Khaki Green #3 in Vallejo paints

The Mix

Swatch Board
click on it for a much larger version

Mike Starmer, grognard and maven par excellence of WWII British vehicle camouflage and markings, has come up with a mix for Vallejo ModelColor paints to replicate the early-war base vehicle colour, Khaki Green #3.

It consists of 1 part 822 (German Camo Black Brown), 1 part 888 (Olive Grey) and 7 parts 921 (English Uniform).

I've painted a swatch board with the base colours and the resulting mix, and I've included a small swatch of 887 (Brown Violet), because it's the VMC colour that Battlefront recommend to represent K.G.#3. Seen next to the K.G.#3 it's clearly too green.

Mike recommends straight 888 (Olive Grey) for Dark Green #4, the primary disruptive colour used until its replacement by Norton's Tarmac Grey (in  about '41, I think). So far, he hasn't made any decision on how to make Light Green #5, the secondary disruptive shade, since he doesn't have access to a sample of the original, but it seems to have been very little used so I think I can live with that for a while.

Personally I trust Mike's scholarship, when it comes to WWII British vehicle colours. He works from primary sources rather than from hearsay, though he seems to be fighting an uphill battle when it comes to convincing modellers that their paint colour choices are wrong.