Modern British Army & RAF AFV paint set

British military vehicles from the 1950s to Iraq

The British have the colors of their vehicles tied to a standard that has a numbering of its own, and that gives this set an unusual accuracy: with most of the shades the particular number of the standard is given, so it can be traced outside the modeling literature as well.

The timeline starts with a deep bronze green, which vehicles in Europe and in the Far East wore from 1955 to the start of the 1970s. It was then replaced by a green with suppressed reflection in the infrared band, completed with irregular black fields. Most people know this two-color pattern from photographs of British Cold War equipment, and it holds to this day.

• The deep bronze green of vehicles from 1955 to the 1970s
• The blue-gray of airfield vehicles from the end of the war
• A golden yellow for roofs and for overall finishes on airfields
• Light stone, the desert shade of the postwar army
• A green with suppressed infrared reflection
• The black of the irregular fields of the two-color pattern
• The desert sand of the deployment in the Gulf
• A washable white for improvised winter camouflage

A chapter of their own are the air force vehicles. The blue-gray and the golden yellow belong to equipment operated mainly on airfields and together make up a look that differs from army green at first sight; anyone building an airfield tow tractor or a tanker reaches for exactly these.

The range is acrylic, meant mainly for a brush, and with vehicles carrying a mass of small fittings that pays off. The desert shades moreover respond beautifully to subsequent drybrushing of the edges.