 In the Second World War , the zoologist Hugh Cott , a protégé of Kerr , worked to persuade the British army to use more effective camouflage techniques , including countershading , but , like Kerr and Thayer in the First World War , with limited success . For example , he painted two rail @-@ mounted coastal guns , one in conventional style , one countershaded . In aerial photographs , the countershaded gun was essentially invisible . The power of aerial observation and attack led every warring nation to camouflage targets of all types . The Soviet Union 's Red Army created the comprehensive doctrine of <unk> for military deception , including the use of camouflage . For example , during the Battle of Kursk , General <unk> , the commander of the Soviet 1st Tank Army , remarked that the enemy " did not suspect that our well @-@ camouflaged tanks were waiting for him . As we later learned from prisoners , we had managed to move our tanks forward unnoticed " . The tanks were concealed in previously prepared defensive emplacements , with only their turrets above ground level . In the air , Second World War fighters were often painted in ground colours above and sky colours below , attempting two different camouflage schemes for observers above and below . Bombers and night fighters were often black , while maritime reconnaissance planes were usually white , to avoid appearing as dark shapes against the sky . For ships , dazzle camouflage was mainly replaced with plain grey in the Second World War , though experimentation with colour schemes continued . 
