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British Army green


phildagreek

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Any thoughts on the correct green for British Army vehicles; Land Rovers, Challengers etc etc etc.

Tamiya says XF61 which translates into a tin of Humbrol 172 which doesn't seem to exist any more on the rack in my LHS.

I know paint fades, it gets touched up, it gets muddy etc but what about a good starting point?

Thanks.

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Try using Vallejo model air olive drab 043,interior green 010 in a 50/50 mix,

I find that comes out well.

If you check out my chieftain in RFI you can judge for yourself.

Ivan

Edited by ivan-o
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In the Humbrol range either 86 or 116 pass for the colour used on late Chieftains and Chally 1. Some recommend 150 but I have not used it.

Comes down to personal preference....while it is nice to be 'correct' any ex-army crewman will tell you how they painted their vehicles, and how much variation there was.

My Chieftain Mk10 and Chally 1 are probably still in RFI if you do a search. The Chally is in 86, the Chieftain in 116 with the disruptive black brush applied 33 thinned about 30%.

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You will have to mix it, I can!'t see anything out off the shelf. Olive drab was the description on the tin IRR (infra Red resilient) in the seventies and eighties, The green used by our fellow NATO brethren is too green.

It used to fade quite fast as well, Dads on his Chiefy MK11 build used a Tamiya NATO Green and Buff mix which works for me.

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For a used/faded look I would go with something like Tamiya Field Grey, which has a very greenish tint to it (Steve Zaloga uses it for his WW2 Russian tanks but I just think its also a good match for BAOR kit), providing you use a faded very dark grey and not straight black for the camo.

UK kit has never used the NATO colours

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  • 2 weeks later...

I used XF-61 on a Challenger and it looks the part. As someone already mentioned, UK vehicles do not use NATO green so avoid. That said there are lighting issues (#thatdress !) and you will find real life pics of Challengers having a much lighter green or even a olive green tint.

XF-61 will produce something like this:

http://www.russellphillipsbooks.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/challenger_2.jpg

But there are lighter greens in some pics:

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1048/4610598397_88d6f9497b.jpg

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Various factors are involved here, on the tin it says " Paint Green NATO IRR Brushing or Spraying " and it's an Olive green.

We used to thin it with what ever we could get our hands on, kero or petrol was used and if we had it the OEM thinners., mind you this stuff was rare and I've only ever seen the thinners once maybe twice in a 12 year stint. Depending on what you thinned it with depended on the shade it dried too, this is even before you take in weathering, wagons that lived out side the green faded to an almost grey colour and so did the black. Personally I wouldn't get too hung up over the hue of green as in service these wagons varied a lot.

I've used Tamiya NATO green but it needs to be cut with buff or deck tan to lighten it out a fraction, on my Spartan build I've used tamiya XF-81 Dark Green2(RAF) and a few drops of XF-58 Olive Green and to fade out some XF-55 Deck Tan. To my eyes it's a good match for a wagon that has not been repainted for a few years.

Another point is that kit that has come from a base workshops after a major overhaul and repaint had a slightly different hue of green that didn't quite match the painting we did at unit level, this is due to it being done in a professional paint shop and being applied with better quality spray guns and being dried in a constant temp. We could never match this at unit level.

I hope this helps and it's my own experience that I hint about, just don't get too hung up over it.

Dan

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I used humbrol dark green on my Land Rover Ambulance and it looked alright to me.

Fin2.jpg

Like Dan said, if you see a line of vehicles then no two will look the same. I saw quite a few in Germany at my Dads unit and never saw one sprayed. It seemed like the Mk.1 3" paint brush was the main tool.

I remember them having at least one vehicle even in the 80's that was still Bronze Green.

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I remember it as IRR Green. As for shade, as others have said it faded really easily, so medium to dark green would be alright as long as the black was similarly faded, ie from black to very dark grey. I remember painting one of the vehicles and all the others looked so faded. Later vehicles had separate paint for the canvas and there would be a differing in shade between the 2 paints.

Edited by Phil Evans
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In the end I've gone with Humbrol 116 as the base green, over some (experimental) pre shading. The Black is Humbrol 033, thinned and lightened (?) with a drop of white or light grey. Waiting for it to dry and then varnish and then some dust and dirt.

I like where it's gone really, I haven't built armour in a long time and have really enjoyed it. I take your point about paint finishes, a ship painted by a load of hacked off Matelots with tired brushes never ever matched the finish done by Dockies with the proper kit (or interest).

Thank you all.

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  • 6 months later...
  • 1 year later...

2 points:

 

1) Model paint colour equivalent charts can be dangerous. They are mostly compiled by aging males by visual comparison rather than any objective colour analysis and numerical matching. That part of the population demographic suffers very high instances of colour perception deficiencies. I personally trust no man's eyesight for paint matches (but I may be more inclined to trust a woman because their colour perception tents to stay far more robust as they age).

 

2) Tamiya isn't necessarily correct even with XF-61. I know what the British Army's bronze green should look like, but don't have XF-61 to compare.

 

 

I'd recommend going with the wisdom of the experienced British armour modellers above (which I am not one of) :)

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