Second World War camo

1929Telo mimetico (M1929)

Italy · In use: 1929 to the early 1990s · Also called: M29

According to Wikipedia, this was the first printed camouflage for general issue anywhere. It was printed on shelter halves that doubled as rain ponchos, and Italian Wikipedia says it was patented by Roberto Pianegiani in 1928.

According to Wikipedia and Camopedia, Germany used captured stocks from 1943, the printing machinery was moved to Czechoslovakia after the war, and Italy kept the pattern in service until the early 1990s. Sources disagree on when Italian paratroopers first wore it as a smock (1937 or 1942), so we have left that out until it is settled.

Sources: Wikipedia, Wikipedia (Italian), Camopedia, Wikipedia (list of patterns)

1931Splittermuster 31

Germany · In use: 1931 to 1945 · Also called: Splittertarn, Splinter A; official name Buntfarbendruck 31

Germany’s splinter pattern: hard-edged polygons with rain-like dashes, first printed on the triangular Zeltbahn tent-sheet. The Deutsches Panzermuseum gives its official name as Buntfarbendruck 31. It was worn by the army (Heer), the Luftwaffe and paratroopers, but not by the Waffen-SS.

Disputed: the pattern is dated 1931, but sources disagree on when it was first issued: 1931 according to Wikipedia, 1932 according to M. Farnworth’s guide to German patterns. Neither explains the difference, and we haven’t found a document that settles it.

Sources: Deutsches Panzermuseum, Wikipedia, M. Farnworth, SARCO

1937Reversible camouflage smocks

Germany · In use: 1937 to 1945

The Waffen-SS issued reversible camouflage smocks from 1937 to 1945, with a green spring side, a brown autumn side and loops for adding foliage (Imperial War Museum, Australian War Memorial).

According to Wikipedia, the patterns were designed by a Munich art professor, Johann Georg Otto Schick, about whom almost nothing else is known.

Sources: Imperial War Museum, Australian War Memorial, Wikipedia

1937Platanenmuster

Germany · In use: 1937 to 1943 or 1944 · Also called: plane tree pattern

The first Waffen-SS pattern, printed in spring and autumn colourways on reversible garments.

Disputed: sources agree it began in 1937 but not when it ended: 1944 according to Wikipedia, 1943 according to The Garrison Militaria and M. Farnworth.

Sources: Wikipedia, The Garrison Militaria, M. Farnworth

1938Soviet amoeba (MKK)

USSR · In use: Adopted 1938; some use for decades after the war · Also called: maskirovochnyi kamuflirovannyi kostium

Large, irregular “amoeba” shapes printed on one- and two-piece suits in several seasonal colourings. It was worn by Red Army engineers, snipers, airborne troops, artillery observers and reconnaissance units.

Disputed: Camopedia and SovietUniform.com say it was formally adopted in 1938. Enthusiast sources describe the fabric in 1935 and the suits in 1937, and a Russian Ministry of Defence history site places it in the first half of the Great Patriotic War (1941–45). Some of the earlier dates seem to describe development rather than adoption, but no source we have found settles it.

Sources: Camopedia, SovietUniform.com, Russian MoD history portal, forma-odezhda.com, Istochnik

1941Luftwaffe Splittermuster 41

Germany · In use: 1941 to 1944 or 1945 · Also called: Splinter B

A scaled-down version of Splittermuster 31, best known on the paratroopers’ jump smock. It was worn by the Luftwaffe, paratroopers and the Luftwaffe field divisions.

Disputed: it ended in 1944 according to Camopedia and Wikipedia, 1945 according to M. Farnworth.

According to the Bulgarian retailer Brannik, Bulgarian paratroopers wore it, and it was “the first camouflage uniform… in the Bulgarian army”.

Sources: Camopedia, Wikipedia, Wikipedia, M. Farnworth, Brannik

1941 to 1943Eichenlaubmuster A and B

Germany · In use: To 1945 · Also called: oak leaf patterns

Oak leaf A came in reversible spring and autumn colourways and was used on Waffen-SS smocks and Zeltbahn shelter quarters. Oak leaf B is very close to A, with a thin shaded border around the lighter spots. Both were used until 1945.

Disputed: A began in 1941 according to The Garrison Militaria and M. Farnworth, 1942 according to Wikipedia. B began in 1942 according to Wikipedia, 1943 according to The Garrison Militaria.

Sources: The Garrison Militaria, M. Farnworth, Wikipedia

1941 to 1943Winter on the Eastern Front

USSR

Photographs from Soviet archives show white camouflage cloaks and suits in the winters of 1941 to 1943. The captions are the archives’ own.

1942Denison smock

United Kingdom · In use: From 1942 · Also called: Denison pattern, brushstroke

The Airborne Assault Museum says the “Smock Denison Airborne Troops” was introduced in 1942, with a “tail” at the back that “helped keep the wearer warmer when in the aircraft and parachuting and could be undone upon landing”. In North Africa, local people called the paratroopers “Men with Tails”. Along with the maroon beret, the museum says, airborne forces have long been associated with “the famous Denison Smock”.

The pattern is broad brushstrokes of green and brown on a sand base. It was worn by British airborne forces, SOE, Commandos, Royal Marines and the SAS, and by European Allied airborne forces.

Folklore: “Major Denison”. A popular story says a Major Denison designed it. The museum says that while Major Mervyn Dennison was a real officer, “there is no official documentation to support the idea he designed the smock”, and that “Denison” was more likely a corruption of “Denim”.

On screen: according to BAMF Style, Sean Connery wears a second-pattern (1944) Denison smock in A Bridge Too Far (1977).

Sources: Airborne Assault Museum (ParaData), Wikipedia, Camopedia, BAMF Style

1942Frog Skin (M1942)

United States · In use: From 1942 · Also called: M1942 Reversible Spot Pattern, P42, Duck Hunter

Reversible, with a five-colour jungle side and a three-colour beach side. General MacArthur asked for 150,000 jungle uniforms, and it was worn mainly by the US Marine Corps in the Pacific.

US Army troops wore it in Normandy in 1944, but it was withdrawn, reportedly because it was mistaken for German camouflage.

According to Wikipedia, it was designed by Norvell Gillespie, a horticulturist and the gardening editor of Better Homes & Gardens, and surplus uniforms later became popular with hunters, which gave it the nickname “Duck Hunter”.

Sources: Coffee or Die, Leatherneck, Wikipedia

1943Sumpfmuster 43

Germany · In use: 1943 to 1945 · Also called: marsh pattern, Tan and Water 43

A development of Splittermuster 31 with blurred edges and a warmer, tan-based palette, worn by the army, the Luftwaffe and paratroopers. A modified version was used by West Germany’s Bundesgrenzschutz (federal border police) in the early 1950s.

Sources: Wikipedia, M. Farnworth, SARCO

1944Erbsenmuster

Germany · In use: 1944 to 1945 · Also called: pea pattern, pea dot

A five-colour pattern of small rounded dots over larger irregular areas, developed from the oak leaf pattern and issued to the Waffen-SS as a two-piece uniform. According to Wikipedia, it was designed by Johann Georg Otto Schick.

Sources: Wikipedia, Wikipedia, M. Farnworth

1945Leibermuster

Germany · In use: 1945 · Also called: Leiber pattern

Bold black shapes over brown and green on a pale ground, issued on a very limited basis at the very end of the war (Wikipedia, M. Farnworth).

According to Wikipedia, the black print was “designed to foil early infrared technology”, the pattern was the basis for the Swiss Alpenflage, and the West German Bundeswehr and Belgian Army briefly used a version in 1955–56.

Sources: Wikipedia, Wikipedia (list of patterns), M. Farnworth

24 May 1945Giretsu: hand-dyed camouflage

Japan

Japan’s Giretsu airborne unit camouflaged their own uniforms “with dyes such as ink and grass juice” before their raid on 24 May 1945.

Sources: Wikipedia (Japanese), Okinawa Yokuyūkai

1942Operation Bertram, El Alamein

United Kingdom · North Africa

According to Wikipedia, before the Battle of El Alamein 722 “Sunshields” made tanks look like lorries, and a fake water pipeline was built at five miles a day. Its chief, the film-maker Geoffrey Barkas, called it “the biggest ‘film production’ on which I ever expect to be engaged”.

Source: Wikipedia

1944 – 1945The Ghost Army

United States · Europe

1,100 men fooled the enemy with inflatable tanks, fake camps “complete with fake laundry” and sound recordings audible 15 miles away. Members included the fashion designer Bill Blass and the painter Ellsworth Kelly. The unit was declassified in 1996 and awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2022.

Source: National Gallery of Art