Hi all, been lurking here for a while but this is my first post. I mainly paint with Tamiya paints and Polly Scale on occasion. What , of those two brands, color would you use to paint an LCM 3 landing craft? I thought maybe Dark Sea Grey lightend a bit but the craft seems more of a blue grey. Any advice???
Thanks in advance guys

Haze Grey-

for all vertical surfaces and Deck gray (I think graphite looks close) -don't forget the non-skid which is basically dark grey !
What era/action /war are you modeling -I gave you the basic USNavy colors- there will also be black boot topping - On MY mike boats we painted the anti fouling black -I suppose you could do Red anti fouling, however because we carried the boats on the boat deck 80' of red was too good of an aiming point!
Tip - We made our own anti fouling by throwing about 5 bottles of Texas Pete Hot sauce into a 5 gallon bucket of boot topping !

Thanks for the quick reply!!! I'm doing WW2 , Normandy.

At Normandy they could be overall OD.

Gee, I wasn't think od at all. Whats your opinion on it since you have got the background?????

WW2 - note how dark it appears next to haze grey


from Bradley's letters -
Goss and the other officer were assigned fifteen LCMs and were ordered to have them painted olive drab before transporting them and 75 sailors to France. Their secret mission had them joining the Third Army, commanded by “Old Blood and Guts” himself, General George S. Patton. Their job was to use the boats to transport Patton’s army across the Rhine River as part of the final Allied assault into Germany.
Which would indicate they were NOT OD prior to the crossing of the Rhine. Great story - real potential for a dio-
http://mason.gmu.edu/~rharless/The%20Rhine.htm

Wow, thanks for all your help. I think I'm gonna go with grey. I was really looking forward to doing the weathering and rust. Its become my favorite part of the proccess.

I was told by a US Navy in my model club, that LCM's at Normandy were US Navy Measure 21, which was a mixture of blues!

http://www.steelnavy.com/usnchips.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/4289/Camo.html

Found this -it's at a memorial ay Omaha Beach - dunno if it's accurate or not looks like -


5-0 ocean greay overall - This is amazing I would have thought that a historical event of the magnitude of Normandy would have tons of drawings ,photos and research data but there is suprisingly little on the LCM3!

I think the Ocean Grey looks about right. With it faded a bit lighter. I think I'm going with that.