I hate to open a can of worms, but what is the overall green used on current British vehicles? On some vehicles, there is a definite bright-green color (CVR(T) family), and on others, such as Challengers, Land Rover WMIKs,and Warriors the color is almost olive drab-with a strong brownish tint. Of course, these are not hard and fast rules with regards to which vehicles are what color, just a generalization of my observations, so let's not argue about that! This overall green seems to be on vehicles in Iraq, Afghanistan and even in Europe. I know there are many factors which affect the ways colors seem to appear and even how they are altered during the printing process; I guess the question is, what do some of you who do modern British armour often use? I normally use Humbrol and White Ensign brands and have it narrowed down to about 7 different colors, depending on which picture I am trying to match! The colors that are made to specifically match British vehicles do not always look right. Does anyone know the "official" color is specified by the MoD? I guess this is the old "What is U.S. Olive Drab?" question for British armour. I normally do not weather my vehicles very much, so I need to find something that is not dependent on a heavy weathering process to achieve the "proper" look. Any suggestions will be welcome.

Douglas,
You must keep in mind that different types of vehicles come from different manufactures. So they will not always have the same color/tint of paint. Also different paint lots can vary depending on how many pints of bitters the person mixing the paint had the night before.

hi
there was NATO GREEN AND BLACK from the 70s untill around gulf war 1 then came the current colour which is more a forest green, we spray everything this colour except UORs. from tanks to 432s to trucks.
the current colour does not chaneg as much as the NATO green over time.
ossie

If you do much in the way of modeling British vehicles I can't say enough good things about Dick Taylor's Warpaint: Colours and Markings of British Army Vehicles 1903 to 2003. It's to be a 4 volume set. Books 1 and 2 are currently out. I'm not sure of the release for 3 and 4. They have been reviewed here which is what led me to seek them out, but they surpassed anything I could have hoped for.

Initially I was only going to buy volumes 1 and 2 which covered from pre WWI to the end of WWII, my main sphere of modeling, but the books are so well written and full of great information all 4 are on my "must buy" list. Some information is shared across all the volumes as best I can tell which also justifies having the full set. They have already answered many questions that I had about various WWI tank colors and WWII Middle Eastern colors. It's a bit of an investment but any good tool is.

I would love to see a similar set done on German vehicles!

This was a huge issue with me a few months ago, its not an exact science but I'll explain what I learned using the shot-gun effect..

Everything from the 70's until the late 80's was more or less a dark Olive Drab color
(I'd go with Nato Green and Olive Drab mix 20/80 respectfully)

Everything from the 90's onwards has appeared lighter in overall shade, but with a more distinct hinting of NATO Green. Again there are lighter and darker shades depending on the source of the paint job
(I'd go with a Nato Green and Olive Drab mix 60/40 give or take but more recently I have discovered that Tamiyas new RAF Green appears just perfect!)

As someone correctly raised the point earlier though, there are slight differences in shades depending on the source of the vehicles manufacturer and you cant ignore your photo reference and the effect that light and/or age is having on the vehicle in question..

I'd love to hear more about this so I'll be staying tuned