Howard,
You are probably right, at least as far as many of the vehicles that were
stenciled in the field is concerned. However, that wasn't always the case. I
remember talking to the driver of a tractor (5 ton or 10 ton, I can't recall
now) in Vietnam while we were waiting for his truck to be loaded. I had
commented on how nice his vehicle looked. He explained that he washed it
every day, and waxed it periodically. I also commented on the color. He
explained that each driver in his Company was assigned their truck for the
duration of their tour, and they were allowed to customize them "within
limits". He had asked the Motor Sergeant to mix some gloss black enamel into
the OD enamel that he used to repaint his truck. Gave it a "deeper" look. He
had also painted black rectangles on the tops of the fenders and sprinkled
them with sand, while they were still wet. This gave him a "non-skid"
surface to stand on when he worked on his engine. Same thing on the running
boards. He had also painted all of the lug nuts gloss black and had gloss
white tire pressure lettering on each fender, gloss white USA numbers on the
hood, and gloss white bumper numbers. Camouflaged? Not hardly! But then,
camouflage wasn't used on trucks in Vietnam anyway. (Yea, there were
probably some camo. units, but not all that many.) Now, was this an
"authentic" military vehicle? I would have to say so. Was it painted to "mil
spec"? Yes and no. It was painted properly, as far as color and numbers, but
it was also done "creatively". It gave the driver a sense of pride in what
he was driving, and probably resulted in better operator maintenance and
care of the vehicle.
While I'm on the subject of Vietnam era paint jobs, what about the "nose
art" that was so common on armor and artillery? What about the gun trucks?
None of this was authorized by regulations, but it probably did a lot for
the morale of the operators.
I guess that, if you are doing a total restoration of a vehicle, and you
want it to look like the regulations say it should have looked, then being
absolutely faithful to those regulations is the way to go. On the other
hand, if you want to express a modest amount of individuality with your
vehicle, the paint job is one way to do it.
My $.02 worth, and enough rambling for one day.
John
-----Original Message-----
From: WreckerFC@aol.com [mailto:WreckerFC@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 8:43 AM
To: mil-veh@mil-veh.org
Subject: Re: [MV] Stenciling the military registration number
OK listers, what is the recognised protocol for 'original' looking stencils
on wartime vehicles?
If that much trouble is put into the vehicles restoration, why spoil it with
perfect stencils.
Yes, you did hear me right, SPOIL it. In the rapid and often panicked
process to get vehicles to the front or where ever, do you think that the
grunts/squaddies/jarheads etc would have done anything more than get a brass
stencil, still wet from the previous vehicle, sort of close to the right
place, then blast it with a spray gun or large stencil brush. Complete with
runs, overspray and smears/smudges.
So, for realistic and correct restoration, why not live with reality?
I would welcome any comments from veterans - THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE.
Howard
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 23:13:20 PST