German WW1 lozenge pattern – Why?

Hi, All,
When The Gentlemen From Hereford arrived at El Adem for one of their regular desert training exercises (in the early 1950’s) they produced, on one occasion, these dull pink Landrovers. The Crabfats said (obviosuly out of the hearing of said Gentlemen!!) “Oooh, Ducky. Do like the colour – do your handbags match?”!!!!
But seriously, one of these dull pink Landrovers “disappeared” when driven only a few hundred metres into the ‘bundoo’! The bog-standard ‘sand-painted’ RAF Landrovers were visible for miles!!!!!!!!!! They (The Hooligans) even brought Landrovers (and some Boffins) in 3 different shades of this dull pink so that the Boffins, and us Airmen who had to accompany The Hooligans on their nefarious exploits, could decide which shade was most effective, under what lighting conditions, and against what background? (Who would have been a National Service Airman Meteorologist at El Adem? My mates were in the NAAFI back at the ranch whilst I was playing Silly B*****s somewhere between Tobruk and Kufra with The Gentlemen!!!!!)
Who discovered this pink?
Why did Air Forces not use it on the upper surface(s) of parked a/c?
HTH
Resmoroh

wasn’t the pink discovered by accident when crashed aircraft were hard too see when paint had pealed back leaving primer which had dulled from red to pink ? maybe talking out of my hat but I seem to recall reading it somewhere?

Some PR Spitfires were painted pink.

A light shade of pink so as to blend into cloud cover at certain times of day (dawn or dusk, depending on when the aircraft was flying.)

Spitfire PL965 wore a slightly more vivid pink scheme for a while before reverting back to its more traditional PRU blue.

Some PR Spitfires were painted pink.

Hi, All,
When The Gentlemen From Hereford arrived at El Adem for one of their regular desert training exercises (in the early 1950’s) they produced, on one occasion, these dull pink Landrovers. The Crabfats said (obviosuly out of the hearing of said Gentlemen!!) “Oooh, Ducky. Do like the colour – do your handbags match?”!!!!
But seriously, one of these dull pink Landrovers “disappeared” when driven only a few hundred metres into the ‘bundoo’! The bog-standard ‘sand-painted’ RAF Landrovers were visible for miles!!!!!!!!!! They (The Hooligans) even brought Landrovers (and some Boffins) in 3 different shades of this dull pink so that the Boffins, and us Airmen who had to accompany The Hooligans on their nefarious exploits, could decide which shade was most effective, under what lighting conditions, and against what background? (Who would have been a National Service Airman Meteorologist at El Adem? My mates were in the NAAFI back at the ranch whilst I was playing Silly B*****s somewhere between Tobruk and Kufra with The Gentlemen!!!!!)
Who discovered this pink?
Why did Air Forces not use it on the upper surface(s) of parked a/c?
HTH
Resmoroh

The lozenge pattern was pre-printed on the canvas. Saved the airframers painting-time, standardized the camouflage pattern, saved a little weight…

Did I mention that it looks great?

To a certain extent all colour schemes are a bit of a fashion/fad… in the air you probably mostly see the silhouette of the a/c first anyway.
Colour schemes are probably more important when the a/c is on the ground or poss when flying very low (to escape detection from above) for camouflage and as Andy said also to break up the outline.
Lozenges ….overcomplicated bull5hit ??? 😀 but they do look different.

cheers baz

The principle behind camouflage is to break up the perceived outline of the object being camouflaged and I imagine that the lozenges did just that – just as some warships were painted in zig-zag zebra patterns.