 Ship camouflage was occasionally used in ancient times . Philostratus ( c . 172 – 250 AD ) wrote in his Imagines that Mediterranean pirate ships could be painted blue @-@ gray for concealment . Vegetius ( c . 360 – 400 AD ) says that " Venetian blue " ( sea green ) was used in the Gallic Wars , when Julius Caesar sent his speculatoria navigia ( reconnaissance boats ) to gather intelligence along the coast of Britain . The ships were painted entirely in bluish @-@ green wax , with sails , ropes and crew the same colour . There is little evidence of military use of camouflage on land before 1800 , but two unusual ceramics show men in Peru 's Mochica culture from before 500 AD , hunting birds with blowpipes which are fitted with a kind of shield near the mouth , perhaps to conceal the hunters ' hands and faces . Another early source is a 15th @-@ century French manuscript , The Hunting Book of Gaston Phebus , showing a horse pulling a cart which contains a hunter armed with a crossbow under a cover of branches , perhaps serving as a hide for shooting game . Jamaican Maroons are said to have used plant materials as camouflage in the First Maroon War ( c . 1655 – 1740 ) . 
