Hi guys,

The Italian Theatre of operations is not my strong point and i'm wondering if the British used the same shade of OD there as they did in Western Europe. If not then is there a suitable paint match for the colour, Tamiya colour if at all possible!

Cheers,

James

The basic colour for Commonwealth vehicles in Italy was "Light Mud". This was a "theatre" standard colour and is not on the formal SCC or BSC colour ranges. That said, it was the official colour to use, according to orders.

As a colour,. Light Mud is a sort of washed out and muddy khaki drab. Definitely on the green/grey side of things. Very hard to describe, as you might have just noticed.

Mark Starmer has released a good booklet on Italian colours and includes a colour chip of Light Mud. I haven't painted anything in this, but my thought would be to start with a khaki drab shade and add grey, green and brown to get a shade that matches the chip.

There isn't a commercial paint that matches this (as far as I know) but there are mixes on the MAFVA site for Humbrol mixes.

HTH

Paul

Once again it depends, early on the Light Mud/Blue Black scheme was common (with variants like the scheme on Sheik). Later on, it was obvious that these colours weren't effective and the replacement colours seem to have been the same as NWE. See, for example this 17th/21st Lancers Sherman photographed in early 1944.



US OD or SCC15 - your choice

David

Thanks for your help guys,

I've done a bit of research myself and have found that the nearest Tamiya colour match for AFV's in Tunisia is XF-26 (Deep Green), and I presume this would have been applicable for Sicily and Italy too. (Perhaps this is the earlier colour you mention?)
Otherwise i'd be using XF-61 (Dark Green) as the nearest match for SCC15.
How does this sound? I only need these colour matches for a basic base coat and so they don't have to be 100% accurate.

Cheers,

James