Hey guys,

I'm busy with a Long Tom Dio. But I'm having a very hard time painting my soldiers. I can't find the good color mix. The idea is to paint the soldiers for the November 1944 Western front. I preferably paint with Tamiya or Revell colors.

Cheers Buck

Hey Remi,
This site will be of help !!
Cheer

jjumbo

Thank you very much for replying. I've followed your link it helped me out to get a good view at the buff colored jackets and the trousers. but i'm still quite clueless wich color the m1943 jackets should have as it only mentions who and when it was used but it doesn't help me out wich TAM color would be used for that one.

Does any one happen to have a clue?

Cheers Remi

Hey Remi
I believe you are over thinking your process!
Attempting to find a specific (and subjective) method of painting certain uniforms can give a bit of tunnel vision.
The US army had varying shades, all officially Olive Drab. Now the kicker is that the light buff type jackets were pre 1943 and were still referred to as OD (#7 from memory?) The M43 obviously is from 1943 onwards when a darker shade of OD was used (#9?) Regardless, what I'm trying to say is that there is the most usual colour seen for specific uniform items, be it on box art or colour plates in books etc. and for the M43 jacket it seems that anything that appears a shade of olive more so than buff/tan is useable, and know that there is no specific shade therein that you need to adhere to. I don't think anyone could take umbrage with a shade you use for the M43, unless as mentioned it is not a 'green' shade or variant upon. Take a Sherman tank model in plain OD. Look at the variety of shades modellers manage to obtain! Apply this thinking to the uniform, by taking into account the sunlight and general wear and tear, and how recently issued the jackets would be to your specific crew. You could have a mix of new and old, represented by faded versus a deeper olive colour?
Good luck with it all though
Brad

Hey Remi,
You'll need to let us see what uniforms your figures will be wearing.
Cheers

jjumbo

Both thanks for replying this soon. I have 2 photo's of box art as i bought them:

http://www.merit-intl.com/month/5-15-03/hf/hf524.jpg
http://www.merit-intl.com/month/5-15-03/hf/hf525.jpg

I choose to use a mix of khaki drab and flat earth (bot Tamiya) to color the pants with. I also painted the yellow jackets with a mix of Nato black and Buff (also Tamiya) But i always run stuck with the jackets. I'd like them to look like the ones we see here. Maybe 1 or 2 tints darker to match them up with the trousers.

2nd question. wich weapons did the US artillery wear in the fall of 1944 (m1 carabine's, m1 garands, Thompson or m3 greasegun?)

Cheers Remi

Hey remi no worries...
For artillery crew personal armament I am not too certain, but if one is to go by AFV, Armoured infantry and recovery crew personal armament then I imagine it would be M1 carbines as opposed to Garands and although the .45 Thompson was still around, the M3 was probably more plentiful and cheaper to mass produce. Anything that was easy to store and use I'd bet. Go by the reasoning that artillery crews are generally indirect fire combatants and that the infantry themselves would get the stopping power of Garands and .45s...
Brad