Hey, people, I need a small hand here. I'm going to be starting a bunch of US figures and re-working some older ones for the BOTF campaign, but I'm not sure what color to do the trousers in. I know jackets can be buff, khaki, OD, and any permutation in between, but for the trousers, I see browns, I see greens. Which is going to be most accurate?

Hey Lewis,
Like the age old question, "What's real U.S. Olive Drab look like?", uniform colours are equally a problem.
You've got to remember that the uniforms worn by combat troops in WW II were manufactured at many different factories and very few items were ever a uniform colour.
It wouldn't be unusual for there to be extreme variations in colour and shade and quality depending on the materials used and the source of supply.
My Dad says that Canadian battledress uniforms were much greener and better tailored than the ones worn by the British, even though the uniforms were essentially identical.
Washing, fading and the wear and tear from combat affected the colour of a uniform.
Whenever I paint a set of figures, I slightly vary the colour of the pants, jackets and gear from figure to figure to illustrate this.
Anyway, this site may be of some help:

http://www.usarmymodels.com/guidetopainting.html

Cheers

jjumbo

Well there were brown wool trousers, green HBT trousers and gree M43 trousers. Go to http://www.atthefront.com/us_uni.htm for an interesting read on genuine colors for US uniforms.

Try this site.

http://www.usarmymodels.com/guidetopainting.html

It's on Tim Streeters site and he gives a listing of color option for US Army uniforms.

Steve

The US Army had a bewildering variety of specialty uniforms during WW2, but for modeling purposes we can concentrate on a few.
Broadly speaking, there were two temperate woolen uniforms in widespread use. The M1941 uniform was brown wool trousers and shirt, with a four-pocket brown wool jacket. However, the jacket was deemed "Class A" wear by the troops, who reserved it as a formal item to be worn on leave, and the Parsons jacket was worn in the field. The Parsons jacket was cut like a civilian windbreaker, and was initially popular, but it was soon disliked for its lack of full lining or tight closures at cuff and neck. The tanker's jacket was similar in cut, but was fully lined with blanket material and had knitted cuffs and collar closures, so infantry sought after them avidly. Color of these two jackets was generally a tan or buff color, but some were greenish.
The M43 uniform was muted green color. Early issues were a semigloss sateen fabric, but most issues were matte finish poplin. The jacket had skirts compared to the waist length Parsons jacket. Late in the war, a waist length woolen jacket based on the British Battle Dress jacket (dubbed the Ike Jacket, as Eisenhower wore one) was issued, but it seemed largely limited to rear area troops until the Postwar period, and may again have been deemed a Class A item. A slightly different version was manufactured in the UK for USAAF troops.
Officers had the option of buying salmon colored trousers at the post exchange (dubbed "pinks), which could be worn with any of the standard field jackets, but these again were usually seen only in rear areas or stateside.
There was also a green cotton herringbone twill hot climate uniform, which was seen in North Africa and the Pacific, and sporadically elsewhere (troops in Africa complained that it was too thin for the cold desert nights--so the troops landed in Sicily in wool uniforms instead, which proved too hot). There was also a tan warm weather uniform dubbed "Chinos," but these were almost never seen on infantry in combat theaters.
There were many other types like parachute uniforms and various types of overalls, winter mackinaws and camouflage outfits, but that should at least get you started.

Fellas, thank you. You've given me the info I need to go to the LHS and get the colors I need. Pretty wide range, really... I didn't think just OD, Olive Green and brown were quite going to cut it. So now I have Buff, Dark Yellow (somewhere between buff and Khaki), Khaki, Khaki Tan, OD, Khaki Drab, Olive Green, and a whole bunch of browns.

Just as an aside, makes for a pretty motley-looking bunch of soldiers in uniform! Or maybe it's multiform!

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/review/3218

try this one look at the pictures

Tim Streeter's article is about the best I have seen. Let us know how you make out.