Hi,

I am building the DML T-80UB kit and was wondering if there were any good references for the three-tone camouflage pattern as the diagrams in the kit instructions are a little inadequate! 4-view diagrams would be perfect and also some official paint references if such things exist for Russian Armour. (I come from an aviation/sci-fi modelling background so please excuse any noob inexperience!).

I've been reading up on the physical inaccuracies of the kit in the forums but I've not so far been able to find anything on the colours.

Chris

Hi Chris and welcome!

About Russian camouflage schemes: They don't have these exact schemes such as NATO countries. This means that the colours vary per region of the country and the patterns are not always the same. So if you have your basic 3 tone Russian scheme, the different paint "spots" can have many different forms depending on the specific vehicle.

The best and cheapest way is to go to google or some other search engine and search for pictures of T-80's. If you are lucky you will find a walkaround of a complete vehicle somewhere.

www.panzerbaer.de has some nice walkarounds of various T-80's:

http://www.panzerbaer.de/types/ru_t80-a.htm

good luck with your kit!!

cheers,

Matthijs

Hi Chris,
welcome within the armor team,
if I undestand what you need, the 3-tone camo is made of black, green and a gray-sand color. The latter can be made of XF60 + a light gray (medium sea gray f.i.) just enough gray for the sand not to look plain sand anymore.

If you intend to get the full scheme of camo, I think the DML one is not that bad. Anyway, try google and in the picture field of the search engine type "T-80U". You should find enough pictures to help you.

Olivier

Take a look at the T-80 videos on youtube... there is one with a yellow and greem camo scheme!

This scheme is specific to the Eastern Siberia district and if I'm correct it has not been applied to "standard" T-80 but to -UM latest variants.
Maybe Jacques could pop up and tell us a bit more about this one.

Olivier

Thanks to everyone who replied! And thanks for the welcome to the forum

I had googled for pics but I hadn't turned up most of the excellent ones that people pointed me to.

I am also a bit confused now as to how the scheme specified in the kit compares to the real thing.

The DML kit scheme has a pale green, a darker green (field green?) and black. But most photos show a very light grey/green instead of the pale green like this one:




I can't recall off hand what the pale green colour kit reference is but it was a lot greener than anything I've seen in the photos.

So my question now is, are they supposed to be the same scheme or are there two different schemes?

Chris

Thanks for the nod Olivier, but just like trying to figure out T-series designations, the paint schemes seem to be all OVER the place. From what I understand, there are a few ground rules:

The Siberian district has a different set of cammo rules from anyone else. I have seen green...3 tone sand/green/black...3 tone grey/green/black...dark green (almost black) with light grey lines on it to make it look marbled(really).

Russian Naval and Special Forces seem to have settled on the grey/green/black scheme, but they do not operate T-80's.

Otherwise, the main russian cammo scheme is sand/green/black.

The most convincing colors for me when building are Model Master's Acrylic paints. I use the follwoing for my tri-color:

Flat Black - 4768
Dark Green - 4726
US Army/Marines Gulf AR - 4812

I am also asssuming you are doing a T-80UD, not a -UB (there is no such designation that I know of...but you never know with those wacky Russians ) I too am just finishing up a build and build review of the DML T-80U SMT M1989 kit that is now the Zvezda T-80UD kit. I have to admit it has been a horror show! In the end it will look like a T-80UD...putty and all...

an example of the OTHER tri-color:



And here is a kit built using the colors I mentioned:





Again, there is no SPECIFIC pattern either...it can be hard or soft edged. And the "pattern" tends to vary even from vehicle to vehicle in each company. Have fun/