Question about BDU's, plus a peek at my Camels.

[Randy Wise]

Evening Gents,

I'm just getting into the paining of 10 Desert Storm tankers and infantry. The Desert BDU's are not the issue. The question is what color are the packs, body armor, gas mask bags, etc? Anything not related to the desert "cookie pattern" BDU shirts and pants made so famous back in Desert Storm. I'd heard that they were a forest camo; my references are in B&W and they tell me that they were definately darker than the BDU's. I'm just looking for colors and a pattern.

So obviously I'm doing a Desert Storm diorama. I've opted to do the accessories and figures before the main vehicles (2 M1A1HA's - one with a mine plow). Steve Zaloga once said it best "I'd rather work on the figures and other little things while the enthusiasm level is high." Working on a couple of Dragon Abrams will get the juices going once the figures are all set.

Anyways, here's a sneak peek at my three camels that will be apart of the diorama. I still have to spray a light dusting of desert sand on them and cover everything with a flat coate, but the main oil paint work is complete. Please don't ask where they came from because I don't remember. Two might have been from Verlinden, but I'm not sure. The third had a Bedoin figure with it with which I didn't use. I had to add extra hair with epoxy putty - none of the beasts were hairy enough for me.

Randy

[HWR MKII]

Here is the BDU pattern that is the woodland variety. I know this is a uniform but the pattern and colors will be the same on body armor and backpacks.

http://www.outinstyle.com/Merchant2/graphi...MILI97512_d.jpg

For web gear and gas mask pouches they were just straight Olive drab green. No exact shade really since they are almost all faded to one degree or another.

Heres a shot of some modern troops that should give you an idea.

http://jandadiscountmilitarysurplus.com/ca...ture%20001b.jpg

These guys appear to be wearing full BDU Chem gear with OD green hip pouches. Desert uniforms are referred to as DCUs by the way, just to help avoid any confusion.

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/6944/aaazr6.jpg

Edited October 27, 2008 by HWR MKII

[junglejim38]

Hiya Randy,

Google up 'ALICE web gear' and ye shall find lots of info. Dark green and various faded shades thereof should work. Nice camels - where they from?

Jim

[HeavyArty]

As the others have said, all ALICE gear is/was a shade of green; from light OD to dark green depending on age, weathering, etc. The only piece of ALICE gear that came in camo was medium rucksacks. They were in camo and green, either is correct. The green was more common though.

Body armor would be either Woodland camo pattern, green, or there were Chocolate Chip (6-color) DCU covers that went over them too. All 3 were seen in ODS.

Good luck and keep us posted.

[JasonB]

Those appear to be 2 Verlinden camels and one ESCI camel (the one that came with a bedouin). As stated the ALICE gear was shades of green, usually very dusty. Make the gas masks bags more worn and dirty, since they were usually older issue, well used and made of canvas. Mine was pretty much a faded shaded of dusty, dirty gray green. Since you are doing a Desert Storm scene, be sure that you mix and match the Chocolate chip and Woodland pattern stuff. As in all conflicts, it seems that the only guys I ran into that had a complete set of 6 color camo were the guys furthest away from the front, with Woodland vests over chocolate chip being very common. Someone wearing a night parka would be very cool as well, as it got fairly cool there during the Winter months, and we wore these over layers of clothes, especially at night. Plus they looked really cool! Oh, also, we didn't have desert camo NBC suits, only wood land or overall green (sort of a shade of German Field gray would work nicely for a faded suit). Once opened they were supposed to be effective for something like 2 weeks. As I recall we wore our first one for about a month straight, many times to stay warm at night. We were told they would still be effective (and that the horse pills for Anthrax were safe ) We never opened our nice new woodland NBC suits.

Edited October 27, 2008 by jburch