I've got two questions actually. First, I am building a German Man 5t truck in UNOSOM operations. From ref pics, I can't tell if the white is flat or glossy. I know dust etc will change it. But as the maintenance depo applies it, is the white shiny pr not? Second, how is the white applied? Is it quickly sprayed over te camo so that crevices (like between the cab and truck bed) are unpainted and still camo or is the truck disassembled and painted as at the factory? Any info will be helpful. Thanks.

The color would normally be Matt.

The finish the vehicle would take would depend on the UN mandate & weather the deploying force would have time to prepare the said vehicles.

Alot of UN vehicles are prepared in workshops at home before deployment so most of the nook & Crannies would be sprayed too, giving the vehicle a professional finish.

However if the vehicle was rushed to theatre before being painted White in a workshop then it's likely to get an Airbrush in the field.
The finish on this would depend on the crew & how much time they had etc.

Vehicles requiring a White Paint finish urgently in theatre usually get masked just like scale models & a guy will Airbrush everything not masked.
Sometimes depending on the theatre the UN force might akso contract a local firm in the region to spray the vehicle White.

I'm pretty sure German Man Trucks were prepared before deployment and so had a good clean finish

On my two tours with the UN, the CDN vehicles we used were gloss white, mind you they might have been well worn to a gloss appearance, but they were gloss white when I got mine. It all depends on which nation painted them, some were matt and some were gloss white. Gloss white was able to be seen faster than matt, so it was better to be seen than not. Mind ya my vehicle's UN flag was full of bullet holes.

Anthony

HI!
The answer to your question varies from theatre to theatre and from country to country.

Lets speak about UNOSOM. The vehicles were painted before shipment, and different from other countries, in Germany the paintjob was done by spraying at a private contributor´s site. Will say, it was done quite carefully, also with good cleaning of the surfaces before and under good environmental conditions. The colour was semi gloss. As the paintjob was done professionally, the vehicles returned with nearly no chipping or something like that. Ok, when they got scratches, that was another story. But not the usual chipping of colour caused by bad cleaning before painting, or humid when painting or somethink else. What happened from time to time was, that the canvas covers of trucks, which are mostly coated canvas, changed colours by the influence of sun/uv-rays, I can remember a truck where the 3-tone cam was slightly visible under the white which turned out to yellow-ish. Not a question of chipping, but a question of bad resistance to sun/uv. But again, the vehicles returned after use in a very good state of colour. Not that good was the technical state of some vehicles...

see here:
http://www.panzerbaer.de/archiv/seite_t.htm
http://www.panzer-modell.de/referenz/in_detail/faltstrassengeraet/048g.jpg

These pictures show returning vehicles, I was at the same site where they were taken.

Hope that helps.

You will find a few pictures when searching for UNOSOM II BW. That was the official name of the mission.

Andreas

Guys,
I REALLY appreciate your answers and first hand experience. Thank you so much for taking time to help me!