Well, Hyde Definition has released a new pattern that takes aim at the Corps' contender (made by mad scientist and camo savant Guy Cramer) by delivering greater depth and layers than other snow camo options.
The traditional approach to "snow camouflage" has been to use a plain, solid white coloured over-garment; however, this does not take in to account the extent of shadows and other textures that actually exist in a snow-covered environment.The PenCott pattern works by dithering the different contrasting colours and tones into and against one another to give the illusion of several more colours, and to create a combination of blurred and contrasting edges and shapes. Complex patterns like this are harder for the human eye to process, and recognisable shapes such as human limbs, or the lines of pockets and seams, become more difficult to make out.
The PenCott pattern is multi-directional, multi-scalar and includes both a micro-pattern and a macro-pattern for close range concealment and long range disruption. PenCott also includes an innovative midi-pattern (middle range), and false edges at the high-difference boundaries of the dark patches, to further confuse the eye.
Though Hyde Definition provided these photos to Kit Up! for our post, the company said they are computer renderings and have not been printed on uniform material.
But from the looks of it, the camo appears to do what the designers intended. Still, the camo geeks here at Kit Up! wonder if there might not be a tad too little white in the mix. From personal experience, hunters have had great luck with simple, solid overwhites for wary winter waterfowl which have extremely good eyesight and have the advantage of looking straight down on a potential predator.
Snow is the one medium in the natural environment that's pretty darned solid and universal in color, and unless there's science to counter this, logic would say that you can get away with a lot of that color in your snow camo since it tends to cover all others. Likewise, if you have too little of it, you're going to stand out.
The Hyde release mentions the Finnish M/05 snow pattern and the German WWII "pine needle" overwhites as precursors to their more nuanced pattern. But on the face of it, those patterns seem like they would afford more camouflage in a snowy environment than the PenCott Snowdrift colorway.
But again, that's just the Kit Up! nerds' unscientific opinion on the matter. We'd love to hear from the experts on this...
