The painted warships of WWI (BBC)

[JayhawkSD]

1. Sometimes inaccuartely referred to as "camoflage" paint schemes

They were not intended to hide, because a ship at sea cannot be hidden. They were enormously successufl at obscuring the "angle on the bow" used in targeting calculations for torpedos and, to a lesser extent, for naval artillery.

The angle on the bow is not quite the same thing as the "course," but is a measure of the target's angle relative to the shooting ship, and is used to determine the rate at which the range and bearing will be changing. The target's course is determined by a series of "plots" on the chart, while the angle on the bow is a visual extimate and is a "snapshot" of it's status at a given moment.

Similar paint schemes were still in use throughout WW2 as well.