"M106 Mortar Carrier Interior and Side Track Guards" Topic

Sifting through a number photos of M106's I've noticed that some have an olive drab interior and others some form of off white. Was there system to which color was used and where?

Also, the rubber side track skirts also appear to be painted in some cases and not in others (basically left in rubber black). I was cadre in a training company at Fort Knox and we received "used" tanks left in the colors used in their prior active duty unit. Made for an interesting mix of "olive drab" vehicles. I noticed that M113's (from the Armor School, I believe) that had both painted and unpainted side skirts. I'm sure the Armor School also got their training vehicles "second hand" which accounted for the variety in vehicles.

I plan to paint my models pre-MERDC olive drab, if that would help.

The 106s started with white interiors, but the inside of the mortar hatch covers were olive. Later the insides of the 113 series were painted a light blue green. After that the interior of the rear hatch was painted olive.

The skirts were never supposed to be painted, but various units did it anyway. It got more common toward the end of the 70's and the early 80's as more vehicles started sporting desert color schemes.

Thanks; so it's basically as I thought. Like many units (including the ones I served in), they did their own thing within reason.

The inside of the 106s in 2nd ACR were a light kind of lime green.

The rubber mud guards were left unpainted because they flexed so much the paint flaked off anyways…