Quoted Text
Your belief of the painting of the HMMWV's is incorrect. They came from the factory in one of three paint schemes.
1. Overall CARC Green
2. 3-color NATO camouflage
3. Overall CARC Sand
The HMMWV's were contracted for production in lots. The destination of the production lot determined what color the vehicles would be painted in.
Having said that, a vehicle could certainly have been 'over sprayed' but wouldn't have been very common. In Desert Storm, over painted vehicles were very common.
Interiors on all vehicles are green coming out of the factory unless they are overpainted in the field. However, in the case of a configuration such as a M1038 or M1152 where the cargo compartment could be uncovered and visible in the open, it is painted to match the vehicle exterior.
Brent's assessment is highly accurate. And my apologies in completely skipping over this portion of the questioning about colors. Per my experience. vehicles pre-destined for desert use were painted specifically with CARC sand. That is how our unit picked some of them up stateside for flight into the T/O. Alternately, some vehicles were immediately deployed out of European stock, still in green, to be over sprayed in sand later, if at all, in the T/O. We would even have manifest, with dates, of arriving/departing vehicles, of all types, with color/designation/unit/minimum equipment list, that no longer wore the color indicated when initially deployed. Lots of vehicles remained green their entire use in the T/O. I guess what I'm trying to say is that pretty much a multiple of combinations would be/are possible, and did exist. There was intratheatre vehicle swap outs from one Middle East country to another, adding to multiple over sprays and then the attempt to return back to an original platform of color. In the G.I. world, pretty much anything goes...especially if times does not permit a paint job. Its my understanding that the paint on a vehicle was pretty much left up to the unit, more so than the command, and depending on its use in the T/O, and the discipline of the squadron/unit assigned these duties. At least that was my conversations with a few of the end users. Hope this helps, for your decision depends on my eye witness accounts instead of a photograph.
