Discuss: proper LEGO colour for WWII USA army uniforms

Sand green or tan seem to be the popular choices... sand green seems like it would be the best match, but then I noticed that BrickArms has tan for army and sand green for marines so I began to wonder whether the reference pics I'd been finding were of regular army at all... any help?

This is my expertise!

I am currently planning on soon making American WWII soldiers with both dark tan and sand green uniforms.

During WWII, the US issued 2 different uniforms over the 3-4 year period. These were known as M41 and M43, or Early and Late war respectively. The M41 jacket is tan, but in real life is closer to LEGO's dark tan color. The M41 is dyed with a color called OD#3, which is just a very light shade of regular Olive Drab. The M43 Jacket was dyed with OD#7, which is your regular sand green. Also, there is the M42 uniform which was only issued to Paratroopers, and that is the same as the M41 color - Dark tan.

All uniforms varied in color because they were made in a hurry, so the color of the dyes varied from the dark tan to a more olvie color.

Both uniforms were issued with brown pants, although both summer pants and M43 pants were seen, both were closer to sand green.

I'm representing my early war figures with dark tan torso assemblies and hips, and then brown legs. The late war figures are just going to have all of the dark tan replaced by sand green.

Exactly what I wanted, thanks much!

Meet Tim: Resident awesome.

*cue theme song*

Hehe, that would be awesome!

Thanks guys!! Lol

I think i would have them as Black and Green.

How come?

Well my favorite color is black and I've always liked traveling at night so it would be like midnight soldiers....

Dude did you know that your milks boiling?

LOL ^

Alright, Adry, what about WWII and Soviet uniforms? Would the official TLC be proper? Decent images seem to be elusive :/

I dunno....

SV, when you can't find original pictures, you search for reenactors.

I Google'd "Russian WWII Repro" and came up with this site, which has pictures of both original and reproduction items. Sometimes it can be hard to tell, but here's what I think...

I almost think you could do either. I personally would go with dark tan for both pants and shirt, although some may look at those pictures and say sand green. I think the sand green is too green for those items in the pictures, even though the uniforms have a bit of green in them. I would also say from personal experiences at reenactments, go with all dark tan. It's up to you though.

Also, as far as TLC's Reds go, I have no idea what the standard Russian uniform was for 1957...The government could have designed a different uniform by that time, made of a greener material. If you want to stick with purist ways, I would try to get as many of the Colonel Dovchenkos or Belloqs as you can.

EDIT: Yep, just checked it out, and the Soviets did change to a uniform before 1957 that had more green in the dye, just like we did.

Thanks very much Adry! I'm bad at searching, I'm always to specific ("Russian Soviet WWII and Cold War uniforms")
*plots*

Sometimes it's hard to use Google to find what you're looking for.
I've often times wanted to find original pictures of a specific division from WWII, but you can't really find it. Sucks sometimes.

Blargh.
LEGO needs to release olive drab fig parts.

Ugh, I've been wanting them to do that so badly. I was hoping with the addition of dark brown in the new Indy line that they would make an olive drab, but they didn't.

Have you ever experimented with dyes?

No, I haven't. I've heard of the use, but I don't know how it's done.

Hmm. Gotta look into that sometime. I'll tell you if I find anything useful

Adrenaline wrote:

Ugh, I've been wanting them to do that so badly. I was hoping with the addition of dark brown in the new Indy line that they would make an olive drab, but they didn't.

How come?

How come what?

How come you want olive colors. For WW2 accuracy.

The end.

Exacly....