Cate's Research-Investigation Bureau

 For the past four years, I have exclusively posted about AFV-related topics, including museum visits, discussion, and analysis. I have been expanding my hobbies for the past one and a half years. One of these is collecting post-Soviet (Russian) camouflage. Finding camouflage sets wasn't difficult when browsing various marketplaces and contacting sellers that have stockpiles. What was challenging was finding sets that actually fit me. Having found sources to procure outfits, I have started to amass a small collection of clothing, primarily Russian VSR-93 and VSR-98 sets in sizes 50/52-6.  One of my latest purchases was a set of pouches for the Kirasa-TZh vest in the VSR-93 camouflage pattern produced in 1998. It was more of an impulse purchase due to its rarity and camouflage pattern. I was not able to find a whole Kirasa-TZh vest.  On a side note, I have also purchased an SSO Smersh rig, which is an odd intermediate version produced by SSO in the early 2000s.  While...

To camouflage AFVs and increase the difficulty of being spotted using day-night observation devices, a variety of different paint schemes paired with specifically designed camouflage patterns can be used. Vehicles are painted using a base coating of enamel, which has chemical durability and specific spectral characteristics. To add camouflage, secondary colour enamel spots are added onto the surface of the vehicle. Camouflaging can be achieved by combining different camouflage methods into one single design: colour differentiation between primary paint coat and secondary colour spots, different values of reflection coefficients in the infrared (IR) spectrum, and a special pattern design, deforming the visible silhouette of a vehicle. To create basic camouflage schemes, 2 different enamels were used: HV-518 is used as the base paint and NC-1200 for spots. Enamel HV-518 would protect the vehicle from being detected by passive IR devices only in the spectral range over 0.85 micrometres, b...