I stumbled upon an old thread (1999) from here on Google Groups. I was wondering perhaps someone had some useful information to add to that story.
The subject is the (weird?) camouflage used by USAEUR in Germany, in the early seventies, consisting of a sand base color with large brown and green patches, smaller black patches, black star (if applied) and black vehicle numbers (on the side), but perhaps white unit ID on front and rear. This link attaches the name MASSTER to the pattern, and gives some information about the colors. (And has two color photographs.) It is not definite about the sand color (giving a choice between 30279 and 20277) and the green is claimed to be 34079, the brown being 30117. The old thread refers to an article in Military Modelling, Aug 1985, where the sand is said to be 30277, and the green 34127.
For once, I'm not too concerned about the colors. ;-) Although, any new insights would be cool, of course.
But the thread seems to ridicule the pattern quite a bit; looking like a desert pattern, "pinkish" etc, and out-of-place in verdant Europe.
It could have been some sort of preparation for a possible deployment in the middle east, but I think that's doubtful. So what's the rationale for using such an odd camouflage? However, one could just as well ask: why did Germany in WW II switch to a camouflage, where the base color was _dark yellow_?
-Lasse