All my quotes and paraphrasing are from Mr. Dana Bell’s article Olive Drab…the Final Words…?, pgs 810-813, Scale Aircraft Modelling, Vol. 23, No. 12, Feb. 2002.
Color expert Dana Bell offers some updates on USAAC/USAAF Olive Drab in the above referenced article..
On 28 Nov., 1919, U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps (QM) issued twenty-four glossy chips covering all US Army paints. This had the first standard for Olive Drab, a greenish brown hue catalogued as Number 22.
Judged too light for aircraft camouflage during tests in 1932, black was added resulting in ’Dark Olive Drab’. According to Mr. Bell, the color was always known as Dark Olive Drab (D.OD). In 1938 the QM approved 10 temporary colors tried by USAAC and D.OD was assigned No. 31.
Quoted Text
“Although the Air Corps shades were coordinated with the QM, no other Army organizations are known to have used them - Dark Olive Drab would be ordered only for the Air Corps and Army Air Forces.”
Mr. Bell writes that in Sept. 1940‘s Air Corps Bulletin 41, D.OD became No. 41. FS 595 indicates OD 31 matches FS 34087 while D.OD 41 more or less matches D.OD 41. FS 595b was a revision and apparently quite different. Citing a Oct. 1942 Wright Field memo, Mr. Bell suggests the two D.Ods are identical.
He further relates that the formulas were revised, i.e., July 1942 the colors were ordered matched for new anti Infra-Red paints.
Each supplier had to send a sample for evaluation, after which USAAF would send a critique concerning any failure of the standards. But there was no requirement for the corrected paint to be resubmitted, nor any evidence that Wright Field ever rejected (with the exception of the IR paint) any companys’ paint. Mr. Bell writes of those not matching Bulletin 41,
Quoted Text
He further notes that 30 lacquers, 14 dopes and 23 enamels were accepted during 1942, all more or less matching D.OD 41.“…were all accepted and assigned AAF Code Numbers, with an admonishment that the manufacturer should correct the deficiency.”
In 1942 the ANA (Army-Navy Aeronautical) color standard was created; D.OD 41 became ANA Dark Olive Drab. It was darker than the standard Army Olive Drab already in mass production for Army and Navy equipment. But as Army Olive Drab was available in huge quantities and in Feb. 1943, it was incorporated and issued to USAAF as ANA 613 (though first mentioned in Tech Order 07-1-1, April 1944). In bureaucratic fighting both D.OD 41 and the lighter ANA 613 were used and approved for aircraft, against an angry Wright Field’s desires. In early 1944 the bureaucracy recommended USAAF’s Bulletin 41 should be killed in favor of the ANA standards. In what may have been bureaucratic one-upmanship Wright Field did so, but did not cancel Bulletins 42, 46, and 47, which contained many of the D.OD paints from 1942. Mr. Bell notes that many of these were just titled Olive Drab. Companies manufacturing the paints were caught up in the confusions and the paint standard reflected this.
Mr. Bell relates an anecdote as to how OD can change color depending on the light source, reminding modelers put their favorite model paints on a white paper and view them under different lights, as well as different times of daylight.
He concludes his article with the cautionary that as more information turns up, we may have to modify what we now know. Armor guru Steve Zagola has revised his early information on US Army WWII armor OD at least once.
Hard as it is on me, I must offer Mr. Bell’s closing statement,
Quoted Text
“Perhaps, as modelers, we’ve occasionally worried a bit too much about the accuracy of our hobby paints - we seem more concerned with colour matching than the AAF ever was!”
