M48H RoCA (REPUBLIC OF CHINA ARMY)

Three tones of the Taiwanese M48H

The abbreviation RoCA is spelled out in the name itself: it denotes the ground forces of the Republic of China, that is the Taiwanese army. Their M48H appeared in the late 1980s as a hybrid of two generations: a turret derived from the M48 was set on the chassis and powerplant of the M60A3 and given a 105 millimeter gun with what was then an entirely new fire control system. At first glance the result looks like a veteran of the Korean War era, but in fighting capability it belongs two decades further on, and it still serves with Taiwanese units today.

Three bottles cover the whole surface finish of the machine:

• Forest Green to FS 34094 as the overall base green.
• Brown Soil for the broad brown bands running across the hull and the turret.
• Matt Black for the dark division that separates the two preceding fields.

How to lay the pattern out

The boundaries between the color fields on Taiwanese vehicles are soft, sprayed freehand rather than masked to a hard edge. The work therefore proceeds from the overall green, the brown is laid on loosely at low pressure and the black comes last, because there is least of it and it is the easiest color to overdo across the whole pattern. On the real machines the bands break across convex surfaces, so there is no point in going around the engine grilles or the sides of the turret. It is also worth remembering that the brown tends to look dustier and more faded than the green in photographs, because it lies on the more exposed horizontal surfaces. The difference only needs to be suggested by a light lightening, not by a different shade.