Awesome! This is similar to dazzle camouflage from WW1, the idea being to disguise the heading of the ship. I'm not sure it was ever shown to actually work though.
Dazzle fundamentally failed at this task because the primary opponent, Imperial Germany, did not use coincidence rangefinders. Instead, they used stereoscopic rangefinders, against which Dazzle had little effect. (Incidentally, the Germans also went to war with a naval camouflage paint scheme that was best designed to defeat their own instruments, and was notably less effective against the Royal Navy.)
> the Soviets used their own diesel engine tanks to train the dogs rather than German tanks which had gasoline engines.[5] As the dogs relied on their acute sense of smell, the dogs sought out familiar Soviet tanks instead of strange-smelling German tanks
Cost billions; more than the Manhattan project. Obsolete soon after deployment due to ICBMs.
(Taking your "war time" to include cold war time)