I'm getting ready to paint my first serious attempt at a Desert Storm tank and while it appears in all of my ref pics that the coat of sand given to the vehicles was pretty complete(and I have read stories about them being SO complete it included painting over the optics...). But, in general, were most of the vehicles painted in "hard to reach" places?
Was it normal for, say, Abrams and Bradleys to be painted sand behind the side skirts? What about in-between the road wheels or the bottom of the hull?
I just want to know if it would be authentic to leave the gaps between the road wheels in green, or the areas behind side skirts in green.
Thanks for answering my nit noy question.
Dave Lueck

Hi Dave,
I was serving with Charlie Battery 1st Bn 12th Marines during Desert Storm. We spent 8 months there immediately adjacent to the Abu Hadriyah Highway which links Bahrain to Kuwait.
We left our gear in Kaneohe Bay Hawaii where we were stationed and picked up brand new gear from MPS ships when we got to Saudi Arabia. Our advanced party cleaned up the gear removed from the ships. When I arrived, there was not a speck of green to be seen.
Daily we saw tanks, trucks, and every other kind of gear move up and down the highway. The Brits were the only force seen to be operating in their green NATO scheme.
The Abrams was new to the 1st Marine Division. We even saw some that had thrown tracks in the sand and were awaiting repair during the short fight. They looked brand new with a solid desert scheme. Paint was not in short supply, and Marines can be very thorough when it comes to following painting regulations.
I can't speak for the US Army formations further to the west. I know the 2d Marine Division brought it's green gear with it. Whether it all got painted in time, I can't be sure.
To bulldoze the berm at the border, bulldozers with armoured cupolas were used. Even these were completely sand yellow.
If you were looking to model a certain unit, I'd research that unit until I got a useful answer or photo.

Best of luck!

Gary

I was in 8th tanks with M60A1's attched to 6th Marines during ODS. We got them off the MPS ships in green and then had to install the mostly fake(training) reactive tiles. We then got a spray gun and set up a paint station. Tools and tow cables were not painted and we taped off any glass and the stencled numbers on the hull and sponson boxes. Over spray got on the track and road wheel rubber. We painted as much as we could see to include the lower hull and suspension. Not the back of the road wheels, the bottom of the fenders or the center of the hull bottom. We painted over the grill doors, exaust stains, oil stains, fuel stains etc... Looked like an over done base coat in sand. We even painted over any spare 20 mm ammo cans we aquired for storage. We then got the large green cammo nets to hide under in the sand desert. You could see our camp from about 10 miles away. That damn green net was soon lost.

Like the others have said, the Army did pretty much the same. Everything that could be removed or taped up was. Paint was applied everywhere it could reach. They were painted pretty well, but the paint sucked and chipped/scraped off pretty quickly. The paint was locally bought in Saudi and much of it was latex house paint. It didn't last long with the harsh conditions and heavy use.

H.P.

I was with 3rd plt. Co. C 3/15 Inf 24th ID during Desert Storm and our Bradley's were painted sand all over included behind the skirts and even the ramp. As you can tell from the pics of my Bradley we didn't worry about the roadwheels staying black either.

My M2A1 C-33 before we deployed to Saudi in '90


M2A1 C-21 from 2nd Plt C Co. 3/15 in the the sandbox...

A friend of mine was a loadmaster out of Westover AFRES at the time and did many trips to and from the mid East. He has photo credits in a number of period books. I remember him telling us at the time that stuff they were ferrying over arrived at the depot in NATO and were hastily painted. The drivers were given a razor blade to clean up the overspray on the lights and windshield.

24th ID vehicles were painted desert tan stateside as well. Our AO was the Middle East.