US ARMY, camouflage, Germany, early 70'es (pre-MERDC)

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

Reply to
Lasse Hillerøe Petersen
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As far as I know, the early 1970's cammo was strictly a local innovation in USAEUR, as some questioned the logic of using semi-gloss Olive Drab for concealment from the large numbers of attack helicopters being fielded by the Warsaw pact. The colors were probably dictated by whatever was available in the supply system at the time. The Army apparently agreed that change was needed, as the scheme was superceded in 1974 by the complicated four-color MERDC patterns. The German choice of Dunkelgelb in 1943 makes sense, as it is a reasonable compromise for soil types found in Europe (samples I've seen are actually more tan than yellow). In any case, it was intended to be largely covered by Olivgrun and/or Rotbraun as dictated by local conditions. Ultimately, the Germans switched to overall Olivgrun with Rotbraun and Dunkelgelb as secondary colors, but the war ended before that scheme became common. Gerald Owens

Reply to
Lafimprov

What camo? When I was stationed there in 69-72 everything was unicolor. Green or a derivitive of it. The only camo requirments were for units stationed in combat or hazard duty areas ie Vietnam and Korea. Never saw a camo'd vehicle in Germany other than those we painted white for the winter games (Ace Moblie Forces) in Norway.

Reply to
ARMDCAV

That makes sense, the webpage I referred to explicitly mentions autumn

72 as the time of its introduction. The book _M-113 In Action_ has several pictures of M-113, M-577 and M-106 in the scheme, BTW. These vehicles are mostly (all?) marked 7A 11CAV, in white stencil, front and rear.

-Lasse

Reply to
Lasse Hillerøe Petersen

That does not necessarily imply it was not under the umbrella of the MASSTER-project.

Either that, or they were specified somehow within the MASSTER project; that would be interesting to know.

Which is very similar (in colors, if not in pattern) to the US ARMY scheme some 30 years later.

I recall seeing vehicles (M-151?) in that scheme in some US movie; it was a science-fiction movie, could have been one of: Hangar18, Starman, Close Encounters, ... Has the pattern been used in continental US also, perhaps? Of course I could be confusing the scheme with the MERDC desert pattern, I only recall seeing a short glimpse in one movie.

-Lasse

Reply to
Lasse Hillerøe Petersen

When we went over for REFORGER 75 we picked up some camo'ed USAREUR vehicles.

They were pretty nasty - ours were brush-painted (!) with earth (the pinkish tan), OD, black and earth brown (the reddish color). We had our vehicles sprayed in the MERDC Winter Verdant scheme of dark green and field drab with black and FS30277 sand. Plus ours only had the 3" black stars, not the full size ones.

Note some vehicles still had white stars over the camo!

Cookie Sewell

Reply to
AMPSOne

Would you say that could be FS 30279 (looks to me like a pinkish sand with about the same lightness as 30277) 34087 (Perhaps the obnoxious light, matt OD introduced for helicopters in Viet Nam _was_ used on vehicles after all?) and 30117?

(I suppose you meant the vehicles before you repainted them?)

Interesting!

What I really like about this pattern is that it is not as finicky as the MERDC and modern tri-color. If I recall correctly the latter two are supposed to be correct within 2" from the pattern. That's hard when you are painting a 1/72 scale M-113! Plus the original "sloppy" application means that I can feel a bit better about brushpainting it. :-)

-Lasse

Reply to
Lasse Hillerøe Petersen

I commanded a tank company in 2/64 armor at Schweinfurt in 1970. The tanks were a mixture of M 60's and A-1's and were OD with a mixture of 10-20% black. Hand mixed by the crews. The stars were white as were the stencils. The turret numbers were orange as were the markings on the bore evacuator. Command section markings were solid and the platoons were denoted in stripes. My command tank had a 266 on the turrent side for B Co. (2), command section (6) commanders tank (6) and a solid orange evacuator. The XO/FO tank was 265, the first platoon commander of B Company was 216, 226 for the 2nd platoon and so on. There were 17 tanks in a company, 5 in a platoon and so on. We had an 88, M113 gassers and so on. All were OD with added black, sprayed with the compressor on a 2 1/2 ton and each had a sand additive on the deck surfaces and a 2X4 stuck between the front light brackets for a foothold getting up on the front deck. The tow hooks were mounted reversed (turned up) for the same reason. No tanker gets in his tank with muddy boots and and most tanks had four sets of muddy rubber boots stuck upside down in the grab rail around the turret. there is a combat lock on the turret hatches from the inside and the loaders hatch had an external flange and mount for a padlock for the motorpool lock. All the sponson boxes were alos locked to keep those theaving bastards from the 3/7 Cav out of our OVM. Antennas were tied down unless in the field (but not mounted in the motor pool). Ammo (Main and small arms) was on board and only Grease guns and bolts for the coax were in the arms room. Our A-1's had M-2's and M-85 machine guns as the M-2's had been a stop gap as we waited for the M-85's. The M-2 was better for AA so we kept them both.

1Sgt's M-60 was the dozer tank (260). The FO crewed the XO tank and the XO crewed the maintenance section from an M151. The section was in an M-113 and an 88. Both were gassers. No camo in 70 in 2/64 or 3/64. Never saw camo till I got to Hood in 75. Hugh Mills old tanker
Reply to
HMills16

Lasse,

Nope, these were the PREPO vehicles from the storage bases in Mannheim and the vicinity or "loaners" from the 502nd ASA GP. They were painted with OD (could be they left it "bare" and painted around it) and not FS34079.

Our vehicles (337 ASA CO attached to 1st ID at Fort Riley, KS) were supposedly painted with FS34079, FS30118, FS30277 and FS34038. We had a DeVilbiss spray kit and a SP6 with some artistic flare so ours were neatly done in MERDC Winter Verdant.

Cookie Sewell

Reply to
AMPSOne

"Lasse Hillerøe Petersen" wrote

That is no problem when you have robots doing the painting. The idea is that everything looks more or less the same. Truck, tank, trailer, there is a black V on the side.

KL

Reply to
Kurt Laughlin

I've always wondered about such things, especially after seeing how Hollywood portrays things. I certainly wouldn't want the enemy to be able to open my hatch and toss in a grenade.

What was their problem? Poor supply or were they trained that way? tia

The Keeper (of too much crap)

Reply to
Keeper

I have found a wonderful collection of images here:

These are supposedly from the year 1976, and show both the sand-base camo pattern and the ordinary MERDC winter verdant pattern, on M-577, M-60A3? and M-60A2. Picture #7 of an M-60A2 is especially strange, in that it seems to be all dark OD (even darkened?), but if you look carefully, you can see what can only be a black ! star, obscured a bit by an open hatch.

Now if only Italeri would reissue the old ESCI M-60A2! (And the M-106, and the M-163, and all the M-4 version and, and ... . Can you tell I miss the ESCI range?)

-Lasse

Reply to
Lasse Hillerøe Petersen

What was their problem? Poor supply or were they trained that way?

Well, having served in armor, cav and aviation units, everybody stole (reallocated assets) everything that was not tied down. The Cav was just better at it. Hugh Mills

Reply to
HMills16

Lasse,

Alas, ESCI never had a 1/35 scale M60A2, although I wish they had given the quality of their A1/A3 kits.

Cookie Sewell

Reply to
AMPSOne

They had one in 1/72 though. Lucky for me, if only I had bought one in time.

Meanwhile I seem to have narrowed the timeframe for the sand-based camouflage down to about 1973-1978.

-Lasse

Reply to
Lasse Hillerøe Petersen

Lasse,

That seems about right as the MERDC schemes were introduced in late 1974 and by that time everything would have been redone.

The tricolor NATO schemes came in around 1983.

Cookie Sewell

Reply to
AMPSOne

I suppose it would make sense to begin with camouflaging the vehicles not yet camouflaged (US based?) and wait with those which already were (Germany).

Let me see. According to olive-drab.com (a fine site!): "The dark olive semigloss was used into the 1970s until replaced by the camouflage patterns that were adopted in 1976." This was with "TC 5-200 "Camouflage Pattern Painting" dated 28 August 1975".

193x?-1976? Dark Olive Drab 1972?-1979? Sand-based camo in Germany (elsewhere? official name?) 1975-1990? MERDC (I recall M-551s from Desert Shield) 1983-? A modified ("tri-color") MERDC, eliminating Sand? 1983- Tri-color.

Although the Sand-based scheme was a bit short-lived (6-7 years?) it appears to have been quite common in Germany. I'm still unsure whether it was a phenomenon limited to the 7th Army. The actual orders defining the scheme and its scope would be a terrific thing, but noone seems to have found it yet?

-Lasse

Reply to
Lasse Hillerøe Petersen

The MERDC camoufalge manuals are TC 43-0147 (75) Color, Markings, and Camouflage on Military equipment, in 1976 Dept of the Army issued TC 43-0209 Color, Markings, and Camouflage on Military Vehicles, Construction Equipment. I have a complete copy of each TC if anyone ever needs a pattern. Just drop me a line with what you are looking for.

THe sand color depended on the location of the vehicle.The sand was to match as closely as you could to the local earth color. 76-79 at Ft. Hood, Tx my vehicle was light sand (tannish), 79-82 Scholfield barracks, HI, they were Earth Red, 83-86 at Ft. ORd, CA they were sand againslightly darker then what we had at Ft. Hood. In 1986 at Ft. Ord when we started to receive HMMWV we begain painting all the old MERDC painted vehicles to the new Tri-Color (NATO) Patern.

The MERDC (4 color) pattern called for 45% Color #1 usually a Green, 45% color #2 (a lighter green) 5% color #3 local earth color, 5% color #4 Black. he actuall colors for #1,2,4 were location dependant. be it red or grey desert, arctic, temprate zone (seasonal), Tropics, US or Europe

Reply to
The First Geer Family

Well, according to olive-drab.com, TC 5-200 (28 August 1975 ) predates TB 43-0147 (December 1975) a little; I have a PDF copy of TB 43-0147 which I got from olive-drab.com. The material in the two manuals overlaps quite a bit.

I'm fully aware of the use of the S color in MERDC. What I really would like to know, is which color was the sand base of the 7th army scheme used in Germany circa 1972-1979. I know that the coloring guides from some old ESCI kits stated 33531 which is a very pale sand, but ESCI, like Italeri, has always been prone to quoting wrong colors. Judging cautiously from the photographs I've referred to before, I am inclined to believe that the right color is 30277. But there must have been some official order defining it (given the scale of its application), which would be very interesting to know more about. I have also heard rumours that the colors were locally procured non-FS paints, but somehow I doubt that.

-Lasse

Reply to
Lasse Hillerøe Petersen

Lasse,

The USAREUR color was NOT FS30277 as it was a different type of paint. The one they used looked more like one of the old AN shades from WWII as it was darker and had a pinkish tint to it.

Cookie Sewell

Reply to
AMPSOne

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