Best Submarine Camouflage?

[Dizzyfugu]

Camouflage always only works in context. For instance, the modern British submarines above wore that gaudy high-contrast cammo because they operated in the (shallow) Red Sea during the Kuwait conflict, and frequently operated close to the coastlines to spy on shore targets or deliver small special ops teams, so that breaking up the shape was an effective measure. Typical open sea submarines tend to be simply black or dark grey, to offer camouflage from above against the very dark deep sea.

However, for inspiration take a look at nature and check the highly diverse "schemes" e. g. of sharks, whales or other fish - there are some very effective and/or decorative patterns, e .g. from mackerels:

[kerick]

Holy mackerel!!!!

Sorry, I couldn't stop myself......

[Andrew Gorman]

Thank you for the information, unfortunately I couldn't download the PDF, would you be able to post screenshots of it, please? 😁
[/quote]

It's a 29 page document... I can't be much help with any technical glitches.

[RAFF-35]

Camouflage always only works in context. For instance, the modern British submarines above wore that gaudy high-contrast cammo because they operated in the (shallow) Red Sea during the Kuwait conflict, and frequently operated close to the coastlines to spy on shore targets or deliver small special ops teams, so that breaking up the shape was an effective measure. Typical open sea submarines tend to be simply black or dark grey, to offer camouflage from above against the very dark deep sea.

However, for inspiration take a look at nature and check the highly diverse "schemes" e. g. of sharks, whales or other fish - there are some very effective and/or decorative patterns, e .g. from mackerels:

Very valid points. I didn't realise that's why the British submarines had those colour schemes but that makes sense now, thank you. 
And what a fantastic idea looking at pelagic animal's camouflage! The only issue is narrowing it down to one creature for the scheme 🤔

[kerick]

Clownfish?
Maybe not.....

[Weaver]

Another reason for cammo on modern submarines is non-acoustic sensors. There's been a lot of work using blue-green lasers to detect subs in shallow water, so a scheme that breaks up the shape into areas of different reflectivity is a credible countermeasure.

[jcf]

In 1937 the USN did a series of experiments in Hawai'i, in Pearl Harbor and out in the open ocean, in regards to visibility from the air while submerged. They used a range of colours, both alone and in combination - blues of various shades, purples, greys and blacks etc.. The upshot was that a deep dark blue worked the best in both deep and, surprisingly, shallow water. But as the blue pigments chalked and faded quickly, the USN opted for black. The tests were repeated off Key West in 1940 with similar results. The wartime grey schemes were biased towards surface operation.