Hello,

I have got a question concerning the NATO camouflage on AFVs, especially German Leopard 2 and US AFV, please.
Is there a hard edged or soft edged camo used?
I thought I had read somewhere that there were differences between German and US vehicles' camouflage paint pattern, but I could not find the thread again (It was about NATO 3-tone camo and the appropriate colors).
Thank you for your replies.

Stefan

Hallo Stefan!!

This is a pic of a real Portuguese M730A1 - Chaparral



Hope this answers your question

Skipper

A place you might try. Lots of reading but good info.

http://www.olive-drab.com/od_mvg_camo.php3

Hello Panic,
in my opinion, we can say that this a hard edged camo even if it is not painted with some kind of caches. From a close distance, the colors are quite sharp. The pic of the Chaparral above proves it pretty well indeed.

just my 2 (euro)cents
olivier

The camouflage is soft edged. It is manually applied, so the width of the soft line between colors depends on the tool used and skills of the painter. It can be quite sharp, as on the Chapparal above, but it can also be very soft and wide. I have photos of Leopards with both very soft and almost sharp camouflage edges.

Pawel

Hello,

thank you all for your replies.

Refering to Vodnik statement it depends in the end on the particular vehicle I want to build, at least if it should be a Leo.
The US Army draws the outline with chalk and paint the color with brush, airbrush or rollers, depending on the area. So their vehicles tend to have a rather hard edged pattern.
Futhermore a soft edged camo in 1/1 might turn into a relative hard edged one in 1/35. There is a smooth transition.

Thank you all.

Stefan

It really depends on how old the vehicle is.

If it has just come off of the factory floor, the vehicles are all painted by computer and all the designs are exactly the same, so every Bradley that comes off of the factory line with a NATO 3 color scheme has the same camo, all in the same place. Since it would be sprayed on with paint guns...it would produce a soft edge.

Now, if it was painted and repainted in the field, chances are, the crew probably wouldn't have acceess to paint gun, and would have to make due with what they had to put the paint on with, paint brush, roller, etc, etc, which would produce a harder line. However in most situations, if an armored vehicle needs a paintjob, it probably also needs some other kind of maintenance, so chances are it would go to a motorpool somewhere, where they would have better tools to apply a paint job.

Also keep in mind, first couple of runs through a mud puddle, and the drying dirt over the NATO scheme, pretty much makes the NATO scheme non existant and becomes an overall mud scheme.