SS West Mahomet in the context of United States Shipping Board

⭐ Core Definition: SS West Mahomet

SS West Mahomet was a steel–hulled cargo ship which saw service as an auxiliary with the U.S. Navy in 1918–19.

West Mahomet was built as part of the United States Shipping Board's World War I emergency wartime shipbuilding program. Completed just too late to see service in the war, the ship was nevertheless commissioned into the Navy as USS West Mahomet (ID-3681), but saw only a handful of voyages on the Navy's behalf—including a postwar famine relief mission to Romania—before being decommissioned in June 1919.

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SS West Mahomet in the context of Dazzle camouflage

Dazzle camouflage, also known as razzle dazzle (in the U.S.) or dazzle painting, is a type of ship camouflage that was used extensively in World War I, and to a lesser extent in World War II and afterwards. Credited to the British marine artist Norman Wilkinson, though with a rejected prior claim by the zoologist John Graham Kerr, it consisted of complex patterns of geometric shapes in contrasting colours interrupting and intersecting each other.

Unlike other forms of camouflage, the intention of dazzle is not to conceal but to make it difficult to estimate a target's range, speed, and heading. Norman Wilkinson explained in 1919 that he had intended dazzle primarily to mislead the enemy about a ship's course and so cause them to take up a poor firing position.

View the full Wikipedia page for Dazzle camouflage

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