Fire Safety

Camouflage is a skill and art that is often thought to go hand-in-hand with prepping and survival. If we are trying to survive or run away from some disaster that might see our societal norms and rule of law collapsed, it makes sense we want to avoid detection by other people as much as possible, unless of course we want to be noticed but that’s another story.

Whatever your purpose, whatever your reasons, if you want to remain undetected, you cannot wing it: you need to know what you’re doing. If you don’t, you don’t want to make the situation worse, and make yourself even more visible, or at least no less visible than you were at the outset.

Considering that you might be the prey, and some other malicious human might be the hunter, the stakes could be high. Your very survival may depend on remaining undetected and unseen.

Camouflage is an ancient art and one that has been continually refined since time immemorial all the way through today. In today’s article, we’ll be giving you all the info on camouflage theory, application and practice.

Why Camouflage?

There are two “whys” to camouflage. The first is the answer to the question: you use camouflage when you want to remain unseen. Considering that the primary sense of human beings is vision, camouflage is your first and best option for remaining undetected by other humans, at least at any kind of distance.

Humans lack almost entirely the keen sense of smell that other animals, particularly predators, use for discerning what is around them and for tracking potential prey animals.

The second “why” is you use camouflage because without it you are terribly easy to spot? Everything about the average person, on the average day is easy to detect against the backdrop of nature or a cityscape.

From easy to pick out shapes to brightly colored reflective surfaces your usual wardrobe has not a drop of guile to it. What that means is that if your situation changes from everyday life to one where remaining undetected is a key component for attaining a positive outcome you might have a problem.

In kind times or bad ones, there are activities that call for camouflage to ensure success even if you wouldn’t normally employ it. One such activity that everyone understands is hunting.

Animals of all kinds, especially common prey animals, have very sharp senses and will easily detect and elude a sloppy, bumbling hunter. Another activity requiring camo might be discreet observation, an activity where detection may spoil your surreptitious intelligence gathering.

The more you think about it, the more times you’ll discover where camouflage may make the difference between success and failure.

Camo: The Art and Science

Camouflage is big business, and that means big money. Millions upon millions of dollars are funneled into camouflage research every year by both commercial and governmental interests.

Hunters are always on the lookout for that next best pattern so they can get the drop on their quarry the military, obviously, has a huge interest and camouflage performance for increasing the safety of their forces and thereby helping to ensure mission success.

Even a 10% increase in camouflage effectiveness may net a significant improvement in survivability.

But for the vast fortunes that get poured into its development camouflage are still more art than science, though the science helps.

To understand camouflage performance is to understand the science of vision and beneath that umbrella experts in biophysics, optics, hyperspectrometry, visual neurophysiology, signal detection theory, chemicals, textiles and biomechanics all grab a seat at the table, put their doctorates together and try to crack the code on the next big camouflage breakthrough.

Despite all that, and despite the gulf in prestige and formal education, it is entirely possible that nearly flawless camouflage offering almost perfect concealment could be cooked up and applied using nothing more than cheap spray paint, natural foliage, burlap and a discerning eye by a young man living in the foothills of eastern Tennessee, his craft refined by long experience tramping in the backwoods in pursuit of deer and rabbits.

That is because camouflage is a theory in its purest form: it is a set of principles, a set of ideas that are describe and must be interpreted by an individual, in a certain environment, in pursuit of a certain objective.

They’re all guides, not rules. You’ll never be guaranteed success by following them to the letter. What works in one environment may not work in another, or may have the opposite effect.

The only thing that matters with camouflage is results. A camouflage pattern you purchase or a camouflage pattern you apply yourself is only judged on merit and nothing else.

In that way, a DIY-savvy prepper like you may be afforded just as much performance from your $10 homebrew camo job as the latest artificial intelligence-designed, multimillion-dollar think tank camo cranked out by DARPA.

You can do it. And the way you’ll do it is by understanding the principles of camouflage. Specifically, what visual signatures you are employing the camouflage to mitigate or manage.

Understanding Visual Signature

If you’re unfamiliar with camouflage theory, you might think that someone is camouflaged or they’re not. Either or, like a uniform. Basically you’ll either see them- “aha! There they are!”- Or you won’t. It doesn’t quite work that way.

Without delving too deeply into the neuroscience that would make up a series of articles all its own your brain will rarely discern an object, be it an animal or a person, and its entirety in one swoop.

Instead, it uses a sort of shorthand to speed up processing looking for “tells” that are characteristic of an identified with the object you’re looking for and expecting to see.

Ask any hunter and they’ll tell you: if you look for the deer, you’ll miss it. If you look for a part of the deer, you’ll see it. Many will regale you with stories of seeing not the deer all at once, but the flicker of a white tail or the movement of a majestic set of antlers. Then they saw the deer in toto.

This is a good lesson in understanding a few parts of visual signature together, specifically color, movement and shadow. We’ll get into those and more right now

Shape

This ties right in with our analogy above. The brain of our valiant hunter above is not looking for a deer, the concept, the animal; it is looking for the shape of a deer amidst all the other objects in the field of vision.

One of the simplest and most fundamental aspects of camouflage is breaking up the shape of an object so that it will not be recognized immediately as the object it is.

You should know that the human form as one of the easiest shapes to recognize out in the world, and people are very adept at picking other people out of the background.

Disrupting the shape of an object can be done through a variety of means: you can use obstructions, or even local vegetation to disrupt your shape at a distance. Boldly contrasting large form shapes painted over another object can confuse or distort its shape.

Silhouette

Silhouette is closely linked to shape, and is the outline of an object against a background. One common and iconic example is skylining, or the shadow outline of a figure against a much darker sky.

Great way to get seen for miles away and also a great way to get shot. You can also silhouette yourself against a contrasting background, be it a wall, a dense bank of foliage or the broad and grassy expanse of a hillside.

Even if you’re covered from head to toe in camouflage, the silhouette of the camouflage blob moving against the background will say “human.”

An obvious silhouette is a common camouflage mechanic failure; you can do a lot of other things right, but if you don’t account for your silhouette against the surrounding environment you are sure to be spotted.

Color

Color is perhaps the most fundamental element of camouflage and the one people think of immediately when the topic comes up. If you’re in the woods, you want to be in browns.

If you’re in the snow, white and perhaps some black is your best bet. A desert environment dictates any variety of tan or ochre depending on the locale. And if you are in the jungle of course you better be wearing green.

An entirely inappropriate color for camouflage can spoil all other efforts. The human eye is inclined towards recognizing bright primary colors, and less sensitive towards dull earth tones.

There’s a reason why so many safety cones and traffic signs are either that eye-melting yellow-green color or construction site-orange; they are both very easily perceived by the eye!

Now consider the case of our dear up above; that dusky tan color makes deer effectively invisible if they aren’t moving. As it turns out there are far more tans, browns and grays in nature than any other color, including black.

if you do nothing else but cover up, or get rid of, bright obnoxious colors on your outfit and your gear you’ll have gone a long way towards hiding yourself from observation.

Keep in mind that a solid color, chosen well, may serve as adequate camouflage in a specific environment but rarely is anything in nature of any size a flat, solid expanse of a single color. Going to add a few related colors to the mix, to achieve maximum concealment.

Shine

Certain colors are one thing that will unduly attract the attention of the human eye, another thing is light. Since a certain amount of light is necessary for the eye to work at maximum performance, we are keenly attracted to its presence.

What can spoil your camouflage is light reflecting off any shiny surface. Anything metal is a common culprit, as are glossy plastics. Human skin, even those gifted with an abundance of melanin, are also glossy compared to the environment around them.

You want to cover exposed skin with something that is not reflective, like mud or dirt, or camouflage greasepaint to tone down any shine.

Also pay attention to lenses on scopes and other optics, and flashlights that may be inadvertently left on inside a pouch or pocket even something as innocuous as paper or sweat-soaked fabrics. All can reflect light, moonlight or sunlight, unnaturally and get you detected by the bad guys.

Movement

Movement is the last “hot button” for the human eye, any unnatural movement, especially fast, jerky movement, will lock eyes on to you like heat-seeking missiles. Everyone sees the deer that takes off running.

A person that stands up and bolts out of a restaurant will instantly have all eyes on them. At longer distances reaching up to brush away a fly, wipe away a bead of sweat or scratch your nose could be noticed.

If someone has optics at their disposal- telescope, binoculars, and rifle scope, whatever- even small movements are far more likely to be noticed a much greater distance.

Now, moving isn’t everything when it comes to camouflage, but your granddad knew one thing about hunting, specifically about not being noticed.

If you sit still, real still, deer and man alike will walk right past you and never know you’re there. And he went out hunting in a red plaid jacket more likely than not! Something to think about.

Camouflage also makes a difference when you’re moving. Sound bizarre? It’s true. While it is almost always temporary, a proper camo job may confuse the eye of the observer as to your direction while you are moving.

Are you moving towards them or away from them? And how big are you exactly? Presently, there is no Predator-style camo that will cloak you while you are moving, but camo can still make a little difference.

Shadow

Shadow can be used both for and against your camouflage efforts. You can take advantage of actual shadows, or simulated shadows using paint and darker colors in your palette, to blend in seamlessly to an environment among the interplay of light and dark.

But beware! Shadow can work against you, both the shadows you cast and the shadows cast by other things in your surroundings.

Failing to account for the shadow you cast can get you noticed very quickly even among an otherwise cluttered background when using good color and pattern selection.

Likewise interrupting the play of shadow cast by something near you can stick out to the eye, and draw attention. With attention comes scrutiny and with scrutiny often comes… detection.

Learning to work with and not against natural and simulated shadows is one of the more difficult elements of mastering camouflage theory, but masters it you must if you want to be successful.

Your Simulated Survival Situation

Now, if you are otherwise prepared for a major disaster, complete with bug-out kit, a repertoire of skills to help you survive in an austere environment, and high overall fitness levels I’m not going to knock you if your gear is all off-the-shelf stuff in a variety of bright and cheery colors suitable for camping.

You are still more prepared than 99% of people in America. That being said, it would be untruthful for me to tell you that your colorful getup is not a liability in certain circumstances. That’s because it absolutely is.

Consider this theoretical scenario: it is two months after The Big Crash, a black swan event consisting of a massive economic depression and all that attends in conjunction with the assassination of the President of United States.

Historians will later say it did not turn into a Second Civil War so much as it did absolute pandemonium from coast to coast. Life in society as you know it has ceased to exist.

Armed partisan groups are conducting ideological purges even now. Police and military forces have been given a long leash to restore order and have been on edge for the duration.

You must also contend with flocks of the downtrodden, the starving, the crazy and the desperate, all are people who want what you have. Tell me this and answer truthfully: do you want to be more or less noticeable to any and all of those groups named above?

If you have a functioning brain, you probably answered “less visible”. Think of it this way, there’s nothing to be gained by remaining less noticeable than the people that potentially want to detain you, hurt you, steal from you or even kill you.

You can always make yourself more noticeable should you need to be and is a far sight easier than making yourself less noticeable.

So, it’s time to reduce your profile. You’ll have a lot to do. You’ll need to camouflage yourself, your gear, your vehicle (if you’re using one) and potentially your shelter. Where do we start?

Your Camouflage Options

All the principles of camouflage above will combine to form one of several techniques for camo application. There’s more than one way to skin the cat, and there’s more than one way to camouflage something effectively in a given environment.

Some options work better in certain environments than others. Some work equally well, so long as you pay attention to the principles, in any environment. And still others are highly environmentally specific.

Blending

Blending is a camouflage option that defeats and counteracts silhouettes and the outlines of shape. Great examples of blending in nature are stick bugs, and the rocky, mottled skin of certain species of octopi that blend in with the rocky floor of the oceans and coral reefs.

Blending also has a strong dependency on color: the most seamless match of outline in shape will not sell if the colors are wrong. You might blend into a forest floor by relying on the same fallen leaves all around you to mask your own shape and color.

men, material and vehicles can be blended by using a combination of foliage and other natural materials from the environment around them as well as man-made camouflage options like camouflage netting and mesh. Texture is also an important component of blending, so make sure to take that into account when devising your camouflage solution.

Countershading

Countershading is a process by which camouflage defeats the shadow signature of an object against another background, encouraging the eye to ignore it or slide past it. Countershading is an easily done and popular form of camouflage, and examples abound in nature and among the technologies of mankind.

Remember the deer from our example above? Deer along with many other animals are countershaded. Their tan back and flanks taper to a creamy taupe color on the belly and hind quarters.

You can see the same effect on squirrels, which have a dusky tan or gray upper coat of fur that transitions to white on the underside. Reflect for just a moment on how hard to spot these animals are in their natural environment unless they are moving! That is the power of countershading.

Countershading is also a popular camouflage pattern for military vehicles, especially aircraft. Helicopters and airplanes often have an earth tone topside and a gray, white or even sky-blue belly; the intended affect on those observing the aircraft from above, other aircraft, will miss the craft as it flies along the similar colors of the ground below them.

Those observing it from below, men and vehicles, will not be able to detect it as it blends into the sky they are gazing up into.

Mimicry

Mimicry is camouflage by way of looking like something else, anything else other than what you are. Mimicry can be extremely technical, or very simple.

Hunters use duck blinds with their appearance of reeds printed on them and synthetic reeds attached all around them to fool waterfowl into ignoring them while they fly into shotgun range.

Military vehicles are commonly camouflaged to resemble something else other than what they are to fool observers. Primitive hunters once use the pelts of animals they were hunting along with crawling on all fours to crudely mimic their prey, allowing them to get closer before springing upon them.

Mimicry, done right, is one of the best available forms of camouflage. You could flex your mimicry skills by setting up a blind entrance to your shelter that appears to be just a pile of logs or even a boulder.

Something as innocuous as a dumpster or shipping container can be converted into a discrete observation site, or even a shelter. On a personal level, you can make use of mimicry on your clothing and gear.

Camouflage that is hunting specific often mimics foliage, like tree bark and other flora, in exquisite detail to fool the keen eyesight of animals.

Be warned: mimicry done poorly will attract attention, not evade it. As an extreme example, a trash can in the middle of a field, or conspicuously parked car looks exactly like what they are- suspicious.

Ruption

Ruption is an odd word that simply means to break up the shape of something. Think “rupture”. Ruption is most commonly observed in the mottled skins of reptiles, and many classic camouflage patterns have odds swirls and shapes of interlocking and contrasting colors due to adherence to this technique.

The effect, at a modest distance, busts up the human shape. Ruption can also be applied to vehicles by using the same techniques on a larger scale.

A great example of ruption specific camo is the classic U.S. Army Woodland camouflage pattern. This greatly beloved classic pattern is so great, and so beloved, because it works well on a small scale or large-scale.

Chances are the last time you saw a military parade, or watched any military documentary you noticed the same pattern, more or less, was applied to vehicles as it was on the uniforms of troopers, just scaled-up.

The net result was the same: at a distance, the man or tank looks less like a man or tank. Ruption is also one of the simplest camouflage concepts to apply in the field using improvised methods.

Camouflaging Your Body and Clothing

Camouflage starts with your person. Changing your clothing to something suitably low profile is the first step towards attaining camouflage, but it’s not the last.

The simplest thing you can do is buy a set of camouflage clothing consisting of jacket or shirt and trousers there are specific to the environment and season you’re in.

Don’t forget to take care of any underwear that may be revealed, specifically your t-shirt and socks. a bright white fruit of the loom shirt peeking out from under your digital camouflage button down shirt is not only a bad look, but it’s a great target indicator.

Next consider your footwear. There are not too many camouflage pattern boots out there, or similarly camouflaged shoes. Your smartest decision probably is just to get a set that is a low profile matching color for the environment you are in, either black or tan, though brown is acceptable.

Most any environment you’re walking through will see you pick up some dirt, grit, mud and other natural debris on your footwear that willl help to camouflage it. Whatever you do, don’t wear sneakers or trail shoes that have those damned reflectors on them. Talk about built-in shine, and not the good kind!

Next you’ll have to address exposed skin. The simplest options are gloves for your hands, and a lightweight or heavyweight gaiter (depending on weather) for your face and neck. Any kind of hat will work for covering up the bulk of your head, though the less rigid in shape it is, the better.

One option for covering exposed skin with a high degree of fidelity is camouflage greasepaint, so depending on your objective and how serious the consequences are for detection you might skip this step since it is messy and requires constant touch up and reapplication.

If you’re in doubt about a camouflage pattern for your environment you can fall back on single-color drab clothing; tan is always best in most environments but dark gray-greens can work, too.

Take the time to add some contrast with generous hand-rubbed applications of the local dirt, dust and a little bit of mud. Alternately you can lightly dust the clothing randomly with lightly contrasting spray paint to get the same effect.

If you’re going to be in one place for a long period of time, say on guard or observation duty, you might consider a ghillie suit. Long seen as sort of the crown jewel of personal camouflage, a ghillie suit is actually a specific-application tool best employed from a fixed hide or observation site.

Ghillie suits are often heavy, hot and bulky, and they become very heavy when soaked with water or sweat, so you probably don’t want to be wearing one as your general purpose Prepper Tuxedo!

Ghillie suits are likened to a jumper, cape or web-like body suit that has all kinds of shape and outline-busting materials woven in to it. One dons a ghillie over their clothing like an outer garment when it is needed.

A proper ghillie suit is always handcrafted, and often uses real vegetation and other materials from the surrounding area to ensure 100% fidelity with the environment.

The creation of a ghillie suit is another article entirely and requires a considerable amount of study and practice to do it well. One thing I can tell you though, is you should never rely on an off-the-shelf ghillie suit.

One-size-fits-all doesn’t when it comes to camouflage and these floppy, Chewbacca-looking commercial suits will rarely work well in any environment. Save your money!

Camouflaging Your Gear

You need to camouflage your gear the same way you do your body. The most expedient method is just by purchasing gear that comes already camouflaged in some pattern suitable will for your environment, or by choosing a generic single or two color combo that does not draw attention to itself.

One quick note about black: black is often thought of as a sneaky color, and especially good for nighttime use. This is actually not true as black appears very, very rarely in nature except as deep shadow.

Even at night, black clothing and gear can also appear darker than the darkness around it, leading to a sort of “black hole effect” that makes you even more visible at night then you would be otherwise!

Compared to clothing it’s a little easier to camo gear that is not suitable for low profile use. Web gear made from cordura and other heavy duty nylons can easily be painted with spray paint or other fabric specific paints to imbue camouflage properties.

Backpacks, even ones that are otherwise brightly-colored, can be stuffed inside camouflage rain flies for water resistance and reduction of observable profile.

A simple way to camouflage your backpack is to rattle can it with a muted tan, and then attach some general purpose surplus military camo netting over and around it. This will take care of color, shape and outline in one fell swoop.

Any gear that is hand-carried should likewise be camouflaged. Firearms are the most obvious items that spring to mind, as a man carrying a rifle is an extraordinary high-profile object to the human eye, being comprised of the easily-recognized human form married to a sharply contoured long object that is similarly recognizable.

You can spend a fortune having your firearms dipped, Cerakote’d or otherwise professionally camo’d, or you can spend about $10 on spray paint and a few hours in an afternoon to camouflage them yourself.

Considering that firearms that are used hard and regularly will often see their finish worn away no matter what, I would rather spend more money on practice and ammunition than fancy-pants professional coatings. I personally spray paint all of my firearms with homebrew camo patterns.

Remember that metal and lenses are two of your biggest violators when it comes to shine and light reflection. Any exposed metal that can glint in the light can be seen from a long way away, so make sure you stow it or finish it in anti-reflective coating.

Camouflaging your Vehicle

Camouflaging a vehicle is obviously a much larger undertaking than camouflaging yourself and all your gear. You can use many of the same techniques, but they must be scaled up significantly to work on vehicles.

Additionally, a vehicle’s greater size and surface area mean techniques must be modified and you can only expect to camouflage it effectively when is viewed from a greater distance.

If a vehicle is not screened by proper line of sight-blocking concealment, anyone that is really looking for it will likely see it. Keep that in mind.

The fundamental way to camouflage your vehicle is by applying camouflage paint specific to the environment. The simplest variation on this technique is a single color coat of tan or green. Advancing on this basic technique, you can get in to two-, three- and even four-color camouflage patterns.

Be advised: camo patterns that have small, repeating elements don’t work as well for vehicle camouflage because their greater surface area makes the pattern more conspicuous to the eye, not less, thus defeating the purpose of the camouflage. Large-scale, simple, macro pattern camo works best on vehicles.

Another way to conceal your vehicle is by using natural vegetation again: branches, leaves, vines and similar materials may be attached to a vehicle to break up its outline or laid on it and near it when it is parked to prevent observation.

As with personnel-size camo solutions, camouflage netting, mesh and tarps can be used to good effect for the same purpose and have the advantage of completely covering the vehicle in very short order.

Camouflaging a Shelter

The effectiveness of camouflaging a shelter depends entirely on what kind of shelter you’re talking about. A tent or lean-to won’t be much of a problem. Fixed structures are another story.

Something small like a cabin or shed is doable. Larger proper homes will probably only really be camouflaged from aerial observation, if that, or observation from extreme distances.

For anything on the very small-scale like a tent, you can use techniques that you would for yourself. The same rules for pattern and color apply, as do those for making use of local vegetation to break up the silhouette of the tent.

If your tent is made from a synthetic material that has a reflective index you might want to spray it down with something that will damp the shine, or just smear a thin veneer of dirt or mud on it.

It will be expensive, but for larger structures you can do what the military does and make extensive use of that shredded-looking camo netting, along with painting any exposed surface a low profile color.

The only way to achieve total concealment for a structure is to bury it so you only need camouflage a much smaller entrance, or disguise it as something else entirely through mimicry.

A Note on Urban vs. “Wilderness” Camo

A common question when discussing camouflage theory and application is what you should do about camouflage if you live in or will be moving through an urban environment verses in more rural or wilderness setting.

After all, you don’t get much different than those two environments! Broadway looks a lot different than the middle of the woods! The principles, though, remain the same, and you might be more surprised that the colors are not much different either.

Generally in an urban setting a dark gray-green is your best bet. If that is not an option, a dusty sepia colored tan is workable. You definitely don’t want to go with the all-too-common white, gray and black “urban” camos so widely available.

Why not? Isn’t that the most common pattern you see advertised for urban operations? Yes, indeed it is, but these patterns are marketed to the unwary or people who just like how it looks.

White is only ever a good idea when snow is the predominant ground-covering. Black we have discussed above, and it is too dark to be much good when it’s used in abundance. gray can be a good camouflage color for an urban setting but the ones found in advertised urban camo are usually far too light.

If you’re ever in doubt about urban camo anywhere in Europe or North America (barring desert environments) you really cannot go wrong with classic OD green or a darker gray green similar to World War II-era German feldgrau.

Frankly, urban environments offer challenges for all kinds of camouflage. With a huge variety in both color and texture among all the high-contrast backgrounds we call buildings, your camouflage can literally be good one block and bad the next.

Most urban camouflage technology has derived from vehicle camouflage research, and you’ve probably seen those on the internet; large, blocky, pixilated, so-called “dazzle” patterns.

While they work okay for making the type of vehicle hard to identify at a distance, those patterns are often worse than useless on a human scale. Avoid them!

Improvising Camouflage Solutions

You won’t always have access to purpose made camouflage gear, be it clothing, paint or netting. In keeping with the prepper M.O., being able to improvise what you need to get the job done is essential for success, and that definitely holds true for camo.

Luckily, good camo can be easily achieved with a good eye for color and careful assessment of the environment you are moving through or hiding in. Below I’ll provide some of my favorite tips and tricks for DIY camo solutions for home or field use.

• You don’t have to spend a fortune on camo uppers and lowers for yourself: a cheap camo jacket and waders, either from the discount rack at a sporting goods store or a military surplus store can work fine.
• In a pinch, you can paint your clothing with camo-specific fabric paint or spray paint. Don’t be wearing your clothes while you do this!
• Alternately, if you are in a big hurry, you can smear soil, mud or clay on your clothing in a thin layer for locale-specific color camouflage. This can even get you a nice two tone effect if your base clothing color contrasts well.
• A similar technique as above works on vehicles: a thin veneer of dirt or dust will reduce glare on windows and windshields as well as chrome or metal trim. Make sure you can still see out of them before setting off!
• You can make large masking material out of many things, including old carboard, sheets, blankets and coarse fabric like burlap.
• Small masks can be cut from paper or cardboard, or made from butcher paper.
• Improvised camouflage netting is easily made from canvas tarps for large-scale requirements, or cheap mesh laundry bags dyed a drab color for small scale purposes. Either is a great, quick way to bust up the profile of yourself or your gear while adding attachment points for vegetation.

Field Expedient Paint

Sure, camo paint is cheap and plentiful now, but what will you do if you have an urgent need of paint to make your neon green Jeep disappear, pronto, but every shop and store in 50 miles has either been burned, ransacked or is sold out? Simple: make your own!

Paint is one of those things that most people never stop to think that they can make themselves, but you surely can, and you can make some pretty good paint at that!

Now, it probably won’t win any awards from Southern Living or Home & Garden, but for making a vehicle or other piece of equipment disappear in a hurry these are just the ticket. Best of all, all of them use extremely common and plentiful materials.

Below are three recipes for improvised camo paint taken directly from the U.S. Army’s Camouflage and Concealment Field Manual (FM20-3).

WARNING: You must use caution when employing any paint made with motor oil or other flammable materials. Take care to keep it off your skin and neither the author nor this website make any assertion’s as to this techniques safety when correctly or incorrectly employed.

Recipe #1 – Flat Gray Drab

• Ingredients: Soil, bar soap, water, soot, paraffin.
• Directions: Combine soot and paraffin. Combine appx. 8 gallons of water with 2 bars of soap. Add soot/paraffin mixture to soap and water. Mix well, then slowly stir in soil.

Recipe #2 – Metal Gloss Paint (Color varies based on color of clay and soil)

• Ingredients: Motor oil, clay, water, gasoline, soil
• Directions: Combine 2 gallons of water with 1 gallon of oil and 2 gallons of clay. Add earth. Mix. Thin mixture with gasoline or water.

Recipe #3 – Dull Paint (Color varies based in color of clay and soil)

• Ingredients: Oil, clay, bar soap, water, soil
• Directions: Combine 1 bar of soap with 3 gallons of water. Add one gallon of oil. Stir. Add clay. Stir. Add in soil and clay in various amounts to altar.

That’s all there is to it. You will also be interested to know that the U.S. Army advises you can use canned milk or powdered eggs in any of these recipes to increase the binding properties of the paints.

Perfect for tricky to coat surfaces. You can also add in fine gravel or sand to increase texture to better suit your specific environment.

Using Vegetation to Your Advantage

Throughout this article, I have repeatedly talked about making use of vegetation in various forms to aid your camouflage efforts, either on your person, your gear or your vehicles.

It works well, that’s why militaries around the world employ the technique. But there is more to know about it if you want to do it right beyond sticking some fresh cut branches in your headband.

The type of vegetation makes a big difference as does the condition of the surrounding vegetation where you are. It might make you laugh, but these rapidly-wilting pieces of plants require care and maintenance, too, lest they actually raise your visual signature.

I have assembled a crash course on the subject below:

Making Use of Living Vegetation: You can get living plants in most climates and biomes, and its combination of locally appropriate color and “live” texture makes it a great choice for blending.

But living vegetation begins to die as soon as you cut it or pull it up and it will need replacement. Take care when orienting vegetation on your person or gear so it matches its normal growing orientation.

Making Use of Dead Vegetation: Dead plants, things like dry grass, fallen branches, dead leaves, hay, straw, etc. Work great for texturing and can work well for blending if the surrounding environment is also similarly dead. Dead vegetation can save you work since it isn’t going to “die harder” and it will require only infrequent replacement.

A few more tips on selecting and employing vegetation:

• Choose healthy branches from living vegetation if that is what you need. Branches free from disease, injury and insect infestation will not wilt as rapidly.
• Any vegetation taken from a plant that grows in direct sunlight will be tougher and last longer than shade-dwelling plants.
• Try to choose plants with leaves that feel tough and coarse to the touch; these are another plant that you can rely on to stay fresh longer.
• Try to gather your live foliage during high moisture periods- at night, during rainy periods, during foggy periods, early morning when dew is present, etc.- as, you guessed it, they will last longer.
• If at all possible, choose plants that are coniferous as opposed to deciduous.

Conclusion

Good camouflage seems to be a work of wizardry, making someone disappear into the background with almost no effort. While it is an art, it is not an arcane one, and it is one you can learn.

Considering all the other threats will be facing in a SHTF situation you’ll be wise to learn camouflage theory, technique and application.

If you’ve been prepping for any length of time, chances are you’ve probably encountered someone who is a little bit too taken with the idea being a sort of secret agent.

I can certainly understand why: the roguish, completely self-reliant badass with a checkered past that stops at nothing in pursuit of his objective is an enthralling archetype.

These secret agents are kind of like superheroes that exist in the real world. For those of us who respect and idolize raw prowess, who wouldn’t want to be that guy or girl?!

Unfortunately some take that fantasy a little too far, and the result is almost always a little laughable, even cringe-worthy. But even so, the secret agents that we look up to in fiction and in real life can teach us some very real lessons about what skills are relevant for survival and high-pressure emergency situations.

You don’t have to be creeping around a foreign capital at 3 a.m. in the morning to make use of them, either. Plenty of them are just as useful and important if you’re dropping the kids off at school or trying to outrun a rampaging mob.

We’ll be skipping the fantasy and getting straight to the real stuff. In this article I’ll reveal to you secret agent skill sets that you can incorporate into your Personal Readiness Plan.

We Aren’t Pretending, Here

In all my years in the gun and personal security business, it never failed that when a new spy or secret agent movie hit theaters you would see a sharp uptick in the amount of people signing up for concealed weapons classes, for jiu-jitsu instruction and other “hard” skills classes.

Similarly we would see Oakleys fly off the shelf along with all sorts of other paraphernalia that was vaguely “agent” related.

while we certainly didn’t mind the sales, it was always a little chuckle-worthy and even a little sad when those people who started out so enthusiastically on the road to readiness and self-sufficiency invariably tapered off when the work got hard and the novelty wore off.

That’s a real shame since they were on the right track, even if their intention was merely to look cool and impress their girlfriends or boyfriends.

Being ready to deal with danger and death in real life is a dreadfully serious business. So, yes, the idea of getting inspiration from real-life or fictional secret agents when we’re all just civilians can come across as a little cringe-worthy. But the intent is noble!

There is nothing laughable, there is nothing stupid about wanting to be a better prepared, more capable, and a flat-out more useful human being. We all have people we care about, most of us have families.

Wouldn’t it be a great thing if you were the person that can save the day when the chips are down? When disaster strikes and everyone around you is losing their head and scared witless you can be the one that will lead everyone to safety or take care of the problem.

That is something that should be celebrated, not mocked! What is laughable, what is worthy of mockery are the people I alluded to above: the folks that want the prestige, that want the cool Factor, but they don’t want to do any work, and they don’t want to truly honor the path of being capable.

There’s an old saying that says you can’t cheat the mountain. You can look like a frontiersman, you can talk the talk, you can have all the gear and know all the lore but when the time comes to actually get out there on the mountain and survive, the mountain will show you who the fakers are.

It’s the same thing with the skills on this list: you don’t have to “wannabe” a secret agent, and you also don’t have to listen to the mockery of people who accuse you of being so.

What matters is what’s in your heart, and what you are capable of. Nothing else will do. And, God forbid, if the time should ever come that you have to prove to yourself and everyone counting on you that you’ve got what it takes an emergency, you will stand and deliver if you had the discipline to put in the work!

Secret Agent Skills for Everyday Readiness

In the section below I have identified 8 skills that absolutely any secret agent would know, either in real life or in fiction. Laugh all you want, but every single one of them is useful in everyday civilian life, and you’ll be better off- safer, more capable and more confident- by learning and practicing them.

But I’ll tell you right now: don’t even waste your time if all you’re doing is picking up some edgy hobby that will give you bragging rights or let you strut and swagger. We don’t need any more mall ninjas and liars misleading people.

But for those of you who are serious, those of you who truly carry the fire, we’re glad to have you, for you are the ones that will make the difference. all the skills below may not seem particularly exciting or spectacular but they are the skills that will avert the most potential harm, and the ones that will mitigate what harm does occur.

Don’t forget that! It might be really cool to learn sniping and be able to knock a flea off of a peach at a thousand yards, but how often will you really need to use that skill for real?

After you read the list below, I’m confident you’ll be able to think of hundreds of examples in everyday life where these skills may come in handy.

Run, Fight, Climb, Carry – Secret Agents are Physically Fit!

You’ll hardly ever find a secret agent who is out of shape, sporting a beer gut and gets winded racing up a flight of stairs. That’s because taking care of clandestine work in real life is often highly physically demanding.

I can assure you it gets plenty physically demanding if you get caught doing clandestine work in real life, if you know what I mean. A secret agent should be able to run like the wind, march like a mule and pull like a tractor. Secret agents need a combination of strength, speed and agility to do their jobs.

You will likely need the same attributes if you want to have a better-than-average chance of surviving any kind of emergency, to say nothing of a major disaster.

Nature has a way of culling The Herd, and in this case you don’t want to be the slow, dumb or sick antelope. Plenty of writers have opined before me about the usefulness of fitness when it comes to survival. A fit person always has a better chance of surviving, all things being equal.

A person who is fitter is faster, stronger and better able to react to strenuous and changing circumstances. Consider this: any given emergency you may have to pick up someone who is injured, or even unconscious, and move them to safety.

Maybe it’s a stranger, maybe it’s one of your kids, or your partner. Even something as simple as a car accident, you might have to contort yourself in cramped quarters to get yourself and your passengers out of a wrecked car. You might have to manhandle open a door jammed in its bent frame.

And of course those are just accidents. How about dealing with a real-life threat from a bad guy? You really think you’re able to tangle with someone who will, statistically, be younger, stronger and meaner than you are? Someone who is far more comfortable with violence, both dishing it out and receiving it?

Ask anyone who is taking an intro Jiu-Jitsu class, or other serious fight training and let them regale you with a tale of just how quickly they lost their wind, and with it their will to fight. The difference between you and them is, if you have the misfortune to be tested “for real” on the street you won’t be able to tap out.

Make it a point to take physical fitness training as seriously as any other training you engage in. You want to develop speed, strength and flexibility both for injury-proofing and to improve your capability in a fight or in an emergency.

Dishing Out a Beating – Secret Agents Know How to Fight!

Notice I said fight, not just shoot. A secret agent may be set upon by foes in very close quarters that leave no room to draw weapon. Alternately he is likely operating in an environment that permits him to carry no weapons, not even a common pocket knife.

This means he has to be very comfortable with making do with fists, elbows, feet and knees. A secret agent knows that he’ll have many more opportunities to solve a problem using hand to hand combat than weaponry.

That being said, situation permitting a secret agent will carry weapons, because sometimes you need to “process” a lethal threat as quickly as possible in order to survive. Weapons make that possible.

If the situation calls for a weapon, but the agent is lacking one, you can make use of primitive improvised weapons and weapons of opportunity. All kinds of stabbing and slashing weapons can be created from common materials. Silverware can be shaped and sharpened into blades.

Pen barrels can be made into shanks or spikes. Ground glass and metal filaments can be turned into blinding powder. If you are crafty, you can create all kinds of weapons.

Of course none of the above takes into account things that are ready and able to be used as weapons in a pinch. Everything from heavy cookware to pieces of lumber to plain old boring rocks and even boiling soup.

If you think quickly enough you can make use of all kinds of things close at hand to inflict lethal or debilitating damage on attacker.

It goes without saying you should be skilled in all forms of combat, armed or not. Civilians, especially preppers, have a bad habit of working gun skills to the exclusion of all else.

That’s a failure of priorities if you ask me; a great many more defense problems even back here in civilized society will be solved with fisticuffs or less lethal weapons before guns and knives.

Becoming skilled in boxing and grappling and carrying pepper spray will get you out of more fights and negative consequences in the aftermath than any blade or any gun.

But if the situation calls for lethal force, you had better measure up. You should be proficient with a gun and at least passable with a knife.

Seeing where laws regarding use and ownership of weapons are heading in this country, don’t be surprised to see more and more public places and businesses debar citizens from carrying on the premises.

If you choose to go unarmed, or you have to, it will definitely pay to be handy with all kinds of improvised weapons you can create out of innocent looking materials and found weapons you can grab in a moment’s notice from the environment around you.

The world is a dangerous place. Make sure you’re ready to meet it head-on.

Drive It Like You Stole It – Secret Agents Can Handle a Vehicle

Whenever a secret agent is confronted with a problem he can’t outfight he might have to outrun it. He might be getting boxed in on all sides by enemy agents bent on stopping him, or just dodging hazards along the roadway.

The time has come to put the pedal to the metal, and it doesn’t matter why. No matter the vehicle, no matter the conditions, you can be assured that a secret agent knows how to push their vehicle to the limit, both offensively and defensively.

You might not be conducting any rolling gunfights from the front seat of a million-dollar supercar, but you’ll have just as many opportunities as any secret agent will to put your performance driving skills to the test.

You had better hope you can pass this test: tens of thousands of Americans die every year on the roadways, and there are hundreds upon hundreds of motor vehicle accidents, involving one car, two cars or more, along all the roadways that crisscross our massive nation.

Talking to someone who has not been in a motor vehicle accident is rare, and nearly everyone knows someone who has been involved in one.

But that does not underscore the importance of developing performance driving skills, I don’t know what will. Only advanced driving training will give you the skills, reflexes and confidence needed to apply that magical combination of steering, braking and acceleration to dodge or safely drive through or around an accident.

This is not something you can read about and master on the internet; you need to get in your car, go to a school, get training and practice regularly. With enough practice, your evasive maneuvers will just happen, you won’t even have to think about it…

Something you probably haven’t considered on the subject of so-called tactical driving is using your car as a tool or even as a weapon when you are threatened. Carjackings are real, and on the rise.

Kidnappings happen every day. If you own a TV or have an internet connection I’ll say the chances are pretty much zero that you have not seen the massive riots and mobs that crop up in major urban areas for one reason or another. Have you thought about what you would do if you were caught in your car in the middle of a mob that was turning violent?

If you know your vehicle, and know what to do, you can use it as a bulldozer or a ram. You can push other cars out of the way, gently nudge people out of the way (lest they get run over), plow through road blocks and more in a major emergency.

Compared to going about on foot, a vehicle is much harder to immobilize than a person.

It always makes me laugh a little bit when I see these protesters blocking intersections playing chicken with vehicles that are trying to slow roll through them; you see them leaning and pushing on the vehicle like they actually have a chance of stopping it; they don’t.

Remember that if you are ever beset by a mob.

Find a Way or Blaze a Trail – Secret Agents Know Where They Are Going

You ever see someone out in public who is obviously and visibly lost? Of course you have. The darting eyes, looking to and fro and frantic consultation of their smartphone, GPS or map.

It’s obvious once you know what to look for. Do you know what else that looks says to onlookers? True certain kind of onlooker it says “vulnerable.” Beyond looking vulnerable, you are vulnerable if you are lost or disoriented.

Taking a simple wrong turn has probably led to more disasters and bad outcomes than any other innocent mistake in history.

Secret agents rarely suffer from that problem. That’s because they take the time to do their advance work. They know the lay of the land. They know all the landmarks, all the major routes in and out of a place.

Five will get you ten they know several secret routes in and out as well. In urban centers and the remote Wilderness, they will know where they are going and how they’re going to get there.

They aren’t homing pigeons. They don’t have some innate sense of direction like birds. it takes practice, discipline and paying attention to where you are and a certain amount of creativity to come up with alternate routes on the fly if your primary route is blocked or no longer viable for some reason. This is a skill you can develop! It isn’t anything special or innate.

You can start refining this skill by thoroughly learning the area you live and work in, inside and out. What are the major routes that run north south, and east west?

Are there any major landscape features that you can rely on from a distance to orient yourself if you get lost? How about any major installations like airports and railways?

Knowing is one thing, having the tools to navigate is another, especially when entering unfamiliar territory. Every secret agent will make use of a map and a compass, even tiny “hold-out” versions they conceal inside the sole of a shoe or sewn into the lining of a jacket.

Because you don’t have to worry about hiding your survival gear you should make it a point to carry a small compass with you everywhere.

before you raise your hand in protest that you’ve lived your whole life in your hometown and you know it like your own beating heart, consider that all kinds of major disasters can completely obliterate the landscape you have grown up in.

Will you have an easy time navigating without street signs, without the majority of buildings and without even the forests? Trust me, a compass and a map will make the going much easier when times get tough. Get them, learn how to navigate off them and keep them handy.

Keep Your Business Your Business – Secret Agents Don’t Compromise Themselves

If there’s one thing secret agents are known for it is leading a double life. with a slick cover story to cover any eventuality and any probing question, secret agents are some of the most evasive and mysterious characters of the world.

That’s with good reason. It’s not just to cultivate a debonair air of mystery, either. When the wrong people learn the wrong things about you, that’s when your life can get a whole lot harder.

In case of a secret agent, it means “kidnapped, interrogated and executed” kind of harder. For citizen who is just trying to get ready for a bad turn or the s*** hitting the fan, it can mean “hold up, home invasion and murder” harder.

One thing I’ve noticed about preppers of all stripes is it they really like to talk about their prepping. It’s understandable: people who are enthusiastic and interested in something like to talk about it and share it with others

Finding someone who shares your interest is one of life’s great pleasures. But, it is easy to forget that not everyone has your best interest at heart. Someone may not be against you, but that doesn’t mean that they might not wind up betraying you, even if it is by accident.

A person you meet for lunch and blab to about your prepping and training might not think anything of it. But they might mention it to a friend of theirs who has, let’s say, a checkered past and is not completely reformed.

That scummy friend might press them for details. That scummy friend might make notes. That scummy friend might even decide to pay you an unannounced visit at 2 a.m. with two of his friends in tow. Surprise! They all have guns.

Go against the oversharing culture of the day: keep your serious business your business and absolutely no one else’s. Don’t tell anyone outside your circle of trust, and I mean your real circle trust, about what you have going on in material acquisitions, training and similar topics.

Don’t tell people about your bug-out location. Don’t tell them about all the food you’re stashing. Just shut up about it. If you have to talk about something with them, talk about something truly harmless.

Talk about things going on around town. Talk about the weather. Talk about your favorite show, or your favorite book.

The more info “leaks” you can dam up in your life, the better off you’ll be in times of trouble. Pay attention to what you project: what you say, what you put on your car, what you wear, and what you display on social media.

Make Holes, and Fix Them – Secret Agents Know How to Treat Injuries

Everybody knows the cool part about being a secret agent is shooting and stabbing people, and looking stylish while you do it. It seems like preppers follow this methodology, also.

Everybody wants to learn how to kick ass, everybody wants to learn how to deal with people that threaten them; with guns, with knives, with fists and feet.

But curiously nobody wants to learn how to heal; no one wants to learn how to fix injuries that have been doled out to other people or to themselves. It won’t take much for them to learn how big of a mistake this is.

Secret agents learn intricate medical skills for dealing with all kinds of injuries great and small. From minor ailments to major trauma, a secret agent won’t be able to just turn himself into a hospital and get treatment for a wound suffered in a fight since doing so may compromise his mission.

He is just as likely to hole up someplace quiet and tend to himself as best he can. Now, chances are you won’t be running from security forces armed with attack dogs on your next outing, but you may very well find yourself in an austere environment with no medical help on the backside of a major disaster that is regionally disruptive.

If you were in a place, or in a situation, where there is no doctor you had better be a halfway decent field doctor or you could be in serious trouble. You don’t have to go to medical school to learn medical skills that can save lives, even if your methods are a little rough and ugly compared to a real doc.

The progression is a logical one: Start by learning how to care for and treat minor injuries, small cuts, burns, illnesses, sprains, strains and so forth. Definitely learn CPR. Learn the Heimlich maneuver.

Learn how to treat shock and dehydration. After you have that well and truly under your belt, move on to treating trauma.

You might think of these as wounds typically suffered during fights and major accidents, things like lacerating and penetrating injuries; the kinds typically suffered from application of blade or bullet.

Learn how to deal with broken bones, how to splint them and how to sling them.

Once you have the training, make sure you carry the gear with you. Even if you enjoy peace for all of your days, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to make use of your medical skills from accident, mishap and misadventure alone.

On Guard and On Your Toes – A Secret Agent is Always Aware of His Surroundings

Do you ever notice in the media how secret agents are never, ever caught off guard? It always seems like when the bad guys are closing in, when they’re just about to spring their trap the agent turns things around in the blink of an eye and blasts through the snares that have been set for him.

It’s not because they are superhuman, it’s just because they are super aware. Our secret agent saw the trap, he saw the bad guys closing in; he was simply two steps ahead and thinking accordingly.

This hyper-awareness isn’t some comic book superpower. It is a very real, entirely practical and completely learnable skill. By paying attention the environment around you, you’ll see hazards coming before you get to them.

Some of them you might just want to stay away from. Others you’ll want to turn around, about face, and leave at once. I can tell you with certainty you won’t see them in time if you are daydreaming, or have your nose down in your smartphone. Practically, there isn’t much difference.

To be unaware is to be an easy target, and even if you weren’t targeted it seems like Lady Luck always frowns on the people that don’t pay attention.

Don’t be one of those poor sods who are always blundering into trouble of their own making or seeing trouble come to them because you’re too busy staring off into space to pay attention to what, and more importantly who, is around you.

There are always signs. Maybe it’s the two shady looking guys who don’t have a reason for being where they are right this second, the ones paying a little too much attention to you and your partner while you’re out in public.

It could be the simultaneous bloom of a couple of dozen sets of brake lights a few hundred yards down the road. I can also be just that feeling, that wrongness you feel sometimes in your guts to let you know things isn’t right. That feeling is legitimate; you should listen to it.

You can start developing this ability by paying attention to what is going on around you in the room: every sight, sound and smell means something. What does it mean? What does it mean in the context of normal for a place?

Start applying this mentality to places you visit routinely. What is your morning coffee shop stop like, typically? How do people move, how loud is the conversation?

If you look in the windows and noticed people behaving peculiarly, it might mean something is going on, perhaps a hold-up or an altercation. Maybe you walk in and notice all the conversations are hushed. Is that a tip-off?

The more you work on refining your perceptions and analyzing them- what does it mean? – The more you’ll notice it happening seemingly all on its own. With enough practice and enough discipline, you’ll develop a sort of sixth sense for danger just like any secret agent.

Conclusion

You shouldn’t dream about being a secret agent if you’re not, and you shouldn’t pretend to be one. But what you should do is learn and apply some secret agent skills in your own life.

The greater capability, competency and heightened state of awareness that secret agents live in daily can teach an average person an awful lot about self-sufficiency and personal readiness.