In the 1970s, the US Mobility Equipment Research & Design Command (MERDC) developed a system of camouflage patterns for US Army vehicles. These consisted of a set of standardized patterns for each vehicle, to be used with a set of twelve colours. The local terrain conditions and colours decided which of the paints were to be used, and on which parts of a vehicle. Then, if conditions altered, for example by a change in the weather, or by the unit moving into a new area of operations, the scheme could be quickly adjusted to suit them by replacing only one or two colours by different ones.
For example, if a vehicle was painted in the US & European winter scheme, which had a dark green and a medium brown as its predominant colours, and it started to snow, by overpainting either the green or the brown with white, one of the two snow schemes could be created. This gave a high degree of flexibility, though in practice it was hardly ever actually made use of—most vehicles were painted in one scheme and kept that.
Any of the MERDC schemes could be found with either hard edges (hand-painted) or soft edges (spray-painted) to the colour patches. Soft-edged patterns seem to be more common, however, probably because it takes less time to spray a tank than it does to spray the tank and then touch up the edges.
The table below lists the various MERDC colour names and their corresponding Federal Standard 595a numbers (if two numbers are shown, it is because some sources give different numbers for the same colour names). The numbers can be used to match model paint numbers to them, as the table also shows; these have been taken from the excellent Swedish IPMS colour reference charts, although it should be noted that the person who compiled those charts apparently uses Humbrol paints more than anything else, as the mixes for those are the most detailed. However, as with all military modelling, keep in mind that hardly any military vehicle actually is exactly the colour it is supposed to be. Within reason, you can vary quite a bit from the base colours quoted.
All the colours are flat, as indicated by the first digit of the FS595a-code (1 = gloss, 2 = satin, 3 = flat).
|Colour1||FS-595a Number||Gunze Sangyo||Humbrol||Tamiya||Testors (Model Master)|
|Dark Green||34102 (or 34082)||H303||117||2 parts XF-61 + 1 part XF-65||1713|
|Desert Sand||30279||?||4 parts 121 + 2 parts 118 + 1 part 110||?||?|
|Earth Brown||30099||8 parts 110 + 2 parts 113 + 1 part 33||?||?||?|
|Earth Yellow||30257 (or 33245)||?||1 part 94 + 1 part 63||XF-59||1735 (or 2110)|
|Field Drab||30118 (or 33105)||?||1422||XF-523||1702|
|Olive Drab||34087 (or 34088)||H304||4 parts 108 + 3 parts 163 + 1 part 33||XF-624||1711|
|Sand||30277 (or 33303)||?||6 parts 168 + 2 parts 118 + 1 part 110||XF-49||1704|
1 Perhaps unnecessarily, it should be noted that the colours of these samples are approximations. Match paint to the FS595a and/or model paint colour numbers quoted in the table, not to the colours you see on your screen.
2 This is an older Humbrol colour (pre-Super Enamel) and so may be difficult to find nowadays.
3 Tamiya XF-52 is much browner than the red/orange hue of FS30118.
4 Tamiya XF-62 is a very dark colour, and is best lightened with a sand colour to approach FS34087 more closely.
The following table has the different colour combinations allowed. Colours 1 and 2 each cover about 45% of the vehicle, colours 3 and 4 cover 5% each. Remember that these are in fixed patterns, so you can't just paint your vehicle in any way you like. However, there are two things that make this a bit easier. The first is that the troops painting the vehicles had a bit of leeway in how rigidly they stuck to the patterns—within 10% was close enough—and the second, that new types of vehicle were often in service before the official pattern had been determined, so they received improvised patterns based on the existing ones; the M1 Abrams is a good example of this, as photos of it in the early 1980s show.
By comparing this table to the one above, it will be obvious that not all twelve colours are actually used. This is because colour no. 3 should be adjusted to match the local bare soil, using any of the other colours as necessary.
|Desert, gray||Sand||Field Drab||Earth Yellow||Black|
|Desert, red||Earth Red||Earth Yellow||Sand||Black|
|Snow, temperate climate with open terrain||White||Field Drab||Sand||Black|
|Snow, temperate climate with trees||Forest Green||White||Sand||Black|
|Summer, US & Europe, verdant||Forest Green||Light Green||Sand||Black|
|Tropics, verdant||Forest Green||Dark Green||Light Green||Black|
|Winter, US & Europe, verdant||Forest Green||Field Drab||Sand||Black|
One of the best references for modelling American vehicles painted in MERDC camouflage is US Army Technical Bulletin TB 43-0147: Color, Marking and Camouflage Patterns Used on Military Equipment, the December 1975 edition of which can be downloaded from the US Army's Electronic Technical Manuals site (see the links page). This manual has drawings of the official patterns for many vehicles and other equipment (though unfortunately not everything in use by the US Army at the time), and outlines the placement of markings on the vehicles as well.
Painting instructions are contained in Technical Circular 5-200. Although it does not contain any patterns (aside from a sample, for the M113 APC), it does provide information that is very useful to modellers.