Hello All,
I was sitting around and looking at some of the kits in the stash, when I came across Tamiya's Challenger I Mk. 3. When I was looking at the instructions I noticed that the two color schemes given were black/green and desert. I got to thinking, the Abrams, Leopard and LeClerc were painted in the NATO 3 color scheme, but I don't recall ever seeing a Challenger in this scheme.
Were any ever painted this way? If not, does anyone know the reason why?
While I'm at it, what about Italian armor?
Any and all information will be greatly appreciated.
Joe

The British do not use the NATO 3-color scheme on any of their vehicles. I don't know why, but they don't. They have stuck with the Bronze Green and Black scheme for years now.

Maybe to give the yanks an excuse why they do friendly fire!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Duhhhhhhhhhhhhh that wasn't our camo so I shot it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh the great fog of war!

Nige

I just bought the Trumpeter Ariete and noticed the same thing (like the Chally is NOT in the NATO 3 colour)! While we are on the subject, is there a FS paint number that equates to bronze green? All my kits list Humbrol paint that is not available to me.

If we painted our tanks the same as all the others, would it stop you shooting at us!!


sorry for the rant, but I lost 3 good friends in the so called friendly fire incident in the first gulf war.
We have a saying in the Army

` Incoming freindly fire, isn`t `

think about it
malc.

You can use NATO Green for the green/black cammo'd Challengers, Bronze Green is an altogether darker colour used in the 50s/60s.

David

Might be that they bought in several trillion gallons of paint for the end of one financial year and they aren't gonna buy new colours till it's all used up.

You have to wonder, don’t you? The three-tone camouflage was introduced to ensure that NATO wasn’t inadvertently helping out The Other Lot. The problem was that that you could tell what you were looking at just by the way it was painted, everyone’s colour schemes being so varied; a universal colour scheme reduced that problem. Even the French – not traditionally great lovers of the NATO structure – adopted it. Yet the UK didn’t. And nor did Italy, I believe, nor Spain, nor Greece; but Switzerland did.

Like most good NATO ideas I expect it was that toxic combination of Not Invented Here and inertia…

Yea! Thats what my quote says!

I am truly sorry for your loss. War is a dangerous place. We all know this when we sign our name on the dotted line. Friends die, civilians die, and sometimes even the enemy dies. Men are put under extreme stress and forced to make life and death, split second decisions. I seam to recall that there were some M1's with "sabot" holes in them too.

i agree combat can be stressful, but when aircraft identify friendly forces as T/55 tanks instead of British warriors or day glow panels as rockets or as in Bosnia a tractor with a trailer full of civvies as a Serb artillery piece, you have to ask yourself what the hell are these guys thinking ? are they not taught any kind of vehicle recognition , i saw all three tapes and on listening to the A10 and the F16 pilots voices there seemed to be no stress in the conversations, it was only afterwards when they were told what they had done did they become stressful, the thing that hurts more is the cover up or the will not to hand over the evidence to a so called friendly country , even if all vehicles were painted the same colors would it really make any difference ? i dont think so ! why did they want NATO vehicles painted the same color , this was to unite NATO as one force , why did we not paint our challengers in NATO colors , this is because the green and black is meant for the UK it blends better with the UK environment and landscape , one more thing i found out the Germans had a base in wales and when they deployed their leopards on UK exesises ther painted them green and black , and on RTU repainted them three tone, so there you have it nothing toxic about that at all , just common sense,,,,,,,,

Hey guys!!!!!!!!!!

As the one who made the first jibe about friendly fire I have got to let you all in on a little story that will ring true in the heads of a lot of guys and galls on here.

Firstly, as an EX TA soldier with the RLC (V) who has never had to fire a weapon in anger, or had the honour of serving his country in a foreign land during times of hostility, my experience of warfare and its horrers have been thankfully limited to the one way traffic of hot lead at carefully positioned and helpfully coloured static, or sometimes moving (ok very slowly) targets somehow always in the general direction my rifle was pointed. MMMMMMMMMMMMM How convenient!

The situation that brings the fog of war close to my own mind involves basic training on the hills overlooking Edinburgh and practicing reaction to an ambush. In the counter movement towards the enemy in line abreast through high bushes. One of my palls to my left got ahead of us all. The idiot took a lazy break, lay down in the middle of bushes pointing in the general direction we were attacking from and was promptly shot by myself who came around the bush and saw the supposed sniper. Isn't it nice to know my wargames were done with blanks ,,,,,,,,,,,,, and oh how we all laughed after it!!!!!!!

I feel for those guys who pressed the wrong buttons and have that on their minds for the rest of their lives. The people I think caused most of the later grief were the politicians and Army Top Hats who did not want to be put in the spot lights for not getting the safe (or should I say safer) guards in place prior to hostilities to reduce where possible the chances of this happening. After all "WAR is a dangerous place to be".

The British Army has to my limited knowledge not bought fully into the system of FoF identification systems that could have been used. Just like the body armour that never arrived, or the IED protection systems that sat in store cupboards cause they were not to get lost or broken.

There is also the time when I threw a thunderflash into my own trench,,,,,,,,,,,,, but that is another story!

As I said The GREAT FOG OF WAR !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Respect for all the TRUE soldiers and RIP all those who died in the service of their country! Whichever side!

Like you say Gary! Track the theme!

Lots of people like to rant or rave on here. Some also make nice little jokes or funnies all relevant to their own experience or to the subject matter.

As having possibly offended half the yank community on this site, the other half possible peeing themselves laughing at shooting this blog down with a one liner, it was only too right to make amends by telling it like it is.

As for the camo colour I happen to like the fact that the Brittish Army kept its right to paint its tanks in its own colour scheme relevant to the conditions that it expects to place the vehicles in. The Yanks do the very same. However there are a lot of vehicles that went out to Iraq in Brittish two colour camo and operated side by side with sand coloured.

Is ok if the sand coloured isn't in the middle of the very fertile zones of Iraq that are very green.

If you still think this is a rant or irrelivant Gary, then get over it. This is a blogging site!!!!!!!

Nige

Lets have a drink and chat some more!!!!!

whats wrong Mr owsley , have you not heard of freedom of speech ? if you care to check some more questions on this site you will find a lot more that go off track, why not complain to them as well, then you can be the armorama off track police. i think its more a case of being offended than going off the subject , you seem to have issues about being offended, so as you said yourself deal with it ! PS just for your interest ,how many friendly fire incidents have involved British forces in Iraq being attacked by us aircraft ? six , how many incidents involving us aircraft in Iraq ? twenty three, these are only the known cases

Firstly back on subject I to was wondering if any British armour has ever been painted in NATO 3 tone not just Challies.




Jon I have just brought the 1/72 Ariete and this has a 1 sided view (lot of good that is) of NATO 3 tone along with the green version. I believe the C-1 Ariete is now getting the 3 tone scheme but can not found any descent pictures.

Ciao
Luciano

Hey All,
Thanks to you who addressed the question.
My apologies to everyone else for the "turn of events" as it was not my intention or desire to see the thread deal with anything other than the NATO 3 color scheme and its use by the NATO allies.
I'm not condeming of judging anyone.
I will tell you now, if anyone wants to respond to what I've said, that is your perogative, but I will not say any more about it in this thread.
Joe

Hey Joe

I hope that you were not offended and that you will continue in the blog!

Courting controversy is often a good thing as it gets peoples minds thinking about the realities of war.

If three colour camo is good for preventing blue on blue then it would be good to see it happen. Reality is that enemy would know who the goodies are and shoot the hell out of them all.

The same can be said for using the same shape and profile for AFV that make ForF hard to distiguish.

It would be nice to see what adaptions that have been made through the years to vehicles to attempt to make blue on blue less prone. I am sure that most of these will be down to digitised warfare systems, and some of these will show up on the outsides of some modern vehicles. The older swaztika, allied white star and RAF roundles of ww11 are well recorded but I know very little about what measures were taken in the Falklands, Gulf 1, 2,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,etc, etc.

My 109' Landies and DROPS are likely to be done in a mixture of British black and green with DROPS in sand and flat racks in mixture for Gulf 1.

From the other blogs I have seen the Yanks putting non sand coloured vehicles into use in this period too, what measures did they take that might have been different to the Brittish?

What identification measures would have been used then?

Nige

The British forces only use the 2 colour scheme because that's all you need . If you look into a wooded area, predominately you will see just green and shadow (black). If the paint scheme is applied correctly, then the black is used to break the outline of the vehicle, whatever the size or shape. If the vehicle is 'harboured up' then the troops with the vehicle will apply the cam netting to better hide the vehicle silhouette. The proportion of green to black is about 2-1, trying to paint at least 3 of the corners in black. No 2 vehicles should be the same.
Supposedly all unit vehicles are repainted 'professionally' at base workshop, with spray devices, every 4 years, although I don't remember any of my unit vehicles going off . In the intervening years it's left to the amateurs in the unit to do the paint job. In theory the Painters from the Corps of Royal Engineers are the advisers to the Army on paint schemes although if you look at the useless paint scheme used by the British Berlin brigade during the cold war you will see that we weren't consulted.

I think that the idea on painting equipmrnt a certain color or pattern is to give you somthing to start with, then you can change it as the situation dictates. Otherwise we could just leave them primer gray. Regulations dictate what colors and what pattern you use. The regulations are very specific right dowh to + or - one inch for the starting point of each color and + or - three inches for the overall pattern. You use a set of colors that you think will work for a certain part of the world that you expect to be deployed to. The NATO colors replaced the old MERDEC Woodland Scheme of, dark green, field drab, sand, and black . That's what we did because we were tasked to go to Western Europe in the event of a Soviet attack. Other units that were tasked for tropical areas were, dark green, light green, sand, and black. Desert areas had two schemes one for gray desert and one for yellow desert. I guess the decision makers felt that solid sand yellow worked better than the yellow desert scheme.

The thing with the green and black scheme is that it can be used where-ever there is green and black, so woodland in Europe or jungle in Africa, Central/S.America or Asia it's still green and black. why complicate it with different shades and brown. It even fits in with open ground temperate climates where the soils are the rich reds and browns.

Joe's question asked if Challenger 2 was ever in Nato 3-color scheme and if not why not. Many of the replies note that the Green and Black scheme was better suited for England. I don't think that answers the question of why not. Were Challengers operating with Nato on the continent in Green/Black or 3-color NATO. What was suitable for Englands forests may not have been sutable for NW Europe. I personally don't think the colors would make much difference to a ground attack pilot, some type of IFF or the shape or outline would seem to be a better way to tell the "good guys" from the rest.
v/r,
Cob

I agree, the painting of a vehicle doesn't really hide it from aircraft. they can see the IR signature it gives off. What it does, is make it difficult to tell exactly what it is. If you look at it from ground level, you can't tell if it is a tank or even if it's gun is pointed at you. That gives the tank a few extra seconds to find you and get you in his sights. In any furture ground combat, with modern thermal sights, it is actual a moot point. We could paint everything pink and it wouldn't make it any different. An M1 can kill at 3000 meters. I think probably English military, desided the black and green worked better in England. One thing to keep in mind. With the size of the WARSAW Pact armys, The NATO forces in Europe were very out numbered. Those forces were only going to be able to fight a holding action until additional troops could be brought in. If you look at how long it took to get troops into Saudi in 1991, my guess is that reinforcements would have been landing in England not France or Germany. So mabe they were planning to fight as a home guard. This is just conjecture of course, mabe they just want to be different.

Regardless of the number of camo colours or the similarity of the shapes of friend and foe combat vehicles, that fine compromise of masking the true identity and purpose of the vehicle from enemy eyes is only as good as the technology that it is put up against.

Infra red sights and FoF identification systems are only as good as the final person making the decision at the end to attack something or to pass it by for something more important or easier to attack without being destroyed themselves.

In night time conditions in the middle of a desert with warm engines, there is no doubt that western technology advantage won over any amount of camo or colours.

I am sure that UK forces must have experimented many times with more than just two colour camo schemes. Was there not a three colour scheme used by the British forces in the African campaighns in WW2 of blue - grey - sand with very angular shapes?

Nige