Hi all. To finally get back into the hobby I would like to know if the M113 in 'Nam would have been white inside or that 'hospital green' I see on Web images of later vehicles. And yes, one or two pictures would help greatly to add detail.

Well, it depends. They changed color during the war. Original M113 gassers had white interiors. When they went in for M113A1 diesel rebuild, and new M113A1s, they came back with the Seafoam Green interior. Both were in use at the same time during the middle-war years ('67-'68 ish). Some that had field upgrades to A1s in country kept the white interiors too.

I've always found it is "Sea-foam Green" inside Nam era M113's.
This seems to vary from a bluey green to a duck-egg colour, depending on the photo...
I don't have any scanned pictures I'm afraid; you'll just have to take my word for it...
or trawl through this lot: APC's

Here are two pics from this website http://www.11thcavnam.com/ (lots of great pics there...) showing sand bags and ammo cans used for protection against mines :




HTH

Frenchy

Great pictures and that's a fantastic link! Thanks everyone! I am beginning to like this site!

It would be the light green

You are correct on the green interior. I was on m113's in Vietnam nam. I never saw a white interior.

As an old Cavalryman who had 4 M113A1s and an M106 in his Platoon, I can state the interior is akin to a "Duck Egg Green" color-- there really isn't much "blue" coloration. I'm not sure if we called it "Sea Foam Green" either, but I suppose that's a semi-appropriate description-- we simply used an FSN numbered paint chip for it when we ordered touch up paint.
It's a very pale light green color, something like you might find on old hospital walls, a cross between a light pastel green and cream I suppose. Most models I've seen have a tendency to "overdo" the color with too much green.
Only the forward part of the mortar track was this color, the rest was a dark OD green. My experience with the interior "green" color was that it chipped and wore off the exposed edges pretty quickly-- so there was always some bare dull-colored aluminum showing underneath. The Ramp on the M113 was also a dark OD green, as well as the inside of all the hatches, including the engine hatch.
VR, Russ

When 2d Battalion 47th Infantry (Mechanized) of the 9th Infantry Division arrived in Vietnam in January 1967, they arrived with old gas powered M113's with white interiors. Slowly, as vehicles were hit or were beyond repair, they were replaced with M113A1s with the greenish interiors, but that was primarily in 1968.

My good friend Bill Rambow was a member of this unit in 1967 and the two tracks he served on in 1967 and early 1968 were M113s with white interiors. One of his tracks is featured in my diorama "Breakfast in the Boonies" in the Dioramas Forum on this site.

So basically, to answer your question about interior colors, it depends on which model (M113 or M113A1) and time period you are depicting.

Cheers,
James

Holy dead thread revival.

Back to the original response, it depends on how early you are depicting.

Here is a very early M113 (not an M113A1) with white interior to prove my initial point and back up James' points above.

Thanks, the one I was on had the diesel and the light green interior.

For actual paint, Krylon Pistachio does match the color of photographs I've seen.

I built one earlier this year and tried out a bunch of stuff. I can post a few of the reference shots I took a little later.

A few ideas that might help:

Get yourself a white gel pen. You'll be able to write just about anything you want. Great for the gun shields.


Comic books and magazines. You can always buy a pre-printed sheet, but where's the fun in that if you can print your own and include some more offbeat stuff. Printing your own also means you can make sure the release date of the magazine matches the date of the conflict you intend to represent (if you want to get all OCD like that).

http://www.coverbrowser.com/ is a good searchable database.

If you want something a bit more risque, this has a good collection of girlie mags you can use.
http://www.stagmags.com/

This is the sheet I printed out.


Here's one that I stuffed in the gunner's position.


This is how I furnished my interior. it's cluttered.