70s-80s 3 Color Camouflage Discussion
 

Hey Fellas,

I dread to bring up the topic of paint color again, but this one has been on my mind for some time now. Steve H (TOW M151A2 owner) and I have spent hours yacking on the phone emailing pictures back and forth trying to nail this down.

So, if I understand correctly Canadian 3 Color Cam on "B" vehicles from approx 1975 until the mono-tone 383 CARC Green in the late 80s consists of:

503-321 Flat Olive Drab
503-319 Field Green
501-310 Flat Black

http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data..._DSC_02421.jpg

The CFTO for Cam Paint shows the 503-321 as essentially the base coat, with the 503-319 and 501-310 making the pattern. There are also plenty of real world examples of the 503-321 and 503-319 being inverted as a base coat for the cam pattern.

Here is my quandry. I have borrowed some user uploaded pics of various vehicles from this Forum and "Google" to set the plot:

Which Color Green is 503-319 Field Green?
This one:

MLVW as it sits today:
http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data...m/IMG_1043.JPG

M151A2:
http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data.../100_01492.JPG

McEwan M38A1:
http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data...McEwanJeep.jpg

Clives M38A1:
http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data...livesm38a1.jpg

Or this one:

Iltis:
http://www.panzerbaer.de/colours/pic...Iltis-002a.jpg

Cougar:
http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data/1749/cougar.jpg

Photo induced color variations aside, am I the only one that notices that the 503-319 Field Green is not the same over the years of the 3 Color Cam Pattern? Did it change at some point or did it actually fade that much over the years?

The Field Green on the MLVW I posted on top is what all of the remaining 3 Color Cam Vehicles have for Field Green here in Gagetown, yet there is clearly a darker version on other vehicles.

When people are trying to color match paint for the 3 Color Cam Pattern, which shade are they trying to replicate? Top or Bottom?

Thoughts???

I would like to know as well what guys are using, specifically which brand, colour etc. I know Rob L. had posted on this somewhere here on MLU forum but I think maybe the actual details of make etc were missing...

34079 Forest Green (US Color) is a very close match to the bottom 3 pics, but is nothing like the top ones. It's available from most of the US Dealers, but Army Jeep Parts will actually ship it to Canada.

What I'm really trying to figure out is did the color formulation actually change, or were there two completely different numbers for Field Green. Stranger yet, is that out this way, it seems that the "top" Field Green was actually used as the base coat for the Cam Pattern out here in Gagetown. The topic comes up every so often and the solution never really gets resolved. I'm hoping some folks will chime in so we can put the Field Green, Pea Green, Ugly Green issue to bed.

What is known with certainty is that:

Tremclad Flat Black will work in place of 501-310 Flat Black
Brian Asbury "BCA" sells 503-321
Gillespie 34079 will stand in nicely for the bottom version of the Field Green

I have been using an original can of the IRR flat green made by pittsburg paint around 1990. The color is basically the same as your bottom photos. The IRR did tend to fade pretty good. The black would turn to grey, and the two greens would almost turn to the same color. The Iltis used a different form of paint if I recall, and weathered the elements quite well, whereas I always found the IRR to be very porous. It did not seem to provide a good seal against the elements.

Whats your opinion/thoughts on the top color Rob? Do you think it was originally the same but just faded out to its current form?

Yep. Even the best of hardened glossy paints will fade after almost 30 years, especially when stored outdoors, washed with steam cleaners and made parade ready with engine oils.

I have the original paint color chips book for the CGSB colors at home. It dates way way back. I don't think there was ever a change in the individual color specs on these, but there would have been variation in how they were painted, what reducers were used, and if any hardeners were added. Also, how the paint was stored, how many times it was frozen, and how old it was. Most MLVWs got partial or complete paint jobs during the early 90s refurb program. It was all IRR paint at that point, and the work was done at various civilian contractors.

3 camo paint
 

Hello Folks

My M151A2 was three tone Camo.
The two greens did fade to look almost exactly the same colour.

If you look on the rear of the roll cage you will see where it faded around the back window and the sides where it was exposed to the sun.

I have original cans of the two greens and the paint ship book as well, and they are both darker than the Pea Green.

I do have a can of Pea green, which i bought a number of years ago. It is a much lighter green but i cannot find an exact reference to it in the paint chip book nor do i have the CDN DND number. This did match a light green which was hand painted on my M151A2 windshield defroster shields. This sample came from a CDN Govt list and was marked camouflage green. For those who have the Govt paint book it looks close to the 103-114 series but a little darker, or 503-322 but a little lighter. This looks close to the faded darker green.

Thanks

Eric

Eric,

Since Pea Green is not an official color, can you please verify what color (503-321, 503-319 or Flat Olive Drab, Field Green etc etc) it is you are referring to as "Pea Green".

Better yet, why not post up a pic of the Can Label?

Honestly, the term Pea Green has caused me a ton of confusion and I'm guilty of using the term myself.

The Defrost Shields are missing in your pic.... :)

It is always fun to disscuss paint lol.

Here is my take on it.


On the NOS Iltis body tub the 503-321 was the base coat. The darkest Green on the picture posted. I would call this is an Olive Green but not the same colour as the old Olive Drab used in WWII.


The Lighter Green (Pea Green as it has been called) on the Iltis is 503- 322.
No question about that as I matched it to the one Iltis that I have that still has the orginal paint on it.
I wet sanded a portion of this lighter green to remove the oxidized-faded paint and it is an exact match for the 503-322 colour chip.
503-322 has a tendancy to fade to a bluer green.

The darker green (olive) on the MLVW, M38A1's the Cougar and the M151 would be the 503-321 The lighter on the MLVW M38A1's and M151 green would be badly faded 503-319.
On the Cougar the lighter green is 503-319 but not faded.

503-319 is a near exact match for FS34094
FS34094 is the current 383 CARC colour. And we know how much it fades and lightens up. It fades up to the light Feild Green 503-322 and lighter. We have numerous examples of this happening.

Here are colour comparisions to the 2 best FS matches of the 503-319 colour chip.
Pictures were taken outside in natural light on an overcast day.


http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k.../IMG_0465a.jpg

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k.../IMG_0467a.jpg

I suspect that 503-222 or something close was used to match faded 503-319 or faded 383 Carc when touch up's or partial repaints were nessesary.

For some more referance.

http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/sh...710#post129710


Hope this helps



Matthew

Thanks Matt,

Here is a pic of my two original cans:

http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data.../100_07321.JPG

Yup, Krylon OD on the Support Bracket :)

Hey guys,

I will chime in here as I feel partly responsible for restarting this 319/321 paint discussion. This is due primarily because for years, much like everyone else, I have been trying to find paint for my TOW MUTT. I thank Scotty for leading the charge here to once, and for all, hopefully find a workable solution for paint codes and possible suppliers.
For my project I think the best I can do is 34079 as my 319 and flat Tremclad black for my 2 -tone cam. I won't even touch the topic of 321 yet, as this has no doubt caused some hair pulling.
With respect to 322, I just wanted to confirm, are we saying that the 322 - almost sea foam colour - was also used as part of the cam pattern? Based on the colour charts provided at the links, it looks a lot like the inside of my M113 in Germany back in the early 90's.
Also, I know in the cam scheme paperwork that I have seen a number of times posted on this site everyone talks about the cam pattern. What is also attached to that diagram, but not posted that I have seen, are two typed pages that outline exactly what colour goes where. I don't see 322 listed as part of it. Does anyone know if it was substituted locally?
I will also include a scan of the Eric's Pea Green colour (hope you don't mind Eric). It may be slightly off as it is a scan and my painted sample is semi gloss, but I think it's pretty accurate. Has anyone else seen this colour floating around on any vehicles or colour charts? If so, what is the code for it?
Anyway, I have also included a scan of a late 80's M38A1. Not for any real reason other than I found it recently and thought you guys might like it.

Hi Steve

According to the colour chips I have FS34079 is much to gray for 503-319.
The best match seems to be the 383 green (FS34094)

It seems that 304-322 was used on the Iltis's original from factory paint as the lighter green.

Other than that use it is anybody's guess where else it was used. But it likely would have been part of the camo scheme to better match units with faded paint that needed touch up's or was just wholly substituted for 503-319 as seems to be the case on some vehicles with fresher paint jobs as they are way to light to have been painted with 503-319.


503-322 is not a sea foam but a true green the posted pictures can be deceiving and it looks a little more blue in the pictures than it actually is. There are 11 different Sea Foam greens listed in the 1-GP -12C colour specs so sorting out a specific Sea Foam would be pretty hard unless you had the colour chips in hand to match it and most all of them had Gloss Semi Gloss and Flat finishes.

For the TOW MUTT the colours would be 503-319 as the green 503-321 as the olive and 503-310 for the black. That would be a factory fresh paint job.


After the first paint it could be any body's guess. As I'm sure all supplied paint for repaints did not exactly match the 1-GP-12C colour chips , as was noted before who knows how long the paint sat for and was stored
Even today there are colour variations in different batches of paint from the same manufacture. Plus paint was supplied to the CF by god knows how many different suppliers at the time across the country. So variations in the colours are almost a given.

So really their is a lot of latitude when matching colours.


Matthew

Thanks for the reply Matt,

After the restoration on the TOW the only two colours on it were the 319 and the black. There was no 3-colour cam with the 321 on it as people describe. I know all the colours blended together and everything, but really I looked for it and there were only the two colours. Except for the big red spray painted X accross the hood that I also unearthed and some weird hand painted symbol on the driver side read quarter. Unfortunately, as I look to repaint in the next month, the Gillespie 34094 (383 CARC) available from Army Jeep Parts is way, way, way too leafy green and doesn't match the colour chips at all. In fact, it almost looks plastic. The search goes on.... so anyone with ideas for the best 319 paint and colour and supplier please chime in.

While we're at it, anyone want to talk about the colour white?... just kidding.

Here is a pic of my TOW prior to restoration.

Hi Steve

I'll second that one, the Gillespie 383 carc is so far off the actual FS colour not sure how they can even call it 383 Green.

You could just opt for real CARC That is what I did, I gave up the search for a good 383 Green CARC alternative. And just opted to buy the real thing.

Yes IRR CARC is a controlled substance and you can not buy it in Canada without controlled goods certification.

BUT..............you can buy in the states and have it shipped here no problem. Go figure that one.

I bought my 383 CARC from AeroCoat in the U.S.
(www.aerocoat.com/Copy_of_Home.html )
I ordered the water born 383 CARC and it has a high enough Flash point that it did not have to be shipped as a hazardous material so it could go by air etc keeping shipping costs low.

The guys at AeroCoat were helpful and accommodating. I think the CARC paint they supply is Hentzen paint.

They are also selling mil paint that has past it's self life though a new company. ( www.aerocoat.biz/ ) at huge discounts


You could also try Hentzen Coatings directly.
( www.hentzen.com)

I do not remember the cost for 4 gallons and was not overly expensive I think it was about $90 a gallon and this was not the price reduced stuff. It was not cheap but it was far far cheaper than the paint I had mixed up at Tempo to match the 1-12GP-C specs. Right now AeroCoat have 383 Brown CARC on for sale for $50 a Gallon.


So there are couple suggestions.




Matthew

There was a message sent to all the base supply major equipment sections that the M151A2s were to have the red X sprayed over the hood to show that the vehicle was not to be sold other than as salvage. All my 30 Mutts from Shilo had it, and the 15 or 23 from Winnipeg (it's too many years now, I am starting to forget) had it as well.

If your X was painted over, is it possible that your jeep had been repainted post service?

Like this:

All are 383 CARC Green.....
http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data.../IMG_10463.jpg

Oh ya, BTW, after talking to the Unit Painter here, for those of you who find white paint under your 383 CARC, it may actually be the Primer Wash that ships with the CARC and not a UN Paint Job.

3 tone paint
 

Hello Folks

As Rob and i have indicated, from the paint chips in the book and the paint codes, both the greens used in the camouflage are darker than the Pea green.

As seen from my previous photo of the M151a2, these will fade to a light green. (This fading has confused the issue of pea green as those of us who did not see a new paint job only saw the light green (faded) paint on the vehicles while in service.That is all i ever saw and was told it was a pea green years later).

Here are the two cans of original paint, 503-321 green and 503-121 olive drab. Both of these are dark.

Also attached is the can of camouflage (pea) green, which is the same as Steves sample earlier. I went back to the original provider and they had disposed of all their original books and files. As indicated this paint matched that of unfaded paint on my M151a2 windshield vents.

I have found somewhere on the web a photo of a deuce and a half with a water trailer. The trailer looks like it has a pea green in it similar to the camouflage green that i have in my can. I know this does not help the question, is it pea green or is it faded. (This photo is from Ed Storey's vast collection, thanks).

Regardless this is an interesting discussion.

thanks
Eric

3 tone
 

Here is another can of 503-321 Camouflage Olive Drab.
It is a darker green as you can see.

My paint chip book has not been updated since 1968, so maybe there was a camouflage green (Pea or lighter green) which did come out later and i never got the updates OR it was part of the earlier camouflage before the one we all know, was standardized.

I have seen photos of vehicles painted camouflage and they were gloss in colour, using the original gloss paint as one of the tones and the lighter green was much more noticable. Steve has a photo of a M151A2 in BC with this earlier paint, but for some reason i cannot download it to the MLU.

thanks
Eric

Matt,

Thanks for your help with the suppliers. Makes sense to use as much original as possible.

Rob,

It didn't look like it. It looked more like the big red x was under the 1/8 '' of rust on the hood more so than any paint. Still an interesting find.

I'll take pics of the hand painted symbol on the rear dvr side, beside the trailer receptacle, as it had me scratching my head. I wondered if it was the old SSF logo as according to the veh unit history the TOW split time between 1 RCR and 2 CDO.

Colour Image
 

Eric:

Please credit the colour image of the M135CDN with the M106 to me, thank you,

ED

That is a good example of much the 383 CARC fades. On my M1010 the paint is the same colour as the LSVW on the far left.
The colour very closely matches (a little lighter) than 503-222 Green. Initially I thought it had been painted 503-322, until I noticed the colour of the paint where the Front License plate used to be, the paint there was not really faded that bad and is pretty damn close to 383 /502-319.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k.../IMG_0500a.jpg

The bumper on my M1010 demonstrates really well how badly 383 fades.

Most of the vehicles that end up in our possession are many many years past their last paint job and the paint is badly faded.

So This gives a person a lot of latitude when painting as you could paint it to represent all kinds of time frames after the last paint. I still suspect the 530-322 was used to touch up faded 383/503-319. As it comes very close to faded 383/503-319. And their is no question it was used as the light green on the Iltis from the factory. Lord knows why this was done. But that is a question we likly will never be able to answer.


Matthew

Steve,

I've got a copy of the Pub that those Color Charts came from, that are posted elsewhere.

It came from the CF Pub: B-0L-318-009/PT-001 "Camouflage and Concealment", Annex B. Pub is dated 1978.

The Color Code for all the attached patterns is:

Olive Drab - (1)
Black (summer) or White (winter) - (2)
Green - (3)

Sorry Eric, no Pea Green listed anywhere :)

It then goes on to list the appendicies for each vehicle pattern, which is where the pic of the handraulicly drawn M38 with the color patterns came from.

The other Publication is B-GL-303-008/DS-001 "MARKING OF FIELD FORCE VEHICLES AND GUNS", which covers Tac Signs, Load Classification Markings etc etc. The sad thing is this stuff is too old to be found on the documentum webpage, so really, unless some Unit Library is sitting on these, I can't find the actual complete pub.

If anyone wants a pattern for one of the other vehicles, just let me know.

Here is my UFI on some of the various paints illustrated. The NSN of 8010-21-870-XXXX on the 1977 manufactured can Eric shows gives it an adoption date of approx 1976. This was simple paint....it was neither IRR or CARC.

The can of PPG made paint was the IRR stuff introduced around 1980. The stock numbers for that paint, off the top of my head, was 8010-21-880-9729, 30, and 50 for the 3 colors of cam. Also available in the same series of paint with a NSN in the same range was a semi-gloss green (NSN ended in 9732 I think but I can't be sure). If someone was using the old fiche to order their paint, it was easy to mistakenly order in the semi gloss, and the troops would/may have applied it instead of the olive drab. There was a great article on the IRR paints in one of the LORE digests from that period. I have a copy back home.

In the mid to late 80s, the epoxy paints briefly appeared. The can that Eric shows is an example of this. If I remember tomorrow I'll look up the NSN range of 8010-21-898-XXXX to get a more exact date. These paints were used at the factory on the Iltis I believe, and ended up giving some serious health effects. We were not allowed to weld, sand or grind an Iltis without first removing the paint on the area by use of strippers. This was due to the isocyanates in the epoxy paint. In the meantime, the IRR paints continued on. Around 1990 there was a Cdn CARC introduced, but it ended up being withdrawn before I could even get any in. We ended up going back to the IRR from the early 80s. In the early 90s the cam patterns for the B vehicles was canceled and the B vehs were to be painted n the flat green color, or it' CARC equivalent. By the end of the 90s, production of the IRR paints ceased, and we were using the US CARCs. With the introduction of the water based CARC in the last few years, Canada followed suit.

There, thats my UFI on paint. The photos shown in this thread are good in that they really show the various paints and manufacturers from the 70s, 80s and into the 90s.

Rob, Thanks again for this info.

If you look back through the many pages in the Post-War Forum, this topic just like CFRs and Comms, seems to come up every few months. I was hoping we would put all these concerns and details in one place and maybe even Sticky the Post like the CFR Request Thread.

I've updated the Iltis Tub Colour Chart:

http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data..._DSC_02421.jpg

More paint cans
 

Hello Folks

Here are some more paint cans.

Not my photos, found on the web, sorry unable to give credit to whom took them. These are CARC.

The M38A1 photo is from a RCA web page and clearly there is a lighter green, These look like they are newly painted for the parade as well.

The last photo i beleive is one of Ed Storey's photos again, but i could be wrong. I apologize if i am wrong.

It is a hand painted M100 trailer and the paint does not look like it has faded to much. Another light green.

Thanks
Eric

Eric,

When you look at virtual sea of correctly painted vehicles behind that A1, I'd be inclined to think something was wrong with the paint on it. I remember the troops painting an APC Dozer Blade at 2 CER with Canadian Tire Semi-Gloss Forest Green as the original paint was all wore away. Looked horrible.....

To me it would be like some collector seeing a photo of it with the Forest Green paint and then saying it was correct even though the lads were dead wrong to paint it like that.

As far as those trailers go, they sure do look alot like the Flat Olive Drab on the MLVW I posted up top.

paint
 

Hello Folks

Here are the codes for the diagrams shown earlier on.

Note these are dated January 1975

The earlier photo for the M38A1 in Germany with the light green in 1968 pre dated the later pattern. Therefore there is a different camouflage. The pattern might have remained the same but there were different colours.

There was a light brown used in the Prairie Provinces, white in winter and the lighter green.

Hopefully somebody might be able to find these instructions somewhere with the colours.

Thanks
Eric

FMCO 21-4

Paint
The following code numbers identify the paint available in the CP supply System

a. Black
NSN: 8010-21-576-1987
Colour Code: 512-301

b. Green
NSN: 8010-21-576-2538
Colour Code: 503-319

c. Olive Drab
NSN: 8010-21-870-7533
Colour Code: 503-321

Paint Samples
 

I still have paint samples avail. If anyone is still interested send me a PM:

http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/sh...ht=paint+chips

Anthony