P-51 Mustang with rare cammo

I've seen photos of the "dazzle" paint scheme on WWII ships, but not airplanes. On ships was thought to cause problems estimating distance for targeting. Can't see how it would matter at the distances involved in a dog fight.
 
I am assuming that camouflage is an attempt to break up the surfaces on the aircraft to confuse ground gunners rather than hide the aircraft itself.

Given that the aircraft in the picture is a recon model it would be stripped for speed and pretty much faster than anything the Germans or Japanese had in the air at the time so the greatest threat would be low level AAA fire.
 
As George said...

Its a scheme called "Dazzle" or "Razzle-Dazzle" in WWII, but it was mainly used on ships and not much on aircraft.

Its serves two purposes.

1. The opposite of Camouflage. To draw an enemies attention to a Target (and away from more valuable targets)

or

2. To confuse a enemy into giving incorrect target data for a AA Gun or Torpedo.

African Zebras have a similar defense. The overlapping stripes of the Zebra herd make it difficult for Predators to pick out individual targets, the constant wavy pattern confuses them.
 
mmarsh said:
As George said...

Its a scheme called "Dazzle" or "Razzle-Dazzle" in WWII, but it was mainly used on ships and not much on aircraft.

Its serves two purposes.

1. The opposite of Camouflage. To draw an enemies attention to a Target (and away from more valuable targets)

or

2. To confuse a enemy into giving incorrect target data for a AA Gun or Torpedo.

African Zebras have a similar defense. The overlapping stripes of the Zebra herd make it difficult for Predators to pick out individual targets, the constant wavy pattern confuses them.
Click to expand...

I am not so sure that is the case here though as there is unlikely to be a herd of roaming reconnaissance P-51s up there to require that type of scheme.

I was thinking it was more for breaking up the shape of the aircraft making identification of the aircraft and critical points on the aircraft difficult.

If you look at the pictures, on the ground it almost looks like a Bf 109 rather than a P-51 and in the air it stands out like a sore thumb which may draw gunners to fixate on it and if you are firing at it you aren't going to hit it.
 
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