Hello
I would like to make a small diorama from Afghanistan. I put M1 ABV, M88A1 ARV and 4 figures of modern US Marines from MiniArt. If I'm not wrong US Marines have IOTV that should be in coyote brown colour. I use acrylic paints from Pactra, Tamiya and valleyo.
Can somebody tell me what paint to buy or what mix to have exactly coyote brown ?
Thank You for help
Chris from Poland

I went through this colour saga in 1:1 scale back in 2011-12 when I was buying new plastic pistol holsters and weapon furniture for UK forces. Some bright spark in Requirements wanted everything in Coyote Brown! What they really wanted was something to blend with the new Multi-Cam uniforms.

Short answer is that there isn't - or at least there wasn't in 2012 - a recognised colour called Coyote Brown. It was a trade name used by Blackhawk to describe the brown colour some of their kit comes in. Like saying Arctic White or Night Black. Many soldiers had privately purchased Blackhawk kit and the colour name went into general use.

We did come up with a Pantone match for it by using a colour measuring device on a real item but I can't for the life of me remember what it was after 5 years. We couldn't find an exact FS match. And everyone's product submissions were all slightly different in colour anyway. Different materials, different pigments, different reflectiveness etc.

Merry Christmas, Chris. The closest match for coyote brown I've found is field drab from Vallejo.