US WWII Armor Color

[30YRSGHQ]

I am sure there have been many threads about this topic, but I wanted to tap all of the great resources out there to help answer a question. What color do you use to paint your US WWII European Theatre armor? I hear OD green (but there are about a dozen variants of this), but many of them are too brown, others are too green and don't look good. I have painted thousands of pieces of armor, ships and aircraft (mostly modern, other than the Micronauts) but am just starting to paint up hundreds of US WWII armor and softskins. Thanks for the help!

[1ComOpsCtr]

Brad,

There are a couple of good spray versions of OD that make good base coats.
One option...

http://www.armynavyshop.com/prods/rc8223.html

After you apply a base coat and it has sufficient time to try find a water based paint you like the finished color of and dry brush it over the primed model. In my case I use Polly-S Pullman Green lightened with their Mud over Model Masters OD or Dark Green depending on what I am painting. Take a look at this site for more info...

http://www.olive-drab.com/od_mvg_camo.php3

OD pretty much varied by unit, and sometimes between vehicles depending on who painted them and how much time they had spend in the sun. When I was stationed at Cherry Point, NC the unit I was attached to received their orders to go to RVN. Since I was just waiting for my orders I spent several days helping the crew painting over the yellow flight-line equipment with Mil Spec OD drawn from supply. We painted 20 items with the same color. Only a few of them looked the same, which really angered the NCOIC of the detail. I was glad to be leaving because I am sure he was going to make them paint the items again because they didn't match... Same color in the can, different results... The mixture (air to paint) can make a difference when you spray, as can the batch of paint used.



Pick a color you like and go with it... Remember smaller models need a lighter color to look realistic...

Will

[probert]

Try Vallejo 887 (my first choice) or 889 (which is also quite acceptable).

Both shades work well.

[jb]

...Like Will mentioned,there is no real Shade of OD that is should I dare say standard. I brought up this subject about this time last year. From all the replies it seems like you go with what shade you like. I would suggest though if you want an authentic color for a specific time,unit,etc, you will need to have an authentic picture and then match your shade to it.

[av8rmongo]

I would echo jb's opinion - use whatever color looks right to you. Even if you get a picture taken from that period the photographic standards of the 1940's (film sensitivity etc.) are such that the color in the photos aren't an exact match for what existed in reality not to mention any losses that might have occured with age, reproduction digitization or anything else that has happened to the image in the last 60 yrs.

Paul

[DrBig]

Brad, the following is only for your reference, not how to paint a 6mm tank. It seems like you are new to OD, like I once was. I became so frustrated with the printed & web literature that I had to take matters into my own hands!

The big WW2 OD color for tanks was 'No.9 OD' (aka OD9). I obtained 3 WW2 paint chips, and they match PollyScale 505224 the best. If you ever go to Home Depot, pick up a Behr Paint 'Wild Rice' paint chip...this is a good match to the color. This is the color WW2 tanks were supposed to look like when they left the factory. Now remember, that is for a 1:1 scale tank, fresh out of the factory, in theory.

However there was much variation, especially early in the war due to poor quality control of the paint matching process. There weren't even enough paint chips to supply the paint manufuacturers, and many gave their 'best guess'. Also, you have poor business ethics (cheating the government, using cheaper inferior pigments) and with all of the above, you get different tank lots fading to different colors.

Plus in the beginning of the war, there might have been a different OD spec also, which was more brownish out of the can. This was OD22. Some people claim it was the same as OD9, some say it was different. So far looking at all the arguments, the data suggest it was different. So, in 1942, you would have old stocks of OD22 being used until exhausted, and the newer OD9 being produced to different specs.

Some years ago, Steve Zaloga wrote a research article on WW2 OD, & he cited Tamiya XF-62 as a near perfect match. And it was. At least in hue & chroma, but the value was significantly off. It was too dark. But this is all irrelevant now since the current Tamiya OD has been changed from the old days. Many people still don't know this & still consider this a the 'correct' match to OD9. Well, in 2002, it kind of was, but not anymore.

There are a number of boo-boo's in that article, so don't take it as gospel as so many have. And it is fashionable for modellers to disparage the vehicle restoration community, but I have found that they are far more on the money than given credit for. The problem with vehicle restorers is that there are moneyed interests at stake, so they don't like to talk about their research, and when they do, they don't describe it well.

It is a fact of physics that to have complete iterative control of hue, chroma, and value in paint matching, you need at least four different colorants. So, you can see what kind of variabililty that must have had on how WW2 US tanks appeared in different lighting, environments, and fading.

[30YRSGHQ]

Thanks guys for all of the great help - more than anything else I want them to "look right", knowing that there were many variations along with variability in weathering ... You have sent me down the correct path and I appreciate it. Modern vehicles have been much easier to match - at least for me (whether it is was MERDC or the newer NATO 3-color schemes).

[DrBig]

Brad, not sure if you're still reading, but I have some very good information. The OD color up to about 1937 was OD22, which was a very brownish OD, usually, but not always glossy.

In 1937, the color was changed to what was later to be know as 'the darker Cold War OD'. In late 1941, the color was changed again to the lighter WW2 color, which was simply called Lustreless OD at the time, but received a # in 1943, which was 319.

That was all QM stuff.

However, after Pearl Harbor, the CoE developed their own camo color card T-1213, the famous 9 camo colors, of which, No.9 was OD. This was also dark like the 1937 QM color. So, going into 1942, you had 2 different OD's, a light (aka319), and dark (OD9).

1942 gets very complicated as to what OD was being produced. A shortage of color cards (CoE not even available until Dec.42), the QM & CoE issuing their own specs for the 'same' color, confusing industry, and then Spec 3-1 came out in 1943 which made 319 the true lusterless OD, & the CoE OD9 desgination was also given to that 319 color. The old dark OD9 was removed from T-1213, but received a semigloss finiish & was relabeled 202 in 3-1.

Restorers are adament that 202 was being used as a base coat by war's end.

So, in summary, up to 1937, brown OD. Then dark greenish OD until 1941. In 1942, the lighter greenish 319 color in addition to the darker one, then in 1943, all goes to 319, and in 'late 44-45, semigloss dark.

OK?

[DrBig]

Oh, one more thing. In the end it really doesn't matter because in direct sunlight, OD in general comes off brownish, and with indirect sunlight, it's greenish.

So really it's not a question of what color, but what what time of day you are fighting your battle!

[hauptgrate]

Since there were few camoflaged American vehicles -- and I have representative samples of every camo scheme I can find a picture for -- I added variety to my US Army my using several different OD greens. All the above comments, as well as a wide variety of sources, show that there were a few slightly different OD shades, not to mention fading and weathering, etc. So, liven up your troops with some slightly different shades....

[Mk 1]

Since there were few camoflaged American vehicles ...

That's one of the great joys of focussing on the US Army in Tunisia. All the cool ad hoc camo done by the troops in the field!


(Mostly just mud smeared on with bucket and mop, but hey, if you've got enough plane OD around, even THAT is an interesting diversion...

[DrBig]

I think that was a good call to use dark OD for Tunisia. A lot of the photos there show really dark vehicles; which also explains why they were trying to muddy it up.

[DrBig]

In case anyone wants to know what the paint chip standard (319) looked like for a point of reference, Testors 1165 is the closest I've seen. I haven't done a comprehensive search because a perfect match isn't really important to me...but that is what it looks like.
I haven't seen the GHQ (which I suspect is also good) or various Lifecolors.