Color Study - Mountbatten Pink

Mountbatten/Plymouth Pink

The early to mid 1900's saw military interest in the new theories and applications of camouflage that left a few humorous-in-hind-sight attempts. Though they did achieve some limited successes in camouflage's main purpose, that being to disrupt the visual surface and form of an object. The Razzle Dazzle, and similar, patterns of World War One naval vessels in particular seem loud and contradictory in intent to us now; especially that such patterns became very popular for their vibrancy and play with form in the post-war fashions of the 1920's. A return, of sorts, to their creative and expressive origins born out of collaboration with government armed forces and artists who were exploring perception and representation at the time. For example, Picasso worked with the French army on such projects prior to the First World War. These explorations covered all sorts of visual theories, such as motion and color.

Razzle Dazzle (,baby)

In the late 1930's Lord Mountbatten had the fleet of British destroyers under his command painted a mauve that became known as Mountbatten Pink, or Plymouth Pink. It was a mixture of medium gray and venetian red. A great color for camouflage at night or dusk/dawn because it turns near invisible under such low light conditions. Which is fine if you only operate at such times; during most of the day it is screaming out your location. This is a source of humor in the 1959 World War Two movie Operation Petticoat that finds a crew manning a garish pink submarine. By the beginning of the war the British Navy soon had all their ships painted to the ubiquous battleship-gray that works well enough during all times of day. Obviously the invention of radar made ships visible no matter the measures of painted camouflage, what it did do was to make an object harder to visually track and thus to hit.

Operation Petticoat (1959)

Where Mountbatten pink found its fans was in the desert with the British Royal Marines and other desert troops; still today with the SAS. These covert desert troops operate almost exclusively at night and dusk/dawn, and hole-up during the day. However, even in the day at distance the color is effective in the sand, but not ideal. Again, technology gains like infra-red can render camo useless and thus most go with the now standard digital environmental patterns. What we are left with is an awesome color that has found itself popular in men's fashions over the subsequent decades. A manly pink, if you will.

Desert Rover