I used the Archer color plates as a template and mixed my own from primes. Darker and more brownish than Tamiya’s. It does look as though Tamiya OD is a decent match for the color used for US AFVs and the handful of 1943 OD planes called for that were deployed before the NMF directive a couple of months later. US paints were pretty good, but any matte paint is going to be vulnerable to fade so I think Steve Zaloga is right to advise scale adjustment. I’ve seen photos of SW Pacific planes that are extremely washed out. 5th AF didn’t throw anything away.
Sounds like you probably mixed something pretty good.
Let’s not get into adjustment of colors for scale, no matter what Mr. Zaloga says. It’s a complicated subject, and besides, I don’t think you mentioned the scale of your model. The more obvious reasons for color adjustment relate to display lighting and weathering.
You have largely answered your own question if you have identified three different families of Olive Drab (41, 313 and 613). However, you should be skeptical when someones says that only a small number of planes were olives other than the Dark Olive Drab 41 family. Quite a few P-38s, P-47Ds, B-25Gs and Hs, A-20Gs, B-24s, etc. built in 1943 and 1944 had olive paint that pretty clearly was not Dark Olive Drab 41. Orders are not always carried out as written, or as promptly as we might imagine.
It was Archer that claimed few late OD USAAF planes made it to ETO - although he did note several bombers were in the category and had a photo of a B-17 to show the difference in the hue. Archer’s book is very strong on paper trail (unlike the Jentz claim that every German tank in France 1940 was gray/brown and dam the photo record) but he didn’t get into production and delivery figures. I’m sure in the real world things were never as tidy as the paper trail suggested. And, as noted by Archer, in the real world the OD coming from various factories during expansion wasn’t completely standardized for some time - perhaps never. And what counted as “many” planes in USAAF WWII standards? Earlier in this old thread Hans said that every squadron had planes with different colors and I’ve seen some very good color photos and films (the real deal, not colorized) that show it. I’ve also seen photos of USAAF planes of late 43-early 44 vintage that have a mix of OD and NMF - nice for modelers. The plane I built was a 1/35 Arii. An old kit, but nicely shaped. I dressed it in 5th AF garb more or less - it was an early effort and the decals weren’t the greatest. Did a lot of salt fading, but you can tell the color used pretty well:
One of these days I’ll build a USN airplane and throw another Archer argument out there - he believes that most early model colors used for USN planes are off kilter too. But that’s for another day.
Hey guys, just here to throw in my 2 cents, I’m currently masking up a p-51. I used the ak interactive od modulation set . I find it has a good looking shade of od, Iuse it for all my armour and aircraft.
That looks pretty good to me. I can’t swear to it, but I know that Mig Jimenez used to have very close association with Vallejo Paints and he maybe selling some under his own brand. (AK is now AMMO.) I have a paint conversion software program that gives the best match among model paints to the Federal Standard #(s) given to wartime OD to Vallejo Model Air. I’ve got both Model Air and Model Color OD and agree that they’re closer to USAAF OD than Tamiya. Anyway, I’d say yours looks pretty good to me: more on the brownish as opposed to olive side of the spectrum which is right. It’s not that vital anyway, especially for AFVs which should be getting some degree of weathering.
Eric
You’re right about tamiya OD, it always looked too dark to me. I also have the model air OD, it looks good as well. Once I found these modulation sets by ak and ammo (they’re actually two different companies) I became a fan. Each set comes with 5 different hues of one colour used for shadows or highlights. It opens up lots options.
Maybe divorced companies. I checked out the AK forum a few times - when I click the bookmark on my browser it takes me to Ammo. I’ve got two of the AK sets - they work well, and I’d venture they’re buying their paint from Vallejo (Jimenez, Wilder and company were all associated with Vallejo years back). I’ve got a lot of Vallejo Model Color and Model Air and the characteristics of the AK paints are very like Model Air. A few of the sets include primer and maybe a gloss or satin coat - that stuff I already have by the bucket. And once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty easy to get the same results with a little color mixing. But one of those sets would work for several kits I’d guess (always surprises me how little paint I use on a model) so it’s no big expenditure for the convenience.
Eric