Hello All,
I was sitting around and looking at some of the kits in the stash, when I came across Tamiya’s Challenger I Mk. 3. When I was looking at the instructions I noticed that the two color schemes given were black/green and desert. I got to thinking, the Abrams, Leopard and LeClerc were painted in the NATO 3 color scheme, but I don’t recall ever seeing a Challenger in this scheme.
Were any ever painted this way? If not, does anyone know the reason why?
While I’m at it, what about Italian armor?
Any and all information will be greatly appreciated.
Joe 
I believe Leclerc is not actually in the NATO three-colour scheme, but instead is a French scheme which just looks very similar.
Italian tanks are painted overall green, as are Spanish. Greek ones are red. Norwegian are grey, if I recall. Danish ones are green/black, but not the same as the British ones. Basically, the NATO colour scheme isn’t anywhere near standard across NATO.
The Brits just didn’t think it suited their needs, so didn’t move to it.
NTM
wait
Greek tanks are RED??
The idea behind the NATO scheme was that vehicle nationality could not be identified by their paint scheme to their likely opponent-the Warsaw Pact. With the Pacts demise at the fall of communism in the ealry 90’s-roughly the same time that the NATO scheme began to see widespread service- and the lack of mission direction in NATO, many member countries never went over to it. The US, Germany, Holland, all went over, but many countries came up with their own similar schemes, or stayed with what they already had. While overseas a couple years ago in the Balkans I saw Greek vehicles in what looked like the old US MERDC four color temperate scheme.
It depends a bit on the lighting, and how clean it is. The problem with modelling it is that nobody can quite agree as to what paint to use. I have spent much time in Greece (Mom’s Greek) and I can see where it would work.
NTM
The color on the Greek tanks looks very similar to Earth Red in the Model Master line.
stikpusher wrote the following post at 01-09-2008 6:49 AM:
The idea behind the NATO scheme was that vehicle nationality could not be identified by their paint scheme to their likely opponent-the Warsaw Pact. With the Pacts demise at the fall of communism in the ealry 90’s-roughly the same time that the NATO scheme began to see widespread service- and the lack of mission direction in NATO, many member countries never went over to it. The US, Germany, Holland, all went over, but many countries came up with their own similar schemes, or stayed with what they already had. While overseas a couple years ago in the Balkans I saw Greek vehicles in what looked like the old US MERDC four color temperate scheme.
Stikpusher,
Thanks for the information. It never did make sense that if it was the “NATO” scheme why all NATO members didn’t use it.
Manic Moran,
Great pictures. I always enjoy seeing those unusual/rare paint schemes.
Joe [:D][:D]