Olive Drab Vietnam

OD varied quite a bit, often having to do with whether or not the paint can was properly stirred, but it usually was an olive rather than a straight green, meaning that it had a hint of brown. You can add a bit of brown or red to a dark green to make it more olive. Personally, for Cold War period vehicles, I prefer to start with Tamiya OD with some black and a semigloss overspray unless I'm doing a Vietnam era helicopter, in which case Model Master FS34087 is the way to go. Gerald Owens

just how consistent would a paint be on an aircraft in the SEA climate? Bet you could do any number of shades and be fine.

Craig

you could do any number of shades and be fine.

That holds for World War II in the Pacific too. Sun and salt air played havoc with colors. My Father used to get a laugh out of my modeling friends and I getting anal about what was the correct shade for O.D.

Bill Shuey

Its kind of interesting, this question. I am trying to build some of the vehicle we had in our Engineer Company back in1967 68 in Can Tho RVN, and the OD color keeps coming up in my mind. Seems to me I remember the OD on our trucks and jeeps being a deeper, i.e., darker greenish color than the Mohawks stationed on our airfield. In addition, the C-7 Caribou's seemed to be a different OD altogether, but they all "worked", if you get my meaning. The colors also varied by the exposure to the tropical sun, and just how industrious the painter was when mixing the paint. I have color slides and pictures I took way back then, and I swear to you that no two look the same. . .it all depends on the angle of the sun, the speed of the film and the phase of the moon.

The entire thing is a toss up, it seems to me, and the rivet counters who insist that "this is the only true color" are just mistaken or fooling themselves. In the real world of Vietnam, the colors seemed to be as varied as the GI's who applied them.

Just my $0.02.

Ski

i remember a parade day in furth when i was about 10, the boys rolled out all the vehicles and none of them were the same color green. i think it was 82 airborne stuff.

I have to wonder if anyone has ever brought to Testors attention that they need Olive Drab #9, OD 41, and a good cold war FS24087. German panzers & Luftwaffe they do so well, yet they completely fall down on probably the 2nd biggest market, olive drab.

The flat OD used for Army helicopters was different from the gloss OD used for C-7s. And both of those differed from the OD which was used for vehicles, which was much darker. Vehicle paints were formulated under different standards than aircraft paints. The OV-1s normally would have been the same OD as the helicopters. If any of these aircraft were waxed that changed the color and sheen also. Add paint batch differences, and weathering/fading and you get an infinite number of variations.

John Hairell