The Photo's I see are UN white and Forrest Green.

I have never seen any of them painted other than in the colors you mention.

I served as an exchange officer with the Italian Army from 96-98. Our Centauros in Bosnia with SFOR were all forest green or a darker olive drab. I never saw one in NATO three color in those two years! We used them a lot to beef up our patrols and for ready firepower if needed.

Best,

Bill

Hum... I wonder why? They are as large as any tank.

Forest green, olive drab, or sand. All solid colors.

You're right but in the Italian army, the tanks are not painted in the usual 3-tone camo with the exception of one single Ariete in service in a school if my memory serves.

Olivier

Knowing the Italians like I do it boils down to one word...MONEY!

Spanish Centauros are only painted one colour, normally green, but sometimas UN white, but as the Italian Army, the main battle tanks of Spanish Army are painte plain green (except the Leopard 2A4 bought fron Germany)

As said properly before, all Italian Centauros are and were mainly in service in the dark/forest green color.
The vehicles used in Lebanon with Unifil are painted with a washable white paint while few were also painted in a sand yellow tone during a training in Egipt some years ago.

The Nato three-tone scheme have been introduced in the Italian Army only recently and for this reason was probably decided to develop a specific scheme only for the brand-new vehicles such as Dardo, Freccia, Lince, Puma or Pzh2000.

There have been for sure also many interesting exceptions and "house-made" versions like the Buffalo MRAPs used in Afghanistan, or the world-famous single Ariete MBT painted by the Military Logistic School and never used in real life operations:
http://camionforum.forumativo.com/t76-automezzi-militari

To finish don't forget that Italian Navy Marines unit "San Marco" has used long since a own three-tone livery seen also on the VCC IFVs and LVTP-7s!


Have a good night!