Why Military Ships are Gray and Icebreakers Red? 

Also, when was the last time you heard of a zebra being hit by a German torpedo? Exactly.

Just a friendly tip/warning: The procedure of submerging a ship to hide it, is in many cases considered single-use technology.

Incebreakers bought the premium pass so they got sick red skin.

After leaving Pearl Harbor, the crew of the USS Seadragon discovered that the black paint was pealing away to reveal the red lead primer underneath in scale like patches. The submarine tender she was docked next to had been hit with a bomb and the heat of the fire had burned off Seadragon's paint. The crew rechristened her "The red dragon" and went on to have a successful patrol, earning enough of a reputation to be mentioned by the Tokyo Rose who complained of "Red pirate submarines". Records don't directly mention the red paint causing any problems with being spotted, but I think I remember reading that they ran deeper than normal just in case. The red dragon's legacy lived on in the cold war era nuclear sub USS Seadragon, whose crew patch at one time displayed a red scaled dragon grasping a torpedo.

This is one of the most consistently entertaining and informative channels on RU-vid. You should be very proud.

the red paint under the hull has some agent to it that prevents aquatic life from latching onto it, its red typically for tradition since its not the old tin-based paint it used to be.

Did you know that Norwegian warships have QR code’s on the bows? It’s so when they return from patrol they can…Scandinavian

Me, trying to get a range estimate on a zebra through my periscope: Scheiße

These zig-zag patterns were mainly to fool optical ranging systems which relied on a human operator overlaying two images to range a target. These patterns also helped disguise a ship from identification; making it much harder to identify the length of the ship, the depth in the water, number of towers, etc. In modern times with laser range finding and advanced radar there is no longer a need for this pattern on ships.

Ok, if I ever go to war in a navy, I want my ship to be freaking pink to surprise, confuse and scare the crap out of the enemy. By the time they stop wondering why they see a pink ship, my antiship SSMs will be already on their way

Idk, I don't think any camo/paint will outdo that destroyer in ww2 that looked like an island to escape japanese waters

What about the yellow submarine though?

Bravo! Great story, and even greater humor. You're writers need a high five✋ for this script.

As an American, I will shamefully admit we love Canadian maple syrup. Also, I was totally expecting you to do like on the submarine black/cruise ship white video and spend only five seconds on the red icebreakers.

Having almost sailed right by two Swedish military ships that were tied up alongside an island in the Stockholm archipelago (not a harbor or even a dock, just tied up to the rock), I can attest to the effectiveness of their camouflage. These ships were covered with additional camouflage nets but it was absolutely stunning how well it worked-we gasped when we noticed them straight off our starboard side probably less than 200 feet away. We could easily have missed them altogether.

So glad to see the RCN getting some love. Didn't know that we were early testers of that light based camo. Really cool

15:46 I've never seen anything as Canadian as that painting on the back of the gun.

Warships are painted grey for a number of reasons that the video covers well, but he did leave one out that was touched on slightly in regards to soviet ships having red decks (sending a political message). Warships are painted grey because everyone knows warships are grey. The governments of the world are telling you, by painting their warships grey, that this ship is something to avoid because we all know warships are battleship grey and are you not to go near them unless you want to be detained or threatened. A ship sailing well away from merchant traffic with a grey paint scheme and a gun on it's bow, everyone knows to stay the hell away from it. That's a warship, there is no mistaking it's a warship and the first indicator you got was it was painted grey. Bugs, amphibians and reptiles tell you they are dangerous with bright colors; warships warn you by being grey. It's a weird bit of circular logic.

So… They paints the ships in fifty shades of grey?

You sir are truly a man of culture .

19- ahem… 69. Keeping it sophisticated. 🧐

Yes, Our ships are panted red to symbolize maple leaves because we love maple syrup

Omg I didn't realise the Greeks recorded the trojan horse!

The lone patrol got jumped by a whole bunch of dude with ghillies was the funniest thing I saw all day yet 1:18. LOL

Red paint give extra fire damage, gray paint give bonus Evasion stat.

1:22 they just got done trolling someone and hit em with a fortnight dance lmao

Black is actually a terrible color for camouflage for night, and this had actually been known for centuries. One of the most prominent examples of this was the ninja. While most of their camouflage focused on disguising as the most innocuous of people (religious monks and farmers were two of the most common used), the garb that is most commonly associated with the ninja was actually dark blue instead of black, and it was for the same reasons that the US Navy found during their own testing. Black would not become an effective color for camouflage until the second half of the 20th century, and it would be dependent on one very key criteria: the prevalence of artificial light, specifically electric light. Shadows cast by electric light are significantly darker than that of natural light, thus allowing for black to actually work as camouflage. This is why black is predominantly found in urban camouflage patterns, particularly night ones, as urban areas tend to be filled with electric light, especially at night. Out on the ocean, where there is hardly any electric light (even the lights on ships hardly mattered), black is a rather bad choice - the exact same reasons why the ninja garb was dark blue (shadows from flame sources were still more-or-less natural and therefore not as dark as with electric sources).

Today on "Not what you think": why are ice breakers red? exactly for the obvious reason (contrast to snow) why are battleships gray? exactly for the obvious reason (minimal contrast to most conditions) why is dazzle camo not used anymore? exactly for the obvious reason (radar) Still very entertaining.

5:10 I hate to be that guy, but this game sucks. I highly recommend avoiding it, as it requires no strategy at all and thus heavily favors players who've played it longer or spent more money on it. It would be the definition of a pay-to-win game if "Fishing Clash" hadn't stolen that title from it already

My favourite camouflage story is that of HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen, which was disguised as a tropical island to escape the Japanese occupation of Surabaya in 1941. It survived the war, and is now a museum ship located in Den Helder. It's well worth a visit... if you can find it...!!!

i dont need to watch a 20 minute video to understand something that can be explained with a single sentence

Loving these longer videos. Always interesting and make me want more faster

One day, someone will paint their battleship red and become the first battleship ace

13:13 silence

Minor point: The US really has only one heavy polar ice breaker, USCGC Polar Star. Her sister, USCGC Polar Sea, is not in service. There is a second active USCG ice breaker, USCGC Healy, but it is classified as a medium ice breaker. Thanks for your in-depth analysis of naval paint schemes - I learned a lot from it. MM2

There are many ship camofladge because there are 50 shades of gray

Military: no visibilty please ;) Icebreakers: LOOK GUYS I'M HERE RESCUE ME!!

Up until around 15 years ago, haze gray was the standard paint for superstructure coating over primed steel. One of the specs was MIL-PRF-2463B Type II Class 2 Enamel, color standard Fed std 595B #26270. This is an anti-static silicone alkyd marine paint whose reflective properties were promoted for lowering HVAC cooling requirements more that for reducing the ship's IR signature. The silicone increased the paint's surface hardness and uV resistance and thus overall life. Application was similar to standard alkyd enamel paint. This has been replaced by haze gray epoxy siloxane block copolymer coating/ paint for its effectiveness against salt corrosion. Off the radar of Not What You Think's camouflage motif topic, but still on naval coatings, is bilge tanks coatings. One coating system uses an 18 mil dry thickness epoxy primer with a fluorescent additive. This is topped with another coat of epoxy paint, and followed by inspection using a uV lamp to reveal pinholes. Any pinholes are covered by additional paint. This has extended the protective coating by years.

Whoever designs these ships totally lacks any imagination at all. Why not just paint them clear?

HMS Tamar recently got painted in ‘dazzle’ along with HMS Severn painted in ‘Wester Approaches’ in tribute to the WW1 and WW2 Royal navy campaigns. As well, HMS Dragon got the Welsh dragon repainted on its bow. However useless they may be they look absolutely amazing

Still waiting for the day I can say that it was why I thought

I think they should combine water blue and haze gray for optimal protection Water blue - the top of ships Haze gray - everywhere else

Poor Hans got his shit beaten by four bush wookies

Even during surface gunnery (from big guns at the horizon to closer in visual sighting) and aerial bombing and gunnery, dazzle, false bow wakes and false silhouette works to throw them off. Of course in good conditions it doesn't make a difference, but but any marginal visibility conditions, it helps by making it harder to focus accurately. Just like camouflage on uniforms, you try to deceive the connection between the eye and judgement regarding your shape, facing, speed, distance, etc. See also false canopies on plane undersides. I saw a light plane that was painted like a firefighter or target drone or trainer in bright red, white and black, but seen from the right side, all the red was switched for a bright green, to help others judge your facing and course. Like navigation lights on ships and planes: From their right you should see green, and red only from their left. Bright white light only from the front. It makes sense for icebreakers to settle on a high visibility standard.

Dazzle was also used to prevent sighting from enemy warships. Gun sights needed to create a consistent image and dazzle could confuse the sighters of the guns

Can we all take a minute to appreciate this channel, it's so interesting tbh

Ah yes the lengthy video, thanks NWYT

يا الرغاية،ازيكم من الشعر ييتا،اقترحت على توفيق أن كل سفينة تستطيع أن تجر معها مقطورة مطاطية سميكة مثل قاعدة السفن البريطانية المسماة بالهوفركرافت من أجل حمل طائرات مقاتلة مثل الياك 141 أو مروحيات مثل الكا 52 وبالتالي تحمي نفسها والاسطول و المياه الإقليمية بنجاعة منقطعة النظير،أتمنى أن هناك من يقرأ معنا ما اكتب كي أنظم إلى فريقهم الوطني فقد سئمت من منتخب الزواويفرنسي.

"The sea was angry that day my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli."

"Its not what you think." It's exactly what I thought.

A genuinely interesting and informative video. I’d use this for teaching material, if I were a teacher. Great work!

0:19 "but it was the French who created camouflage" Also France during both wars: BLUE IS BLUE

Regina rhyme with retina :D

12:20 ah, yes. I know exactly what we need. RGB LED lit WARSHIPS. RGB improves the performance of everything.

Had an old school chief on my sub who used to say "all ships are submarines, it's just the real badass combat ships can come back up." 😅 then again, he used to call all the skimmers "targets".

So they should cover the entire ship with huge LED panel to change the color on demand LOL

If the best available color to reduce radar signatures we can come up with turns out to only be feasible/effective in neon green or bright shock pink we WILL start painting ships in that as radar is a much bigger threat than merely optical recognition. And with increasing "over the horizon" capabilities to fight anything that might detect you with other means like cameras, sonar and so on, Radar still is the widest forward way to discover an approaching fleet.

Military vehicles mist be hidden according to air,land and sea conditions and icebreakers must also be easily visible in snow and ice.☺

ah yes, always take forever to explain military thing and just needed less than 5 minutes to explain the others lol, however.... i still listening till end

Soon ships would be able to "Cloak" . They would have technology which would allow them to take colors ( mid - battle) with respect to their surroundings.

They should make a glass ship because it's invisible to the enemy ships

3:14 I play world of warships and I can confirm the answer is yes

no idea what to comment

Great video! A lot of information I didn't know.

Yes, it’s exactly what we think. Camo vs. visibility. The rest is bull$hit.

While we're on the subject of uniforms.. why do our sailors wear bell bottoms? Because that extra material acts in the same manner as flippers.. and they're really tight fitting to reduce drag and extra weight when water logged.. it's not because they're stuck in the 70s lol.

Military ships are naturally scared of tomatoes, so if you paint them red they have a panic attack and blow themselves apart

I've always been amazed by the dazzle camouflage. I painted one of my Glock slides like that and it looks crazy cool

Icebreakers are red Destroyers are gray I'll encourage you to hit the like button, or else you'll pay

you see, theyre looking for the grey ships, not the bright orange ships

NWYT's content is more educational and interesting than my school semester

My understand is that Mountbatten Pink was intended as a night camo. The SAS even painted there Land Rovers and Jeeps Mountbatten Pink in North Africa for this purpose, IIRC. (Also, just because you call yourself a communist, does not automatically make you a communist, but that's a subject for another time.)

Yet another episode of “exactly what I thought” … but interesting bits of history nonetheless 😀

By the way, the movie about the pink submarine is called 'Operation Petticoat' (I think, it's been a few years). It's a great movie.

The pink ship "Colorized" at the bottom right… Did you know there actually is a bright green ship??? Well photoshop can make your ship green!

For anyone who is interested the boat at 9:36 is the Mersey Ferry in Liverpool (as in the song). It was painted in dazzle colours in 2015.

Before i start watchin a video: Battleships: its camo to hide from enemy (black n white stripers and all of that kind are not to hide the ship but the size of a ship (if u dont understand just look for video about ship camo or something idk its too long to write) Icebreakers: need to be seen cuz even icebreaker can be stuck in ice so it can be found easier to help

This channel after a year is already over a million. And its quickly becoming a favorite.

With the Icebreakers,it makes sense why being painted white made it harder to see. Water alone has a good score on reflectivity index, ice has an even higher score. Added with the fact that shades of white tends to reflect radiation/light better, and you can see why it was hard to spot. Red generally tends to stand out in a white/bright backdrop, and happens to be the most visible color on the spectrum over long distances.

My great grandfather served on the ship at 12:17. She is docked at a port in Hamilton Ontario.

Well that was exactly what I thought... no news

Its poeticly ironic that France coined the term during a war they entered into wareing red trousers and blue jackets in the early years. They quickly learnt from that mistake.

Pretty simple answer really, visibility. You can hardly see a white or grey ship in the attic but if it’s a brighter color it easy to see from a distance

*Side Note:-* Lord Mountbatten's Pink ships were so effective in controlling British Colonies that he became the _last_ Viceroy of India.

Really enjoying the long format videos! Though I really enjoy the shorts as well.

Man, I've been around boats most of my life. I drive across the lake at night all the time and am used to having to rely on nothing but running lights to avoid other craft on the water. So that's why my jaw dropped at 2:05 when I realised i didn't see "reverse your runing light colors" coming. That's so simple yet so damn devious.

Military wants to be discreet. Gray ships are hard to see on the horizon. Icebreakers. In case if they are lost or if they are searching for those who lost are red and orange so even on the horizon you can make it out considering everything else around you is white.

69420

This made me smile and chuckle (in a good way) well done thank you. And don't forget about the ice breakers on the great lakes! i am not sure if they are operated by the USCG or if they are even gov or maybe they are Canadian?

Interesting video with a lot of cool ships! I have a question from connected topic. While watching different videos about military I noticed frames from inside of different transports: from helicopters and planes to APC and MARVs. Or even landing ships, as it was shown in this video. Al of them has specific colored light inside, from red (you can see it in this video in part about pink ships) to strange green-blue. It's obvious that is not just for fun but for specific purpose. What purpose? I know that for example red light doesn't defect eye-adaptation to darkness and you can easily act under cover of the night after leaving red-lighted space. Fans of astronomy use it. Does it connect with usage such lights inside transport ships?

That ship on 9:35 tho Edit: the line about the red paint not being due to America's love for communism hits hard at 3:24 AM

Doesn't a ship in the Royal navy still have cammo and a dragon on it

16:49 In 19 (clears throat) 69

Imagine being on a ship and you see a pink ship and then it fires on you what are you gonna do

Great Commentary...And Thanks for the Information 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿

Very cool. It wasn’t what I thought

The Guns of Glory game is something I saw ads for when I just got a smartphone and was also learning English. I thought there was a person named Gloria lol. Strange to see them sponsor a video only a year old

There's a very basic and military reason why the navy ships should still be painted in camouflage colors - - not every body who may see the ships has a radar unit. While radar will detect a ship whatever color it is painted, there are many times when observers will be unlikely to have a hand held radar unit with them capable of identifying the ship. This is especially true at night, and if the observers are not trained military personnel. being observed by civilians or small forces on the move is more likely to happen to navy vessels operating in littoral waters, it can happen to any navy ship.

Just do the Philadelphia experiment... Then you'll disappear. Like I just did

The answer is simple Navies do not want people to sue their ships They want people to see icebreakers