Modern French Army paint set

From Suez to the Leclerc

French ground equipment went through three clearly different color stages after the Second World War and this lineup captures all of them. The oldest layer is the desert yellow Jaune Sahara, the overall finish of vehicles stationed in desert regions in the fifties and sixties, and so of the machines used during the Suez Crisis of 1956 as well.

The green of the Cold War

Next comes Vert IR OTAN, the earlier army green with an infrared treatment. As the only overall shade it lasted on French vehicles from the beginning of the fifties until the end of the eighties, so it covers the longest stretch of the postwar history of that country's armor.

The three-tone camouflage of the nineties

From the beginning of the nineties the change was to a blotched pattern of three colors. The shades Brun Terre IR, Vert Fonce IR and NATO Black are carried by the AMX Leclerc and AMX 30 tanks, the VBCI wheeled combat vehicles, the VAB armored personnel carriers and the AMX 30 Au F1 self-propelled howitzers. For the desert finish of the same machines the brown is combined with the shade Sable Desert IR, which was used among other things during Operation Desert Storm.

• Jaune Sahara as the overall desert finish of the fifties and sixties
• Vert IR OTAN for the period from the early fifties to the late eighties
• Brun Terre IR, Vert Fonce IR and NATO Black for today's blotched pattern
• Sable Desert IR for the desert combination with the brown

The infrared treatment of the green and brown shades is not cosmetic. Thanks to it a vehicle reflects near-infrared light in a similar way to the surrounding vegetation, so it is harder to tell apart in images from night vision devices.