South African Army paint set

Armored vehicles from the south of Africa

South African vehicles are among the subjects where a modeler runs into a shortage of usable paints, and it is exactly that gap these eight bottles fill. In time they reach from the interwar and wartime vehicles of the Union Defence Force to today's wheeled armored vehicles and attack helicopters.

Finishes by era

• BS381C:220 Olive Green was the standard for vehicles until 1961 and is usually given as UDF Olive Green 16.
• BS381C:298 Olive Drab replaced it between 1961 and 1975.
• BS381C:450 Dark Earth applied to armored vehicles from 1975 to 1994 and afterwards stayed on support vehicles.
• BS381C:361 Light Stone was worn by vehicles in the Walvis Bay area and in Namibia.
• Military Dark Earth, MRG Stone and Buffalo Green make up the three camouflage shades introduced after 1994, worn for example by the Rooikat wheeled armored vehicle and the Olifant tank.
• BS381C Middle Brown matches the finish of the helicopters, among them the Rooivalk gunship and the Agusta A109.

A modeler can therefore build the same tank in two periods and the difference will be obvious at first glance, because the change from brown to the three-color pattern after 1994 was a fundamental one.

Recommended procedure

This set falls under the maker's lacquer line, and the lacquer thinner belonging to it is used for thinning. The three-color pattern has fairly soft transitions, so it works well to spray from a short distance at low pressure, or with a paper mask held off the surface.