I’m wondering about what colour(s) to paint some Preiser US military figures that will be used for loading military flats. (It’s amazing what you can do with DCC these days…)[}:)]
Questions so far… (and they break down to at least Army, USMC and National Guard…)
When did Kevlar Helmets appear in regular issue/use?
When did OD disappear… if it did for fatigues?
When did Chocolate chip cammo appear?
Does the pre desert colours cammo still appear?
What was that stuff called? Woodland? European?
What colours would you suggest for painting either? Makes?
Did Tiger Stripe ever appear in the USA or only in SE Asia? When? (I’m not really planning to try to paint this… just interested).
This is all shooting from the hip. I believe the OD fatigues were beginning to be phased out in the early to mid 80s. The woodland cammo BDUs (battle dress uniform) were to replace the fatigues in all services. This was also so all services wore the same uniform (barring the hats). I know that the OD field jacket was authorized wear until the mid 90s (a SSgt in our shop insisted on wearing his until the bitter end). The “chocolate chip” DCUs (desert cammo uniform) showed up in the late 80s if I remember correctly. They were replaced by a newer desert cammo pattern that looks similar to the woodland cammo. The woodland cammo and DCUs are being replaced by uniforms distinct to each branch of the service (wash and wear, suede boots, digitized apperance). I don’t agree with that, but that is a whole other issue. As far as I know, the tiger stripe uniforms didn’t make it much further than the Vietnam war, and into the early 80s. I wouldn’t see any reason to wear them over here unless you were training. As far as to whether or not the pre desert cammo appears, my wife wears woodland BDUs to work almost every day (blues on rare occasions). I am out now, so I don’t have the privelage of wearing the uniform anymore. Also, on base/garrison, fatigues were not typically bloused, as where BDUs and DCUs should always be bloused.
I am not too sure about the Kevlar brain bucket, but I would assume it came on the scene in the early to mid 80s.
As far as loading military equipment, most of this is done on the military installations, for example Ft Hood, Texas, or Ft Carson, Colorado. I am sure the transportaion folks would be in charge of loading, as well as the individual units tasked to do so. All the services (except the Coasties) had their own train crews operating on the bases at one time. I believe that the only uniformed crews are Guard and possibly reservists now. Most of the full time crews are civilians. Once the train leaves the yards on the military posts, the railroads operate the trains.
When did Kevlar Helmets appear in regular issue/use?
1983
When did OD disappear… if it did for fatigues?
1962
When did Chocolate chip cammo appear?
But it wasn’t widely used except for the NTC OPFOR units until Sandbox I.
Does the pre desert colours cammo still appear?
Yes
What was that stuff called? Woodland? European?
The “old” green/brown/black camo pattern was “woodland”
What colours would you suggest for painting either? Makes?
Colors don’t matter. In essence, whatever you think make a good color match. Remember, we’re talking about cotton cloth uniforms that get laundered on a regular basis. Work fatigues tend to be the older BDUs, so will be faded to various degrees.
Did Tiger Stripe ever appear in the USA or only in SE Asia? When? (I’m not really planning to try to paint this… just interested).
It did appear in the US, but rarely, and generally only in Marine units.
Who’s in charge of loading in a RR owned yard?
Loading military vehicles in a civilian yard? The US Transportation Corps, with a few RR employees standing around doing nothing, pretending that they’re in charge.
A slight correction to Ray Breyer’s otherwise excellent reply: The OD fatigues to BDU Woodland (etc) shift should be 1982, not '62. Ray and the other respondents have been ‘spot on’ to my own memories of the uniform shift and the crews involved in military rail load-out. My engineering precision and TC service got the better of me in noting the 1982 date. Though my own TC service was mostly in the aviation R&D world, I spent enough time rubbing shoulders with my TC career classmates (plus our RR enthusiasm! in common on this forum) to be able to add further generalizations: 1. The military railroaders in uniform are mostly in the Army Reserve, headquartered out of Milwaukee, as I recall (surprise, surprise!). 2. Most post/base operations are done by civilian crews (civil service or contract) using DoD owned locos, etc. 3. Ft. Eustis, VA, historic home of Army Transportation, would host the reserve units for annual training, poroviding an additional uniformed railroader appearance. 4. As noted by other replies, load-out involves both the moving unit–in uniform–and the civilian crews, including loading inspection to be done by the receiving RR. 5. Early in the 1980’s, the Army rediscovered rail as the practical way to move M-1 Abrams tanks. the M-1’s were too large for normal peacetime movement on the highways. This brought us a new group of DODX flats to haul these ‘monsters.’ 6. The creation of the National Training Center and the serious bsuiness of opposing force training it provided in the 1980’s led to many more military moves on RR than had taken place in decades, especially post-Viet Nam. I stand proudly with my fellow service members: active, reserve, retired in wishing you the best of modeling! Bill
One other thing to consider if you plan on modelling a scene of military equipment being loaded onto railroad cars. Some of the military folks will be in orange vests and possibly regular hard hats versus Kevlar, especially those actually on the rail cars. The Kevlar helmet is great for ballistic protection but is not safety rated for industrial areas.
Oops. Thanks for keeping me honest, Bill. I was thinking of the shift from WWII wood uniforms in '62 (they were OD too, but a different MS color number…I forget which off the top of my head).
And if you want to do really modern, the U.S. Army BDUs are now a grey-shaded computer-pixel pattern:
The Marine Corps were the first to adopt that computer-pixel pattern, called MARPAT, a few years ago. The most common MARPAT shade I see Marines wear is a brownish/greenish blend though.
The green on the uniform on the right looks very close to Testor Model Master’s European One Dark Green. Here is a link to Testor Model Master color chart. It has been a few years since I have used this paint, so I do not know if the colors are off on their color chart or they changed their colors significantly in the past few years
I was in S.E. Asia in 66 & 67 in the Air Force. At that time, the only uniforms being issued were O.D.'s ( or rather a variation of green still commonly called O.D.). The only way you could get “Tiger stripe” fatigues was to buy them at the local market. At the time John Wayne wore them in “Green Berets”, they were not an issued item.
I have loaded trains many times down at Fort Hood and it always semed the same. There would be a marshalling yard at the end of the tracks where a brigades worth of equipment(300+ vehicles) would be staged(parked). They would be put in order so the most amount of space would be used on the rail cars. The vehicles would be loaded onto the trains by driving them up the loading ramps. The number one rule is never to be on the same railcar as a moving vehicle. Each vehicle moving would have a ground guide to the front and 1 ground guide to the back to make sure the vehicle stayed on the car. It would make a nice scene for a crane to be lifting a vehicles front end back onto the car. I remember a few times when an oops happened and the vehicle drove all or part of the way off. Each unit should have a certain percentage of Soldiers who are quailified to load onto trains, ships, and aircraft. We would secure the vehicles down with chains, the amount of chains would vary with each vehicle type. There were BNSF guys standing around who would not piss on you if you were on fire. After you chained everything down the train guys would come buy and hit each chain with a steel pipe. If the chain was loose, you would have to do it over again. Another note is we would remove our windshields so they would not get broken enroute.
As long as I am rambling…we would keep all the vehicles fuel tanks full when in the motor pool. When it came time to load onto train we would have to have less than a quarter of a tank in each. Many hours I spent running my vehicle in neutral to burn off fuel. It takes a while to burn off 25 gallons of diesel in a humvee. Our generators would have to be empty also. It took on average of 18-24 hours to burn off the fuel in those. How much fuel do you think we wasted moving 300+ vehicles out to California each time we went? When we finished training in Californi
The M1, flatcar, and tank car in this image all have Model Master Flat Black, and Model Master Leather for the brown areas. The flatcar and tank car use Model Master Khaki in the green areas, and the M1 uses Testor’s Flat Olive for green.
All were painted by a friend and former Marine, Richard Kallahan. When he’s off work he shows up here a lot, so I put him to work painting one of two military trains, which, together, carry about a platoon sized task force worth of equipment, 4 Abrams, 4 Brads, 4 Paladins, 4 MLRS, numerous trucks, and 1 HMMWV mounted Avenger AD system. Each of the two trains also includes a boxcar, tank car and caboose, plus a pair of MUed F2 diesels. The second train is currently functional, using rubber bands for tiedowns, with Testor’s Flat Olive Drab spray for coloring. My son, CINC Silverton, was getting impatient.
Piece by piece, both consists will get camoflaged, and scale chain tie-downs. When those are done, we’ll do two more trains in Sand camoflage. Those will probably be pulled with an MUed pair of Atlas GP-9s each, also painted in sand camo colors.
The soldier might be Euro (a Pole, if I’m reading the patches correctly), but absolutely all of his gear is straight out of American stores (except for his combat knife).
LOL, sorry the photo I linked to drove the discussion kind of off-topic…
I think for modeling a military train scene it’s probably a better idea to paint the figures up with the now-classic woodland camo colors… Because whenever you see that green, you think “Military!” right away. Painting them up in that current grey camo might draw only puzzled glances.
Anyway, the photo I linked to was from the U.S. Army website (www.army.mil)… That guy in the woodland-pattern uniform is one of the Iraqi forces being trained up by the U.S. Army. (He’s got a folding-stock AK47).
Personally, I think the snappiest-looking battle gear have to be the ones worn by the Special Forces contingent of Task Force Ranger (that “Blackhawk Down” incident in 1993). Delta Force, Navy SEALs and the Air Force PJs/CCTs involved in that op all wore the 3-tone desert camo, over which went the black web gear, black PT armor vest, black Pro-Tec skateboard helmets, black kneepads and boots. Very sharp-looking.
