. If I'm wrong I'd appreciate an explanation. :D, Ross. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GreyGhost Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 Ross, as far as the Marine birds that have gotten the "Digi-camo", I believe they were done as special schemes really, not for tactical reasons ... As for this MiG-29, I do not know ... Looks cool though ... Gregg Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Boman Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 Ross, The digital camo is intended to fool the (human) eye that sees it, specially making one "see right through it". The purpose of all camo is to hide the aircraft wether on the ground or in the air, and to do this one must break the lines of the jet, either to create the "see through" effect already mentioned or making it blend into the background and thus dissappear. It is the same wether airplane, armour or fighting men, but the result varies with the time of year, where you are etc. etc. And offcourse, it doesn`t hide you from electronic "eyes" Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Zmey Smirnoff Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 :D Maybe it's just me. It looks alright, but I don't understand the purpose of digi camo either on aircraft or AFVs. Can someone please explain what the advantages are, if any. It seems to me it would be much harder to paint than normal disruptive camo and I not sure if there's really any advantage to it. Seems like a lot of extra work for no real tactical gain. If I'm wrong I'd appreciate an explanation., Ross. Here is a nice link, ross The Science of Digital Camo HTH Cheers Z. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ross blackford Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 :D Interesting. Thank you for that Zmey. Just looking at the picture I can see where all three schemes could give effective camo, but not where they are placed. , Ross. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Trigger Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 Ross, as far as the Marine birds that have gotten the "Digi-camo", I believe they were done as special schemes really, not for tactical reasons ... As for this MiG-29, I do not know ... Looks cool though ... Gregg Right; the F/A-18 and AH-1W received four-color gray versions of the MARPAT schemes, which is more random and the different areas of color aren't as large as what's used on these Fulcrums. I know the MARPAT aircraft were done so as a display of morale, not having seen them in use I cannot comment on their effectiveness (if any) in the air since their origin lies with ground vehicles and uniforms, which have multi-tone/multi-hued environments on the ground in which they have to deal with, as opposed to the sky which is more monochromatic. The scheme works on the basis of removing recognizable shapes and breaking up the outline of the human form. By replacing large blobs of color with small squares, the human brain has a harder time processing the image received by its eye due to the perceived dithering effect between the colors and the environment. On uniforms, the squares are small and the hue of the colors is typically similar (although is is not uncommon for one color to stand out, usually a dark brown or black) to facilitate this. Again, how this scheme will work on a tacitcal fighter remains to be seen (It's impossible to tell by a few publicity shots). It may be the next thing in tactical aircraft camouflage or it may be the next Ferris scheme, looking "cool" but ultimately ineffective. CADPAT MARPAT® Also adopted by Bosnia ACU sucks in any type of woodland area... ...but is great for hiding on grandma's couch Jordanian Security Forces USAF's ABU Other users of digital camouflage uniforms - Finland - China is starting to field four patterns (woodland, urban, arid and ocean) - Royal Marines are testing a digital pattern - I'm sure there are other nations testing or that have adopted digital patterns that I'm forgetting. The US Army did evaluation work nearly 30 years ago on some M60 tanks in Europe and the Aussies tried it out on at least one OH-58, but the key people (uniformed and civilian) who deciding such things in the 1970s could not grasp the concept of how digital camouflage worked on the human brain, and were not swayed by field tests. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Su-34 Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 Hell, i would love to see more in service! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
messy60 Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 The grandma's couch picture made me laugh so hard that my cat ran out of the room. lolol. Jason Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Flex Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 Hell, i would love to see more in service! It is official, the whole fleet of Slovak MiG-29AS and UBSs will be painted like that. That is twelve machines in total, two of those are twinseaters. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Berkut Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 LOVE IT! Kotey, decals please! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Will7813 Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 Nice scheme! I watched part of a doco that touched on USMC digi camo. Apparentley it has something to do with the fact that the human eye is actually attracted to curved shapes (traditional camo). Will Quote Link to post Share on other sites
f4h1phantom Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 That is absolutely FANTASTIC!!! Thanks a lot for posting. Sincerely, Jorge. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aggressor Supporter Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 That Fulcrum in that scheme looks great! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
OKB Krasnaya Zvezda Posted December 26, 2007 Author Share Posted December 26, 2007 ehem! well............ Americo Maia yuuuhuuuu are you watching this??? Pllleeeeaaaassseeeee Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Fuji Posted December 26, 2007 Share Posted December 26, 2007 (edited) OK, I will admit it looks cool, very cool, but I question the effectiveness of it. The whole thing with digital camo is it breaks up patterns into smaller patterns and makes them more realistic to actual shading than just swaths of typical camo paint. This image on the page linked by Zmey (as well as many posted by Trigger) is a great example on why it works for uniforms. http://www.hyperstealth.com/digital-design...t-results-3.jpg Yet the Slovak camo isnt as broken up as these patterns. The scheme done by VMFA-314, which is a copy of the MARPAT pattern & a one off moral booster, seems more effective as it looks more random, there are no solid pieces. http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0935003/L/ The Slovak scheme is nothing but a variation of any standard camo scheme but with "pixelated" edges that have been added to make it seem more modern and high tech. "State of the Art" if you will. A lot of time and effort wasted IMHO when the standard camo schemes are just as effective depending on the background. Edited December 26, 2007 by Fuji Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Zmey Smirnoff Posted December 26, 2007 Share Posted December 26, 2007 I'm with Fuji as far as the assessment of effectiveness of such camo. Truth is... (how do I say it without offending anyone) Slovak AF ... eh.. has a lot of free time on their hands. Not a lot of planes to take care , and not too many threats to counter. Get my drift? I think you do. Its basically, your token European toy military. Well, toy airforce in this care. And now they gave us (modelers and aviation enthusiasts) something to discuss, make decals and models of. :) No hating! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Trigger Posted December 26, 2007 Share Posted December 26, 2007 Fuji has made an interesting point with regards to the distribution of the color on the airframe. In the woodland MARPAT scheme, the two major colors are green and brown and their value and saturation are similar values. This reduces the contrast between the two colors and coupled with the randomness of the color application, further assists the dithering effect the scheme has, thus making it less noticeable. The darkest color, black, is used sparingly and randomly to further assist the breaking up of any shapes. Will7813 mentioned a doc where MARPAT was discussed but it's not curved shapes that the human eye is attracted to, but recognizable shapes. CADPAT and MARPAT eliminate the perception of any recognizable shapes. And that's why I'm scratching my head over the USAF's ABU which is a Tiger Stripe pattern that's built up of "pixels." Then there's the color scheme but the ACU suffers from the same problem. There's no such thing as universal camouflage. So, back to the Fulcrum. It looks like a three-tone scheme with two of the colors being closer than the third (darkest). So right off-hand there's a strong contrasting (read as - eye-catching) element in the scheme. The Fulcrum already has enough shadows on it's top thanks to the two tails and the position of the forward fuselage relative to the planform and the cast shadows these elements throw when banking. I just did something that I'll bet no one here has done with these pix. I got up out of my seat, walked to the other side of the room and looked at them from a distance instead of the 12-24 inches most of us view these images. In reality, at the distance one is from the subject the photographer is, you're going to see it unless it was painted in a color that was a perfect match for the hue and brightness of the background environment at that particular moment. So it makes sense to try to look at it from a distance that's more real-world or to simulate that by distancing yourself from the photo. All I could see was a pattern of different blobs of gray. The edges didn't matter, having been negated by the condensing of colors into certain areas as opposed to randomly applied. At a distance, that F/A-18 in Fuji's link, no one color stands out more than another and the the nose and vertical stabilizer start to disappear into the environment. So, is the scheme "cool"? From a modeling standpoint, yes. I dig different schemes (just look at my signature or some of my WhIf profiles in Jet Modeling). It's nice to see something a little out of the ordinary. It's cool in the same way the Ferris and Heater-Ferris schemes were cool, because they were so different. While my Fulcrum is slated to be finished in Iranian colors (or Cuban if I can find proof of the Blue/Green scheme on a single-seater), I would consider modeling this; my only hesitation would be how to apply such a scheme. Masking this does not sound like a fun afternoon weekend. Is this scheme any more effective than what we've seen on other front-line Fulcrums? From what I've seen of it, I'm not going to wager any money that it is. My 2¢, I think it doesn't matter if it's two, three or even as in the case of the Marine Hornet, a four color scheme, but the shades of gray need to be closer together and have a lower contrast and a more random application of the colors would help too. I think the issue of color contrast here is very important. Unlike the ground (be it woodland or arid) which has a lot of visual clutter thanks to vegetation, shadows, tonal variations in the earth, structures, farmland, etc., the sky is compositionally more simple; it's comprised of shades of gray, blue and white in vast expanses. This is what makes that simulation of the "Jordanian" F-16CJ and USAFE A-10 so successful. They've used local colors and applied them in a manner that, while not completely as random as CADPAT, MARPAT or ACU, is less structured than your typical earth scheme. However, when the same technique is applied to the undersides, it's effectiveness is nowhere near as strong: (Another HyperStealth simulation) Not even the Slovak Fulcrums painted the undersides in a digital pattern. With a dozen Fulcrums in it's service, it's not difficult or too expensive for the Slovak Air Force to apply such a scheme. If it works, great. If it doesn't, then it's not a huge expense to revert to the old scheme or come up with something new. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Flex Posted December 27, 2007 Share Posted December 27, 2007 I'm with Fuji as far as the assessment of effectiveness of such camo. Truth is... (how do I say it without offending anyone) Slovak AF ... eh.. has a lot of free time on their hands. Not a lot of planes to take care , and not too many threats to counter. Get my drift? I think you do. Its basically, your token European toy military. Well, toy airforce in this care. And now they gave us (modelers and aviation enthusiasts) something to discuss, make decals and models of. No hating! No offense taken, this is exactly the military we want. We want our pilots to ride old sexi-painted Fulcrums so that we can afford to buy Porsches. You cannot have both, so screw the airforce.. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jinxter13 Posted December 28, 2007 Share Posted December 28, 2007 Are the MiG's engines really that smoky or is that an exception to the rule. If they are that smoky; it would be a disadvantage in a fight. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Zmey Smirnoff Posted December 28, 2007 Share Posted December 28, 2007 Are the MiG's engines really that smoky Yep. Only the brand new mods of the venerable Fulcrum (OVT, M, 35, KUB) dont have that disadvantage. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
davetur Posted December 28, 2007 Share Posted December 28, 2007 Seems like a lot of extra work for no real tactical gain. If I'm wrong I'd appreciate an explanation.:), Ross. The answer is simple: the Slovaks are real sadists, and when they conceived the scheme,they were thinking of the pain inflicted to us poor modellers... :) Davide Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Fiddler Posted December 28, 2007 Share Posted December 28, 2007 The German army while in WW2 had some of the earliest forms of this disruptive camouflage. IIRC it was the Pantzergrenadiere which had uniforms covered in several brown, green and black spots. Germany did use that camouflage also after the war, and Belgium did also somewhere in the late '80s but now they are all replaced by some kind of the Nato type camo... German Panzers in WW2 also had some quite disruptive painting which is not digital but though it is in the same branche :) By the way, the MiG looks very nice. it reminds me of a Frogfoot when in Czech service, It had a shark painted on the nose and the rest of the aircraft had some look alike disruptive white with several greys camo. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ross blackford Posted December 28, 2007 Share Posted December 28, 2007 :) Which brings us back to my original thought. In this case it would seem to be a lot of effort for not much advantage. The pixels are far too big to be effective and actually seem to show the aircraft up more regardless of where it is in the sky or down low. Nice idea, lost something in the translation to reality though. :), Ross. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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