Camouflage For The Post Apocalypse World

Like Why Things Are Seen (Older blog post of mine) protecting yourself with the use of camouflage to conceal your position is vital to your survival in the post apocalypse world. You might be armed with only a sharp pointy stick, or your own stench from not having a hot shower in a week as your only weapons, both won’t accomplish a whole lot against someone who has a gun looking for an easy steal. Here are some ideas you can use to help conceal your position when roaming the wasteland.

Urban Setting

In a city you are in a 3 dimensional environment, you’ll have those above you in high rise buildings, on ground level hiding around a corner, and those travelling below you in the sewers. Your best defence in this type of environment is to stay in the shadows of buildings, keeping a constant lookout for potential threats. In this environment darker clothes are better, shades of dark blue, grey, black are best, remember the darker the better. You’ll also need to cover your face and hands as these will stand out considerably against a dark space. A mask of dark cloth, an old shirt or sock for example will work for your face. If you don’t have that use dirt or ash and smear it on your face, anything to break up the pattern of your face and help to blend into your surroundings.

To help blend in avoid travelling in cities during the day, not only will travelling at night allow you to blend into your environment better, but you’ll be able to hear at greater distances. The drawback will be that you can’t see nearly as far. Allow your eyes to adjust to ambient light before moving out so you don’t stumble into any objects and make noise. The cities won’t be lit up like how they are now they will be extremely dark. An option you can use to get around is with a flashlight with a red plastic lens over the bulb. This light won’t travel as far. Just don’t start waving it around thinking you’ll be invisible only use it when you need then turn it off.

Rural Setting

While you don’t have to worry about confined spaces or blind corners like in a city, you do have to contend with open spaces, and changing landscapes. The ground will help determine the type of camouflage you’ll need. Again use dark or neutral colors; wondering around in a bright hot pink Wham T-shirt and bright white short shorts is probably not a good choice. Many of the same principals that you would use in an urban setting will apply in the rural landscape as well. Avoid open areas such as fields as they will leave you visible for miles, instead stick to wooded areas or “skirt” tree lines (Walk along the edge of the tree line)

Travelling at night will be easier then in cities because the buildings won’t get in the way of the night sky. You still have to be extremely careful as moonlight can light up an area almost as bright as it would be during the day.

The other thing you need to be aware of to camouflage yourself is smell, sure your going to stink from sweat and a lack of soap, but keeping reasonably clean will help hide you. Also avoid the use of perfumes, colognes and other products that have artificial scents. The scent from these products can like sound travel for miles on the wind. Humans may have poor smell but animals have excellent senses. Other gangs may be using dogs to sniff out easy meals, or there may be packs of wild dogs in the area. Your only defence against these is distance. Water or using other tricks seen in movies to confuse dogs won’t work.

Here are some good and bad examples of camouflage.

I think this is a pretty clear indication of what not to wear to try to conceal yourself. Unless your trying to escape a city overrun with giant "Man-Chickens" you should probably avoid this.....which brings me to my other point don't smoke crack

This sniper is using whats called a ghillie suit to conceal his location. From a distance this would be almost impossible to spot unless the sniper had to move suddenly. To learn how to make a ghillie suit check out the video below