Dazzle's back

[zenrat]

https://www.seaforces.org/marint/Norwegian-Navy/Corvette/Skjold-class.htm

What awesome looking vessels! Part catamaran and part hovercraft with four turbines, four missile launchers and a 30 mm cannon. What's not to like?

And it does 60 kts on a calm sea! 

25 kts in sea state 5.  I don't think i'd like that.

[jcf]

Easy way out? Surely not being symmetrical would be easier...

No, because you need to come up with a separate scheme that requires a larger set
of drawings, also the dazzle designs were not random they were all carefully
designed to work best with a particular ship type and class.

[jcf]

https://www.seaforces.org/marint/Norwegian-Navy/Corvette/Skjold-class.htm

What awesome looking vessels! Part catamaran and part hovercraft with four turbines, four missile launchers and a 30 mm cannon. What's not to like?

And it does 60 kts on a calm sea! 

All of the modern SES have benefited from the work done at Bell with the SES-100B in the '70s, which achieved
a speed of 91.9 kts in Sea State III on 30 June 1976. The Technical Director & Program Manager on SES-100B
was Peter J. Mantle* who had started at Saunders Roe in 1951, and he was the main reason that the sidewall
hovercraft layout was used, building on Cockerell's original sidewall concept and the operating experience with
the Denny D-1 (1960) and the later Hovermarine HM.2 (1967).

Most follow on designs have a greater Length to Beam L/B, which while not allowing speeds as high as the 100B
make the concept more useful in terms of layout for armament etc. The Skjold is an example of increased L/B
ratio.

BTW the Aerojet General SES-100A was a complete turd that never met any the program requirements, yet
it was the design chosen for development into the 3000 ton SES by Rohr Industries. In one of the most mind
boggling examples of USN NIH-syndrome and truly nonsensical, as while the basic concept originated in the
UK the realization of the machine itself was entirely the work of the Bell engineering staff.


*Mantle emigrated to Quebec in 1958 and worked with Dr. Gerry Bull of Super-Gun fame/infamy and then moved
to the US in 1960. He's written a number of books and his High Speed Marine Craft: One Hundred Knots at Sea,
Cambridge University Press, 2015 is the book on the subject. Loads of info on projects before the USN SES
program, what's been done since, proposals/studies for enlarged versions and comparisons with other approaches
to the problems of high speeds at sea. It's also very technical in places, the math for various aspects being way
beyond me, but lots of graphs help to make sense of it all.

[Rheged]

Norman Wilkinson (the originator of dazzle)  is an artist whose work repays study.  More of it here:-  https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Norman+Wilkinson+Art&form=RESTAB&first=1&tsc=ImageBasicHover   and here:-  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Wilkinson_(artist)