British / Commonwealth Sappers with their equipment at the 8th Army minefield clearance school in North Africa – October 20, 1942
IWM – Gladstone, Stanley Photographer
IWM E 18097
British / Commonwealth Sappers with their equipment at the 8th Army minefield clearance school in North Africa – October 20, 1942
IWM – Gladstone, Stanley Photographer
IWM E 18097
This little guy may not seem intimidating at first, but he’s got a much nastier side. Meet Little Milosh, the unmanned ground robot version of the Milos armored fighting vehicle, with an interesting twist—he’s equipped to fire a grenade launcher.
This mobile, tracked platform is highly versatile, able to navigate a variety of environments, both smooth and rough. Controlled remotely by an operator, Milosh comes with a Serbian-built system, no extra charge required. His primary weapon is the Zastava M86 machine gun, but he can also be fitted with an M11 grenade launcher or a 90mm anti-tank missile. Unfortunately, there’s no footage of him using those weapons just yet.
And in his downtime? Milosh likes to kick back, throw on some beats, and hit the dance floor!
Why are these military jets painted pink? Is this another example of the military “gone woke”? Well, no. In fact, these unusual paint jobs helped the Allies defeat the Axis powers during World War II, specifically on the North African front. The whole idea behind a pink paint job is simple: camouflage. When you think of camouflage, you might picture something like this (though this one looks cool but isn’t useful)
or maybe like this.
So why pink?
Let’s take a trip back to World War II. These pink vehicles originated with the British Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), deployed against the Axis forces in North Africa. Experts in desert warfare, they discovered something astonishing: pink paint provided effective camouflage in the desert under certain conditions.
There are conflicting stories about how this discovery came about. One version suggests that a British aircraft went missing, and during the search, teams found it nearly invisible because the desert sands had stripped most of its paint, revealing a pink undercoat that blended with the surroundings. Another version claims that an airbase ran out of regular paint and had to use the pink undercoat on ground vehicles, which they quickly realized made them harder to detect.
Either way, the reason pink works is simple: in the desert, warm colors of sunlight scatter more easily due to environmental conditions, giving the horizon warm hues, from orange to pink. As a result, pink blends into these settings, especially at dawn and dusk.
The first vehicles to deliberately use this color scheme were from the British LRDG and the SAS, whose pink-painted vehicles became known as “Pink Panthers.” This color scheme later extended to aircraft like the Spitfire and P-40. Pink camouflage even made a brief comeback in the 1980s.