1/11/2024 0 Comments Dazzle shipsWork began almost immediately, and Wilkinson and his small team began to produce Dazzle Designs for hundreds of ships. And that would distort the vision of the person aiming the torpedo, the maths would be wrong, and the torpedo would miss the ship and it would sail and complete its voyage. Wilkinson said that if ships were painted in “violent colour contrast” in a carefully thought-out pattern, the outline would be distorted enough to confuse the enemy's observations on the ship's length, size, speed, even the direction the ship was sailing in. They are bold and bright bedazzling in fact. Here at the Imperial War Museum, we have some of Norman Wilkinson's drawn and coloured in solutions to the submarine problem. As we will see through his skill, the arts really can save lives and they certainly did as the war at sea was being waged in the First World War. And the other skill that Norman Wilkinson brought to this problem was the brilliance he had as an artist. Now he'd actually served in the navy, so had personal experience of the risks faced by ships trying to sail undetected through enemy waters. This ingenious solution was the brainchild of Norman Wilkinson. And this broken up, blurring of the ship's outline would disrupt the view of the submarine captain so much he would get his mathematical calculations wrong, and the torpedo would miss. However, they were very interested in the idea of an artist who argued it would be possible to paint the ships in such a way that their appearance would be distorted, broken up. To make a ship blend in with its background so well to become invisible just wasn't possible. The admiralty, which was responsible for Britain's navy and the protection of these vital sea networks, knew that they needed a solution, and the solution was, well, not camouflage. In April 1917, the losses were so great that nearly one in every five ships coming to Britain was sunk. When the torpedo hits the ship often on the hull, the underwater part of the ship, it explodes causing catastrophic fire and flooding which in many cases resulted in the ships being sunk. A torpedo is a self-propelled underwater explosive. Once a ship was sighted, the submarine captain would make careful calculations to give him the best chance of hitting his target, manoeuvre the submarine into position and then fire torpedoes. An underwater boat, incidentally, being underwater is pretty great camouflage. During the First World War the enemy targeted these vital supply lines and the most deadly weapon that they used to disrupt and sink as many ships as possible was a submarine. Just like today, much of Britain's food and resources came from all across the world and it was carried to Britain on ships. And attacks on the ships weren't just a worry for the sailors on board, but for everyone in Britain. They were big and often slow-moving targets for enemy submarines. Which led to a huge problem for British ships in the First World War. Now, ships are quite large making it pretty near impossible to hide a ship completely. Remember camouflage - just as we saw in the camouflage tree - it's all about blending in so well with your surroundings that you effectively hide from view. These designs are called Dazzle, which was a form of camouflage. I bet you've never seen ships sporting such bold, bright designs before. But then, who needs the open seas and real ships when at IWM we have these exquisitely painted model ones. I'm afraid that as far as I'm concerned, it's too wet, cold and windy in January to film at sea with life-size ships. But we do have some dazzling ideas that were needed to be put into place to solve this particular problem. But hiding a big boat is far from smooth sailing. And you may think that's easy disguising ships at sea, just paint them the same colour as the water. And it's on the theme of camouflage that we're going to focus on in this film, but not on the battlefield - at sea. When in fact, it's a well-disguised position for a soldier sniper to hide within on no man's land. Looks very realistic, doesn't it? In fact, it's hollow, it's got a steel core making it bulletproof, surrounded by wood to keep it structured and then a tin exterior painted to trick your eyes into believing it's a genuine tree stump. And in this section of the display, I'm surrounded by gas masks and trench periscopes and what appears to be a fake tree. Welcome to the galleries that tell the story of the First World War. And today, I'm going to take you inside the incredible First World War galleries. My name is Ngaire, and part of my job is making sure the wonderful collections here at the museum, get to you in your classrooms and homes. Since 1917 this museum has been collecting vehicles, artworks and aircraft to tell the stories of real people whose lives have been affected by war and conflict. Welcome to Imperial War Museums in London.
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