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New British Army Vehicle Colour


Bill1974

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Hiya 

 

Does anyone know how to mix the new British Army Vehicle Colour - ‘Army Brown’

 

I've looked online and they only thing I can find are these two photos related to articles of the colour change, absolutely nothing regarding how to achieve the colour via certain mixes or otherwise?

 

MpPIwyA.jpg

 

1wIVf6g.jpg


Thanks for your help 👍

 

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I’m by no means knowledgeable about armored vehicles or their colors, but the color of the vehicle in the bottom photo looks to me much like faded WW II USAAF Sand 49/ANA 616.

Edited by Space Ranger
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5 hours ago, Bill1974 said:

Has anyone tried replicating the new army brown with any success?

 

I would need a color reference or sample to prepare the paint recipes. BS number would be enough.

 

Color photo is not enough :(

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3 hours ago, Casey said:

I would need a color reference or sample to prepare the paint recipes. BS number would be enough.

 

Color photo is not enough :(


This is the best I have found:
 

The color Army Brown belongs to the color family Pastel Yellow. It is of a medium brightness and a low saturation. The color Army Brown corresponds to the hex code #827B60. In the additive (digital) color space RGB, it is composed of 51% Red, 48% Green and 38% Blue component.

 

HTML color code for #827B60

Generic color name: Army Brown
Colors that make up #827B60
RGB: 130, 123, 96 - HSL:0.13, 0.15, 0.44

 

With a review of the colour that seems to be the only information out there that I can find.

 

https://www.dpaonthenet.net/article/58584/Scientists-develop-new-paint-colour-for-British-Army-vehicles.aspx#
 

I have a couple of tanks and ifv’s ready to be painted but no idea of how to get the correct mix with my vallejo acrylic colours other than a wild guess-timation.

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6 hours ago, Bill1974 said:


This is the best I have found:
 

The color Army Brown belongs to the color family Pastel Yellow. It is of a medium brightness and a low saturation. The color Army Brown corresponds to the hex code #827B60. In the additive (digital) color space RGB, it is composed of 51% Red, 48% Green and 38% Blue component.

 

HTML color code for #827B60

Generic color name: Army Brown
Colors that make up #827B60
RGB: 130, 123, 96 - HSL:0.13, 0.15, 0.44

 

With a review of the colour that seems to be the only information out there that I can find.

 

https://www.dpaonthenet.net/article/58584/Scientists-develop-new-paint-colour-for-British-Army-vehicles.aspx#
 

I have a couple of tanks and ifv’s ready to be painted but no idea of how to get the correct mix with my vallejo acrylic colours other than a wild guess-timation.

RGB color matching does not work well. RGB itself is not giving one enough information. Conversion to RGB is dependant on a lot of parameters and you can tweak them like NTSC tint control on old TV's.

 

If you have only Vallejo paints and photo, I would start with color that is closest match in paints you have and add small amount of color that you feel is missing.

 

I would start with 71.028 Sand Yellow which looks like a possible similar color and then add some dark yellow, maybe 71.013 - Yellow olive.

 

Edited by Casey
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That colour is officially Light Stone BS361. It is best described as a brownish sand. And it is hardly new: it's been in use since the 1st Gulf War in 1990, over 30 years ago.

 

Vallejo and Xtracrylix both offer alleged matches, XA1313 and 71.143 respectively.  Online colour swatches are subject to many variables and are only ever indicative.

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5 hours ago, Kingsman said:

That colour is officially Light Stone BS361. It is best described as a brownish sand. And it is hardly new: it's been in use since the 1st Gulf War in 1990, over 30 years ago.


I am afraid you are mistaken, this is a new colour and had been long in the making.  The shade may already have been out there in some form or another which may or may not be relevant to the new army brown.
 

It has been part of many a parliamentary review of the armed services including in the mod groups for the uk new and / or revised ifv and afv forces.


Please read the link that been floating around in the media for a while now;

 

- New paint scheme

- Reacts to chemical attack and will change colour

- Absorbs chemical attack agents and can be ‘ripped of’ and repainted so vehicle can be reused and not contaminated.

- Possibly having altered infra red signature identifying as a friendly (I've watched the mod group on bbc parliament with high up mod bods and generals discussing what they want for the future deployments)

 

https://www.dpaonthenet.net/article/58584/Scientists-develop-new-paint-colour-for-British-Army-vehicles.aspx#

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13 hours ago, Casey said:

RGB color matching does not work well. RGB itself is not giving one enough information. Conversion to RGB is dependant on a lot of parameters and you can tweak them like NTSC tint control on old TV's.


 

Can you please post an example of the information that you would need so that I know for future and can look for it in future.
 

Thanks

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1 hour ago, Bill1974 said:

Can you please post an example of the information that you would need so that I know for future and can look for it in future.

Most military standards have color samples documents, I have quite a collection of them. If I know the color reference and I have physical sample of a color then I can do a color matching.

 

The information Kingsman provided was one of examples of what I need - it is a reference to a specific standard color - in this case British Standard from BS381C - see 361light stone - and thats the photo of that standard from my collection:

 

p?i=ffaeb84a0e51bd2ec2b0c72d65adffeb

 

 

Edited by Casey
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I have just a few minutes ago tried to "mix" this colour on my (more than a decade old) PC using Microsoft Paint: I entered Red as 130, Green as 123, and Blue as 96 as stated above. What's that old saying that a scientific experiment should be repeatable to be valid? But my result came out a dark chestnut or maroon colour. My version doesn't match any of the "sand" colours indicated above. Oh well. [Can I also point out that "Sand" is a terrible description for any colour, because, worldwide, real sand (i.e. soil) can be found in many hues.] 

Any truth that the upcoming UK Army camouflage book will be entitled "Fifty Shades of Brown"?

Possibly this confusion is part of a well-thought out plan of disinformation by the Ministry, so that when "the balloon finally goes up", future foes will be surprised and they won't recognise the oncoming British military vehicles painted in various shades of Brown, which I suggest be given local names to aid marketing them in the manner of household paints: Staffordshire Sienna, Uxbridge Umber, Fulham Fawn and so on. These foes (mentioning no names, but they know who they are, even if we don't know at present) may as a result mistake these vehicles either for friendly forces or for harmless parcel delivery vans. The element of surprise and all that, y'know .... tomorrow I will try and mix some Fulham Fawn (composed of 30% Yellow, 10% Green, 20% Red, 20% White, 20% Fustian Grey and 10% Harry Potter Flesh: which amounts to 110% I know, but I need lots and lots of it).

Edited by Peter2
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7 hours ago, Peter2 said:

PC using Microsoft Paint

Thats the main issue in color mixing :) Graphics editing software (yes it does include Photoshop) does not mix colors like real paints.

 

The more correct algorithm you want to use is called Kubelka-Munk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubelka-Munk_theory), but to perform real paint mixing you need measurements of absorption/coefficient curves of each constituent pigment. Those data are not publicly available, you need to measure and calculate them on your own, and it is time consuming and quite expensive process.

 

But not all is lost :)

 

Instead of MS paint, try starting with tool like https://goldenpaints.com/mixer. It is a good 'starting point' tool but definitely not anything to give you precise matches.

 

Be aware that this tool has limitations:

  • RGB or CMYK as input. Those inputs do not have any industry standards defined so expect quite large difference from real colors.
  • Matching only 3 points from color spectrum (RGB) almost guarantees that the resulting mixture will be metameric (means: the resulting paint will not behave same under different light conditions).
  • Does not let you select pigments you want to use for matching, so you can end up with crazy colors. For example your color with selecting Golden Fluid Acrylics is returned as 5 parts bone black, 1 part titanium white, 5 parts zinc white, 13 parts transparent yellow iron oxide. Zinc white is labelled as "NEVER SPRAY-APPLY" - so it is not recommended to use this mixture in an airbrush, since zinc white contains traces of cadmium.
    • On the other hand modellers spray humbrol enamels here ;) all time
  • Does use only 4 constituent pigments

 

I've been there, and I ended up making my own algorithm. At the start I had only limited database of absorption/coefficients of selected pigments, but after months of samples preparation and measurements it now gives results like this:

 

p?i=8d8023a766855126b1c7ea7eeac632b7

 

You can see the example thread here:

Some of my previous works is here - it is based on earlier pigment database so the matches may be not as precise, but I gave examples of how they ended up in practice too.

Welcome to rabbit hole!

Edited by Casey
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The link say that the "Army Brown paint is similar to the tan colour used by the military in the US and Australia". But the article is nine year old so I wouldn't call it new. As it  was used in Afghanistan there ought to be more pictures to be found.

 

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All please note the date of the linked article: 2013 - almost a decade ago.  Yes, this was tried.  I was working in MOD at the time, in the Protected Mobility team that introduced Foxhound and other platforms to service.  It was tried.  It did not work.  It was insufficiently durable in use, It was not adopted.  It is not in use.  It was never in use.  Vehicles are now gradually being repainted, and new vehicles have for some years procured, in a green colour which has been the subject of much debate itself.

 

The colour used on vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan and still running around today is without question Light Stone BS361.  I see them every day still.  And that was the colour we specified when I worked in that area and the desired colour when we were looking at changing other equipment colours to blend more with the then-new MTP uniforms.  Weapon furniture, holsters etc etc.  Although a colour called Coyote Tan from some suppliers was a close match.

 

Do not start painting your British Army vehicles in the Iraq and Afghanistan era any kind of "army brown".  Light Stone has a brownish tint and in the right - or wrong - light it can appear to be a darker brown.  But it is not.  Let's not degenerate into arguments about one model being seen in bright sunlight and another on a gloomy day so their colours look different.  And what we all see on our own multiple brands and technologies of monitors with our own preferred settings connected to different graphics cards by different interface standards with our own individual eyesight colour perception and perhaps corrective lenses will be different.  And that's before you factor in imagery differences.

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The comprehensive information provided by Casey, Kingsman and Orso shows that colour mixing can be a minefield. I see now why many people eventually settle on a favourite shade for a particular era and army, one supplied by a trusted model paint manufacturer, and then they stick with it. At least that way, each bottle or tinlet has a consistent basic hue, which can then be lightened or darkened or weathered over, to get a model appropriate to (in the eyes of that modeller😞 the timeframe (e.g. wartime paint supply problems); conditions (e.g. fading overpainted snow camo when spring comes); and theatre (e.g. effects of hot sun versus frigid zones) which their vehicle is fighting in. By the way, anyone know what colour green those Tunisian Tigers were? [ A barrage of half-empty paint bottles in response ....]

Edited by Peter2
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2 hours ago, Peter2 said:

colour mixing can be a minefield

Mixing itself is easy, the issue is to figure out what paints to mix to achieve desired color.

 

For example, Pantone sells color guides, in which they specify all of their color recipes using their 18 licensed basic color inks (plus more if metallics, neon and so on)

 

What I am doing with making paint recipes, is a very similar approach - I picked respected single pigment paint vendor (Golden Acrylics) that provides stable color, and I work on making recipes for my needs, and I share my work here.

Edited by Casey
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  • 2 weeks later...

In anticipation of gulf war 2 my RAF. Workshop was supplied with bs 381c tint 380, to repaint a number of vehicles for an RAF unit  that was about to deploy. This colour is equivalent to fs 30279 USA. desert sand. Depending on light conditions this colour could appear to have a pink tinge , from other angles a more brown appearance. Aircraft modellers will be familiar with this colour as it was used on RAF aircraft in gulf war one. I am wondering if 380 was resurrected for the short lived use of "army brown" some years later ?

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I saw Tornados in this scheme a couple of times, and am familiar with its appearance in photos, model paints (which do need toning down) and paintings.  It had rather more than just a tinge of pink.  Hence the nickname Pink Pig for the Tristar, and indeed the earlier Pink Panther of the SAS.  I never saw any RAF or Army vehicles for real, but photographs of the time do not show this pink.  That there may have been a tinge of it in certain light conditions seems quite likely.  However I've not seen any views of Challengers etc showing this, and I've not seen any photos of Tornados other than a distinct pink.

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I'm reminded of the story of the UK-based tank transporter Sqn (Scammell Commanders) who contracted out the repainting of their vehicles to a local paint shop prior to deploying to Kuwait in 1990. The colour used was not an official military shade and they apparently became known as the 'banana custard Sqn'. I was told this story by personnel of another Sqn, so make of it what you will :)

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1 hour ago, Graham Boak said:

I saw Tornados in this scheme a couple of times, and am familiar with its appearance in photos, model paints (which do need toning down) and paintings.  It had rather more than just a tinge of pink.  Hence the nickname Pink Pig for the Tristar, and indeed the earlier Pink Panther of the SAS.  I never saw any RAF or Army vehicles for real, but photographs of the time do not show this pink.  That there may have been a tinge of it in certain light conditions seems quite likely.  However I've not seen any views of Challengers etc showing this, and I've not seen any photos of Tornados other than a distinct pink.

The colour was used on aircraft in gw one. The vehicle painting we carried out was for gw2     .     During prep for gw 1 supply depots soon ran out of lt stone so a mix formula was promulgated,  we mixed quantiates by the dustbin full. It didn't take much for the  banana effectt to be produced ! 

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