As Navy Times Prime members knew in January, the littoral combat ship Freedom became the first U.S. warship in recent memory to get a “dazzle camouflage” paint job — a four-color pattern that could confuse an adversary by creating a false bow wave and will help hide exhaust smudge with some strategically deployed black paint.
Freedom left for its maiden deployment last week, paint in place, en route to the Asia-Pacific region to partner with allied navies in security operations. But how, exactly, did LCS 1 get from this to this?
Thankfully, the folks at Naval Surface Force Pacific put together the above video, appropriately titled “Shifting Colors” — two-plus minutes of painting footage that’s sped up, tightly edited and backed with a techno soundtrack that will worm itself into your brain. As one of the YouTube commenters put it, “I never found painting THAT exciting.”
4 Comments
About time they painted that thing. Against the grain; I like it! Fair winds and following seas for a safe voyage and return.
Think of the poor director who receives this order: “Make an interesting and entertaining film about paint drying.”
“Lipstick on pigs” comes to mind.
The USS Freedom’s new paint job is impressive. Nice job!