Historical Accuracy vs Artistic License

[voltigeur]

I have a quick pole question about paint jobs. It is a pole type question so no wrong or right answer just trying to gage where most people view this topic.

When I was gaming heavily in Tulsa I was a little bit of a freak about getitng my mini's as close to historical accuracy as my knowlege and painting skills could accomplish. A few of my friends use to complain that my tactical markings could not be read. Now that I'm almost 50 guess what! Now my eyes are getting weaker I am rethinking some of my paint jobs.

An example is my cold war M1's. My line units are mono color drab. I used black markings which were historical for the time frame (85 to 86). Since there were alot of regulation changes during the 80's when I built my Armored Cav Troop I choose to do the 3 color NATO sceme and did the markings in white. Knowing they are not historical they are much easier to see and very functional in the game.

Just curious about how others approach this.

[Steel Arrows]

voltigeur,

Camo schemes are great when you are working or playing a specific time frame of a historical battle or representation of specific battle units or organizations. If you are playing a pickup game or wanting to represent a type of camo related to the battle terrain such as desert or euro battle front. Camo detail close enough to represent is really OK. I have unit painted in schemes representing terrain type with some minor added detail to help stand out. Most sehemes for US in the 70s and 80s are a weathered olive overlay. Yes you will see some added colors like rustic red and weathered flat black. Currently when you watch the news or look thru books and current hobby mags showing photos from Iraq of tanks from both sides. They're colors is all about the same with the exception of some crews adding their own personal touches. You can get away with a single base color and a moderate terrain weathering color dry brushed or light washing over the figures. Yes I too am getting closer to that point in my existance where I am in need of optical aids. Too bad the current medical technology has not reached a level where like most vehicles can just add a upgrade. IE, bionic inplants.

[Timothy OConnor]

For my moderns collection I have no desire to do Fulda Gap '85 ad nauseum. Nor do I want to be constrained by only current conflicts or truly potential ones. So, I took the sneaky way out and followed the military's example and created a finctional campaign setting!

This setting, Afraqistan, is a large island in the Indian ocean midway between India and the horn of Africa. Each of its regions, composed primarily of independent city-states or warlords, reflect military hardware/doctrine from different major powers. And the range of technology spans cold war to current since it's set in the near future. I'm working on the web site (Afraqistan.com) and a campaign scenario book for use with any rules at 1 stand = 1 platoon.

Which brings us back to the topic. With this approach, I can paint my stuff anyway I want, within reason. I'm still a bit of a Grognard so, for example, my Strykers are US green and my Chinese stuff uses a pattern I've seen on Chinese AFVs. But my cold war US stuff (M60s and M113) will use more exotic camo than the US has typically used (think Turkey, Taiwan, etc.) Most importantly, each force (I'm up to about 6 mech infantry battalions, each based on a different national vehicle type) can represent a different Afraqistani city-state and thus plausible, DoD-like training scenarios can account for lots of different opposing forces facing off.

[Extra Crispy]

I'm not a grognard at all. So "close enough for gummint work" is my standard. For example, I have PzIVs in camo. I use them for anything except North Africa. This applies as much to land troops as well. My Napoleonic French armies are 1809 uniforms but they fight well, regardless of the year from 1805-1815.

While I enjoy painting I do NOT enjoy researching the unimportant minutiae of changing camo schemes from May to July. I won't put a desert tank in the forest, but otherwise my units must do double duty.

Also, I paint for effect. A true ACW Union blue is indistinguishable from black 99% of the time. So I use a much brighter blue than is "accurate" (whatever that means anyway) because I want my Union troops to be Blue!

[Panzerleader71]

As the system I use to wargame WWII, and soon modern, (Blitzkrieg/Cold War Commander) is a stand=platoon scale, so tactical markings are just too much of an extra for me to be concerned about. A paint job that makes the units easily visible, and close to national colours is all that is needed in my opinion.