In Arctic, US Army researchers test camo that could adapt to changing landscapes

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Mike Parker, CRREL research mechanical engineer and cold regions vehicle mobility lead, is on polar bear watch during the Ship-to-Shore test event at Pituffik Space Base in Greenland. (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)

In a future battlespace, boats, vehicles and weapons could deploy and travel with outer shells or coverings that change with the terrain — or even light and time of year — to add an extra layer of concealment.

That concept was one of the key testing lines of effort in an Army Corps of Engineers and Army Research Laboratory experiment in Pituffik, Greenland, earlier this year. The whole endeavor was part of a broader testing series organized by the International Cooperative Engagement Program for Polar Research (ICE-PPR) and the Office of Naval Research, a multi-national endeavor that underscores the ever-increasing importance of the Arctic as a warfighting domain.

It is also a domain that presents unique challenges for camouflage, said Dr. Tom Douglas, a research chemist and senior scientific technical manager of the Army Corps of Engineers’ Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory Alaska Research Office in Fairbanks, Alaska.

“It’s dark for some periods; it’s light for other periods,” Douglas told Military Times in an interview. “Everything can look kind of yellow or orange when the sun’s setting … you’ve got sea ice, which can look kind of gray … You can stand out pretty blatantly in a vast open white field where there’s no vegetation, right? So there’s that, and then thinking about coatings or snow covering things, and maybe making it worse now that your camo doesn’t work.”

Anthony Fragoso, a cold regions artificial intelligence lead at CRREL, said that his lab worked with ARL staff during ship-to-shore operations to test “a number of novel coatings,” using sensors to assess the effectiveness of concealment.

“If you go beyond the visible, which our adversaries can do, snow in certain wavelengths looks black. But it’s white in visible,” Fragoso told Military Times in a separate interview. “So trying to match that is a challenge.”

Researchers, Fragoso said, were inspired by Arctic foxes in Pituffik, which change colors over the course of the year – from white in the winter to brown in the summer.

An Arctic fox walks on Svalbard archipelago on August 27, 2020, near Longyearbyen, Norway. It’s best known for its thick, warm fur that is also used as camouflage. (Maja Hitij/Getty Images)

“Things that are reversible, flexible is kind of what we’re after,” he said, adding that researchers considered units like the Alaska-based 11th Airborne Division, which also regularly deploys to the Pacific.

“They’re the Arctic Angels, but they are also worried about fighting in the jungle,” he said. “So they don’t want to paint stuff white, and then it has to go to Taiwan.”

While still at the scientific research and development level, the work is making its way to operational units already, with upcoming plans to test a rapidly deployable coating system on the Army’s Cold Weather All-Terrain Vehicles in Alaska.

“The Alaska National Guard is going to fly over it with helicopters, film it with thermal, all that stuff,” Fragoso said. “Everything now is counter-[unmanned aerial systems], so it’s making sure stuff isn’t being spotted from above by a $1,000 drone.”

Mike Parker, the cold regions mobility lead for CRREL, emphasized that this effort to test flexible camouflage extends beyond the Arctic.

With surveillance from above essentially a given in contemporary warfare, additional layers of concealment, particularly those that can be easily altered to fit changing environments, are in unprecedented demand.

“It has to remain flexible, and all aspects of it are on the table,” Parker said. “It doesn’t have to be just a coating; it could be a fabric … anything that can give us the tactical advantage is being evaluated.”

Hope Hodge Seck is an award-winning investigative and enterprise reporter covering the U.S. military and national defense. The former managing editor of Military.com, her work has also appeared in the Washington Post, Politico Magazine, USA Today and Popular Mechanics.

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美国陆军工程兵团CRREL研究机械工程师兼寒冷地区车辆机动性负责人迈克·帕克在格陵兰岛皮图菲克航天基地举行的舰岸测试活动中负责北极熊的巡逻工作。（美国陆军工程兵团）

在未来的战场上，船只、车辆和武器可以部署和行进时配备外壳或覆盖物，这些外壳或覆盖物会随着地形（甚至光线和季节）而变化，以增加额外的隐蔽层。

今年早些时候，美国陆军工程兵团和陆军研究实验室在格陵兰岛皮图菲克开展了一项实验，该实验的关键测试方向之一就是验证这一概念。整个实验是国际极地研究合作计划（ICE-PPR）和海军研究办公室组织的一系列更广泛测试的一部分，这是一项多国合作项目，凸显了北极作为作战领域日益增长的重要性。

阿拉斯加费尔班克斯陆军工程兵团寒区研究与工程实验室阿拉斯加研究办公室的研究化学家兼高级科学技术经理汤姆·道格拉斯博士表示，这也是一个对伪装提出独特挑战的领域。

“有时天黑，有时天亮，”道格拉斯在接受《军事时报》采访时说。“日落时分，万物看起来都泛黄或泛橙……还有海冰，看起来有点灰蒙蒙的……在一片空旷的白色原野上，没有一丝植被，你会显得格外显眼，对吧？所以，再加上还要考虑涂层或积雪覆盖的情况，现在你的迷彩服失效了，情况可能就更糟了。”

CRREL 的寒冷地区人工智能负责人 Anthony Fragoso 表示，他的实验室与 ARL 的工作人员在船岸作业期间合作，测试了“多种新型涂层”，并使用传感器来评估隐蔽效果。

“如果我们超越可见光范围（我们的对手可以做到这一点），在某些波长下，雪看起来是黑色的。但在可见光下，它是白色的，”弗拉戈索在接受《军事时报》的另一次采访中说道。“所以，要做到这一点是一项挑战。”

弗拉戈索说，研究人员从皮图菲克的北极狐身上获得了灵感，北极狐的毛色会随着季节变化而改变——冬天是白色，夏天是棕色。

2020年8月27日，一只北极狐在挪威朗伊尔城附近的斯瓦尔巴群岛上行走。北极狐最出名的是它厚实温暖的皮毛，这种皮毛也起到了很好的伪装作用。（Maja Hitij/Getty Images）

“我们追求的是可逆的、灵活的事物，”他说，并补充说，研究人员考虑了像驻扎在阿拉斯加的第 11 空降师这样的部队，该师也经常部署到太平洋地区。

“他们是北极天使，但他们也担心在丛林中作战，”他说。“所以他们不想把东西涂成白色，那样的话，这些东西就得运到台湾去。”

虽然仍处于科学研究和开发阶段，但这项工作已经开始应用于作战部队，接下来的计划是在阿拉斯加对陆军的寒冷天气全地形车进行快速部署涂层系统的测试。

弗拉戈索说：“阿拉斯加国民警卫队将派出直升机进行空中巡逻，用热成像仪拍摄，等等。现在所有的一切都是为了防范无人机系统，确保不会有人用价值1000美元的无人机从空中发现目标。”

CRREL 的寒冷地区机动性负责人迈克·帕克强调，这项测试柔性伪装的努力不仅限于北极。

在现代战争中，来自上方的监视几乎已成为必然，因此，对额外的隐蔽措施，特别是那些可以轻松改变以适应不断变化的环境的隐蔽措施，有着前所未有的需求。

帕克说：“它必须保持灵活性，所有方面都在考虑之中。它不一定只是涂层；它可以是织物……任何能给我们带来战术优势的东西都在评估之中。”

霍普·霍奇·塞克是一位屡获殊荣的调查记者和深度报道记者，主要报道美国军事和国防新闻。她曾任Military.com网站的执行主编，作品也曾发表在《华盛顿邮报》、《政治杂志》、《今日美国》和《大众机械》等媒体上。