Aloha Everyone!!!!

I'm working on Trumpy's offering of the Enhanced Armor Challenger 2 and was wondering if anyone knew of a good paint match for the green. I thought Tamiya's NATO Green would be an obvious choice but it looks to green. Pictures I've seen make it look like it could be an Olive Drab. Help

Best Regards,

Kurt

Having painted British vehicles (real ones while I was serving) in black and green it is an olive drab as opposed to NATO green. I've just had a look at a bottle of NATO green and it's too bright. A good match is Tamiya XF74 OD(JGSDF) which is little lighter than the normal OD. If you're going for a black/green camouflage try XF85 Rubber black. It's not as stark as ordinary black paint. Although the paint looks very black in the tin when it's going on it does dry lighter so you'd get the same effect using XF85 and paint lightens with wear anyway. It's not a dark black if that makes sense. I can't remember why but two of us got lumbered with painting the side panels of a four tonner with paintbrushes which took forever and was a nightmare to get off your hands. I don't even think it was a punishment just wrong place, wrong time before annual kit checks

Karl,
When were you serving?

Great, great info Karl thank you. Follow up question-I understand the tanks get to the units in the overall green first and then some are painted with the black camo but in combat would there be a standard scheme?

Not a standard scheme but there are principles to follow. The exception was the Berlin Brigade scheme but that pre-dated Cr2.

Our tanks came to us green and black already straight from base workshops, roughly 2/3 green and 1/3 black. When they needed to be repainted all tanks were meant to have roughly the same scheme on each one, as in the Berlin Brigade tanks this was so individual vehicles and thereby quantities couldn't be identified. In peacetime that didn't matter as each wagon usually had the unit cap badge on the searchlight or togs door and the callsign on the side and rear of the turret. As far as I know units no longer hold the equipment to repaint vehicles apart from just touch ups. Health and safety gets everywhere.

Pawel I served from 1988 to 1992.

Thank you for the heads up Max. Do either of you know if I can substitute Tamiya German Gray for the black on the two tone scheme?

Kurt, it wouldn't work. It would just look grey and green so would be wrong. It is a definite black. For what it costs for a bottle of paint you may as well use the right colours

Thanks. From my observation - based only on photos - somewhere in mid 1990s the base colour changed slightly. Indeed earlier it was more OD colour, but later the colour closer to the NATO Green was introduced. Many photos seem to suggest (at least it looks like it to me) that color used on Chally II or AS-90 is not the same color as used earlier for example on Chally I and other vehicles.

I used Tamiya NATO black on my Takom Chieftain as it's not an absolute black, more of a very dark grey really. Also when you weather it the colour fades.

Hi Kurt,
I use a 50/50 mix of Vallerjo interior green and olive drab in their Model Air range along with NATO black.

Hope that helps,
Jacko

Tamiya German gray works for faded paint for me used it a lot for older vehicles abbot and 432s, centurion late marks

Thank you everyone for the great suggestions and ideas

check out Forest Green,FS 4079.

I'm wondering if they followed US of going from an OD green to everything from the factory in Forest green 4079) up until the NATO CARC painting of recent.