Lizard (camouflage)

The Lizard pattern is a kind of military camouflage pattern used by the French Army on uniforms beginning in the 1950's up to the late 1980's. A Lizard pattern has two overlapping prints, generally green and brown, printed with gaps so that a third dyed color, such as a lighter green or khaki, makes up a large part of the pattern. In this, it is printed like earlier British patterns used on that country's paratroops' Denison smocks, and can be said to descend from those patterns. Lizard patterns have narrower printed areas than the British patterns, and have a strong horizontal orientation, cutting across the vertical form of a man's body.Other patterns descend in turn from Lizard patterns, either by direct imitation such as Cuba's Lizard pattern, or innovation, such as the tigerstripe patterns produced during the Vietnam War. Tigerstripe patterns differ from Lizard patterns in that their printed areas are interlocked rather than overlapped, and use smaller areas of dyed background color.

References

# Borsarello, J.F. (1999). Camouflage Uniforms of European and NATO Armies 1945 to the Present. Schiffer Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-7643-1018-6.
# Blechman, Hardy and Newman, Alex (2004). DPM: Disruptive Pattern Material. DPM Ltd. ISBN 0-9543404-0-X.