Camouflage for Survival Combat an Hunting

By Mike Harland

This book describes how camouflage works, how to achieve best effectiveness, with application for hunting as well as any other activities where stealth is needed. The methods described in this book will give the reconnaissance operator the ability to blend and make camo to his operational environment and help with the large and small patterns that will make him a very hard target. These methods and techniques will apply to hunters and special forces and will give you the edge.   

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Harland
• Release date: Feb 20, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224968497

Book preview

Applications for Personal Camouflage

This book describes how camouflage works, how to achieve best effectiveness, with application for hunting as well as any other activities where stealth is needed.

Civilian environment

Hunting

Anti-poaching

Security services

Escape and evade (E&E) in a criminal/civil unrest situation

Shit Hit The Fan (SHTF) type scenario

Military units that use camouflage (in some countries all units use camouflage)

Infantry

Paratroopers

Special Forces

Snipers

Reconnaissance troops

Pathfinders

Integrated camouflage solutions: how to blend your camouflage and create your own best pattern

Integrated camouflage backpack, belt webbing and chest webbing

Camouflage Overview

The use of camouflage can be for hunting or hiding from the enemy or attackers. Either way it should be good enough to hide you. To apply effective camouflage, you must understand what the eye sees and how the human mind works. The shape of the human body is familiar to the brain – it quite easily detects it in the normal surroundings of a bush, grass, forest etc.  When hunting, most animals are aware of scent and movement, but as you will notice lions also have a grass colored coat and, if this was not necessary then they would be gray or some other color. Interestingly, different animals are blind to certain colors, so effective camouflage differs when hunting, say, deer versus turkeys.

What makes good camouflage?

A few factors affect/attract the human eye from detecting or being attracted to you. The shape of your body means every part of the human anatomy is easier to detect than if it were camouflaged. Anything that shines such as buttons, belt buckle, rifle straps, and knives will attract a person’s eyes. Contrast of colors such as a dark outfit against a light background. The reverse is true for the correct colors used on the same back ground as the camouflage. Movement gives you away no matter how good your camouflage is. Soldier’s eyes will specially be attracted to movement because it is associated with the enemy soldiers. Sign (foot print, broken grass) can also lead a person’s eye to your area, and then they can pick you up visually, so tracks might not make you visible but will lead the enemy to your position.

There are a few ways of camouflaging yourself. In a military context, you would have camouflage cream and in the wild when you don’t have camouflage cream you use charcoal from the fire or mud, and foliage from trees and bushes. To find out which types of face cover is best you can experiment with fats/oil and charcoal to mix and then apply so it stays on longer. Use your imagination – you don’t need to be taught everything. Most camouflage clothes are a generic pattern which human observers learn to recognize quickly through repetition. That is one of the reasons it is better to make camouflage clothing yourself and this ensures that it doesn’t resemble any pattern your brain knows. It’s the only way to ensure the best possibly camouflage for the terrain.

Legal issues

In South Africa, there does not appear to be an explicit law against civilian use of camouflage other than you cannot use a current military pattern. Apparently, there’s a penalty along the lines of a R250,000 fine or 20 years in jail; and the police and military reserve some sort of right to confiscate any camouflage (‘camouflage’) clothing that is not too their liking.

Civilian applications

I think the best bet therefore is to stick with ‘hunting’ camouflage patterns. Africa is full of hunters, and I’ve come across numerous websites where readers are told camouflage is ‘legal’ in Africa. Moreover, paintball competitors are known to use it wisely, and they tend to recommend hunting brands too. I can’t see there being any problem in using a hunting pattern. In fact, I can think of several peaceful applications for camouflage that could be given as a good reason for a civilian to have the