"US Cold War Armour Question" Topic

Hi
Was wandering if anyone could help me out. Were US Abrams and Bradley's ever plain OD green in west Germany during the 80s? Did they stay that way for long?

My next force I want to do is US cav and wandering if Ivan get away with just doing them plain green.

Cheers
Matt
stazmatt.blogspot.com.au

Hi,

Yes they were. I have never seen a abrams or bradly here which were yellow.
I have seen both in rhein/main, boeblingen and wurzburg but always in the 3 colour camo. Some M60 were plain green but not for long. I had the impression that the M1 and bradley had green, brown and black camo and the M60 had green black and sand/ drab as camo.

But i was never attached to armor or mech so that is only my observation as civilian and later as i was detached for training in the places mentioned above.

I collect wwiii in 25mm but i do late 70s inorder to evade al this.
Greetings

IIRC, the M1 and IPM1 (1979-85) left the factories in a flat green. Some were painted in the 70s MERDC 4-color camo by their units (lots of pics around).
M1A1 (from 1986) came factory-painted in NATO 3-color camo.

From what I can tell, Rudi and LawoftheGun have it right. Once camoflage came into play, almost all vehicles were repainted, to the point that a single-color vehicle that isn't tan is very very rare indeed.

Useful little painting guides. I'd say MERDC, or NATO post the mid 1980s.

http://gurth.home.xs4all.nl/afv/merdc.html

"In the 1970s, the US Mobility Equipment Research & Design Command (MERDC) developed a system of camouflage patterns for US Army vehicles. These consisted of a set of standardized patterns for each vehicle, to be used with a set of twelve colours. The local terrain conditions and colours decided which of the paints were to be used, and on which parts of a vehicle. Then, if conditions altered, for example by a change in the weather, or by the unit moving into a new area of operations, the scheme could be quickly adjusted to suit them by replacing only one or two colours by different ones."

http://gurth.home.xs4all.nl/afv/natocamo.html

"In the 1980s, the realisation dawned in NATO that, during war, enemy forces would be able to easily identify which NATO countries operated against them simply by looking at the camouflage patterns used on the NATO vehicles—this because almost every country developed and used its own, unique colours and patterns.

As a result, in the mid-1980s a standard NATO scheme was agreed upon, adopted (with minor variations) by countries such as Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the United States. In the USA, this camouflage is frequently known as "CARC", for Chemical Agent Resistant Coating, after the paints used."

He has some intersting little PDF photobooks too: link

Every book I've got on USAREUR shows Abrams and Bradleys in plain OD schemes until the three-colour scheme appeared in the late 1980s. Older vehicles in the same units were painted in MERDC.

I'm sure that some units must have painted them in MERDC, but I don't recall ever seeing a photo of one in West Germany.

Hi,

Technically the plain schemes were Forest Green FS34079. Some M1s were painted in a faux-MERDC Summer Temperate, but accordig to my research were only used stateside.

Damon.

According to Osprey, the left the factory in FS34079, any camouflage being applied in unit depots. In 1987 the new NATO three colour began to be applied in factory.

Wiki: "Some units painted their M1s with the older MERDC 4-color paint scheme but the turn-in requirements for these tanks required repainting them to solid green. Therefore, even though a large number of the base model M1s were camouflaged in the field, few or none exist today."

Armorama: Officially, the four-color MERDC scheme was still in force, but few units bothered with it in the 1980's (there were twelve colors available, so there was a dizzying number of alternate four-color schemes, suitable for any terrain on the planet, but real units had neither the time nor the personnel to implement it, so most tanks stayed in 34079 until the three-color NATO scheme replaced it).

Once they are in the field they are all the same color. DUST brown. I saw Bradleys at Graf in 83 with O.D. and M 1's at Reforger 82 in O.D.

When issued, the equipment was OD green. Once at the unit, as time and supplies permitted, vehicles got paint jobs. The manual would be pulled out with the paint patterns to be used, then the soldiers doing the painting did their best to try and follow the guide, with a bit of variation thrown in. Sometimes, the vehicles got new paint jobs for inspections. In the winter, whitewash sometimes was put on the vehicles.

Thanks for all the replies. So green is doable, maybe ill go NATO 3 tone. Not sure.

Ok I've decided to do a MERDC winte sceme for something different. Should look nice.

link

MERDC, in either green, or white does look wonderful.