I don't really get how the horizon effect is something that could be confused/conflated with the effect of dazzle camouflage. The horizon effect is described as a predictable bias in angle estimation, relative to the true angle, when a ship is viewed such that it's near the horizon. This presumably always applies to the view from a periscope, so it would be ever present in any remotely reasonable test of dazzle camouflage (whether to a neutral control or to conventional camouflage patterns). They just say that Blodgett’s control was "too vague to be useful", but it would have to be a truly <i>terrible</i> control to lead to the suggested confusion, e.g., comparing dazzle camouflage through a periscope to conventional camouflage viewed from above.
The last photo in the article is of my great uncle's [0] ship, the Olympic [1], sister ship to the Titanic. It's interesting to read about since he was knighted after the war for captaining her and ramming a U-boat [2] that was trying to sink her during a troop transport mission across the Atlantic.<p>0 - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertram_Fox_Hayes" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertram_Fox_Hayes</a>
1 - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Olympic" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Olympic</a>
2 - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM_U-103" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM_U-103</a>
H.I. Sutton did a great video [1] about it that also explains how it was beneficial due to the way enemy submarines had to estimate speed and heading and could get fooled.<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw7vq_YD6JM" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw7vq_YD6JM</a>
The connection between camouflage and then-current art styles is also interesting. Dazzle camouflage seems quite related to expressionism (which I know mostly from film, where it's stark and unsettling like the camouflage), and the still-current pixel camo is related to, well, "computers are cool" and pixel art.
It's impossible to conclusively say whether dazzle worked or not, due to the large number of confounding variables. One study, which I unfortunately forget where I read it, came to the tentative conclusion that it was probably mostly a wash. Yes, dazzle helped somewhat and there was as a result a slightly lower percentage of successful attacks (that is, more torpedoes that missed their target), but OTOH due to being easier to spot in the first place the dazzle painted ships also invited more attacks.
it doesn't mention stereoscopic rangefinder used by surface Navy too. The Dazzle may have had effect here too.<p><a href="https://www.hagley.org/librarynews/razzle-dazzle-and-rangefinding-hitting-your-target-wwi" rel="nofollow">https://www.hagley.org/librarynews/razzle-dazzle-and-rangefi...</a>
The fun part about this article is I did not know the term "razzle dazzle" came from this kind of camo. As in: "I gave em the ol razzle dazzle" meaning "I was able to escape being pursued." Even the first comment below mention the "old razzle dazzle." Fun term.
See also the "Berlin Brigade" urban camo: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/camouflage/comments/10qw7o9/urban_camouflage_pattern_1980s_uk_berlin_brigade/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/camouflage/comments/10qw7o9/urban_c...</a><p>One of my favorites. Haven't found much to read about it, so don't know how effective it was, or why it's not used more.
I'm not against sharing nuance, but it's annoying when past is discounted through pedantry. Dazzle was effective, and article is mostly clickbait, albeit interesting.
I've looked for an academic explanation of this "horizon effect" but can't find anything. Most things I find seem to be related to AI somehow.