Science Porn

[TheRocketSurgeon]

That kind of dazzle naval camo decreased in usage in WWII.  It was designed for a specific situation, confusing an observer at short to medium range looking through a periscope at wave top level.  It is counterproductive in most other situations.  That's why WWII naval camouflage tends to be somewhat more subdued, with more focus on systematically matching the luminance of background sea and sky, and on intentionally creating a specific false impression of the ship's length, size of bow and stern waves, and blurring the deck line, and creating false impression of how far above water the deck is, in order to confuse the observer at a variety of ranges and looking from variety of altitudes regarding the range to target rather than aimed mainly at making it hard to judge which way the target is going. The WWII type camo has the added benefit of making the ship blend into the back ground sky or sea in any hazy situation.

This is why it always bothers me to see non-black-colored starships, especially warships, in every Sci-Fi show.

Presuming they could, by technology, defeat detection sensors like radar, in any proximity to a star they'd shine like a beacon-- after all, we can pick up surprisingly small asteroids via telescope from here on earth.

As to the dazzle paint, the Brits even tried it on their tanks in the desert, such as this Matilda II :