How did they come up with the Camouflage design?

Answer 1

Try these links.

Answer 2

Here's how it went down:

A long time ago in a trench far far away (copyright: George Lucas):
Soldier A: Chuck, i'm tired of getting shot at.

Soldier B: I know, me too, if only our bright red/blue/yellow/purple uniforms didn't stand out so much in the trenches.

Soldier A: I Know, let's make a greenish brown colored uniform that will blend in with dirt and burms!

(this was the start of the earth tone uniform. )

Shortly thereafter, okay, awhile thereafter... in WWII when trench warfare had ended and it was more of a woods and storm the city type game:

Soldier A: Man, now that we're walking around in the woods, this solid color green doesn't work so well.

Soldier B: I know, big solid blotches of green just don't occur in nature. Now, if only we had spots of black and brown on us to mimick the look of depth and dirt from the ground shining through holes in branches...

Soldier A: by jove, you're right! (soldier A didn't really say this, it sounds too english and we americans are taking credit for creating camoflauge in this farce... i mean... er... history)

Answer 3

Back in the late 1800 Prussian Jäger Regiments started to wear bottle green uniforms similar to the Prussian State Forrester's and State Gamekeepers.

The first camo uniform has been attributed to the Italians, pre WW1.

The British Army started to used brown colored uniforms in Afghanistan and on service in Africa in the mid 1800's by washing their white summer/hot climate uniforms in tea!

The Americans changed to Khaki during the service in the Spanish-American Wars of the late 1890s and in service in the Philippines against the Moro Indians.

The first purposed designed camo uniforms as we know them was used by the German SS in WW2, they developed the reversible type where one season "Spring" was on one side and "Summer was on the other side, they also had a "Autumn" and "winter" camo as well.

The first British camo was the early S.A.S. style and Dennison Smocks of the British Paras in WW2.

The USA developed a specific type of camo for the Pacific Campaign, it was used for a very short period in the Invasion of Europe but after a few friendly fire incidents it was dripped, the reason being that nearly all camo encounters were Allied against Germans and camo being worn on the Allied side caused confusion.
Post WW2 saw the introduction of camo in most armies, but strangely enough the Austrians have reverted to plain green uniforms today.

The Irish Republic only introduced a specific camo system in 1995 for their military.