I have just finished my Academy Bradley and would appreciate any suggestions for camo schemes.I have one or two ideas but would appreciate any ideas that are more interesting than just an olive drab/sand colour.Anyone know if the European theartre camo is different to just an overall olive drab scheme?

Later
Hawkeye

Bradleys as well as most other US modern armor are most often 1 of 3 color schemes.

1) Over all Olive Drab
2) Over all Desert Sand
3) NATO 3 color camo scheme, (of which Tamiya has the proper colors)

Now...having said that...the NATO scheme is open to interpretation.....although Tamiya supposidly has the "proper" NATO colors.....depending on many conditions...they may not be the exact colors.....ie: paint could be mixed wrong, high humidity where the vehicle is painted, whether the vehicle has been painted in the factory or in the field, etc, etc, all these factors figure into what the colors actually look like.

Myself...I just finished a Hungarian BTR-80....and since Hungry is now a memeber of NATO, I decided to go with a NATO 3 color scheme......didn't turn out too bad....and I painted with Tamiya paints....but not the NATO ones.....I used Dark Green mixed with a little Desert Sand to lighten it for the base coat, Flat Brown with a little Flat Black to darken for the brown, and Flat Black for the black.....they look fine to me for the colors...and once all the washed, drybrushing and pastels are done....it will look like something that has been in the field for a little while.....looks very convincing...to me anyway!!

Thanks for that Scott. I think i will go with a NATO scheme,you got any advice on interior colours?

Later
Hawkeye

Hmmmm Interior colors......can't help you there as I haven't built my M2 Bradley yet.....I think it is a light green color inside....but Sabot would be the expert on that as he has probably a whol division lined up in his driveway.....well maybe not now if they have been sent to the Gulf!! LOL

Good interior color is Tamiya Sky type S. Very reasonable match straight out of the bottle. There is also a Japanese interior cockpit color that looked about the same shade.

As far as color, the initial batch was fielded in an overall forest green color that faded quickly and sucked up dust to make it look olive. Many were issued in the 4-color MERDC schemes but then went to a modified 3-color MERDC scheme (the small squiggles of sand were removed and the black "seagull-like" squiggles were done away with too). The modified 3-color scheme was similar to the NATO 3-color scheme except that the brown color was a more earth toned redish brown. Eventually as the Bradleys were rebuilt or new ones came into use, they were fielded in the now standard NATO 3-color scheme. All the ones at my work are in this pattern.

As far as if you want to do one in desert sand, you can do one that was issued in the desert sand (more yellow) or one that was NATO 3-color but then over painted in theater. The sand color of those vehicles varied and since the CARC paint underneath did not hold the new coats on very well, you could chip the heck out of it with bits of the NATO scheme showing through.

There were also various local desert patterns tried by CONUS units in the 80s (24th ID out of Georgia, IIRC) that used some sand in place of one of the other colors in the scheme. Also vehicles used for NTC rotations at Ft. Irwin, Calif. may have had a non-standard desert scheme.

Scott,Sabot, thanks for your help

I will go and find the colours you both recomended and get my as in gear as to the painting..thanks guys

Later
Hawkeye