6. Nature of the enemy. If the enemy is skillful in the art of camouflage,
the observer should be extremely cautious of overly obvious sightings.
A
careless enemy will have litter in the area thus giving it a trashy
appearance; this can be found in bivouacs.
The lack of camouflage may be
intentional due to high concentrations of antiaircraft weapons and little
concern about aerial observation or to detract the attention of the IA from
more important information.
Figure 1-23 shows how improperly used
camouflage can draw attention.
There is poor camouflage discipline; some
vehicles are covered while others are not.
7. Smoke which appears in an area should be observed for color, volume, and
pattern of appearance.
These characteristics can be used to indicate
different sources of the smoke; for example, billows of dark smoke could
indicate diesel-driven vehicle traffic, and light colored smoke a bivouac
area.
8. Light.
At night, light is very useful for detecting enemy activity.
The ground observer can pick up breaches in camouflage discipline, which are
more likely to occur at night than in daylight hours.
Figure 1-24 is a
photograph taken at night with a flasher unit. This practice is now rarely
if ever used due to the illumination of the aircraft, making it an almost
impossible target to miss.
However, an aerial observer can detect the
bivouac area at night if the troops do not exercise proper light discipline;
furthermore, the night photo of the bivouac area in Figure 1-24 shows no
effort to take advantage of small trees for cover and there is a tendency to
group close together at nighttime.
Figure 1-24.
Night Photo of a Bivouac Area
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IT 0649
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