kamouflage.net camouflage data

Uncover your potential', indeed! Once you stop ogling the girl, though, you might notice that this Australian Special Air Service (SAS) recruiting poster shows Australian Disruptive Pattern Camouflage to very good effect. [Image courtesy Brad Turner collection.]

Heeres-Splittermuster 45
Greater German Reich

Known to collectors by a bewildering variety of names, Buntfarbenaufdruck ('multicoloured colour print') was the basic pattern developed for the Reichswehr ('Territorial Defence') in the early 1930s. It was used for the standard camouflaged Zeltbahn 31 shelter quarter, which was issued to all units of the Reichsheer ('Territorial Army') and Reichsmarine ('Territorial Navy').

It was probably in 1935, when the Reichswehr became the Wehrmacht ('Defence Force'), that the Buntfarbenaufdruck was renamed Heeres-Splittermuster 31 ('army splinter pattern '31'). The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht ('Supreme Command of the Defence Force'; abbrev. OKW) continued to issue the camouflaged Zeltbahn 31 to all units of the Heer ('army'), Kriegsmarine ('navy') and Luftwaffe ('air weapon'), until 1945.

Late in the war, an experiemental form of Heeres-Splittermuster was produced, in which the established splinter pattern was overprinted with hard-edged carbon black polygons. Much like the 'dripping branches' overprint that was applied to SS-Leibermuster garments, these light-absorbing elements were introduced because of the appearance of infra-red imaging equipment, which reduced the effectiveness of earlier camouflage patterns. For lack of a better designation, I have dubbed this pattern Heeres-Splittermuster 45 ('army splinter pattern '45').

Heeres-Splittermuster 45 is not known to have been issued. The only surviving examples of this camouflage pattern are incomplete Zeltbahn sections.

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