I would like to inject a morsal of wartime trivia to this thread,
something that the vehicle painters might think about.
A friend of mine, Chris K. served with the 82nd Airborne during both
Desert Shield & Storm. He was the NCOIC of a six man, three HMMWV unit
that performed deep reconn. Before the 24th Mech even crossed the FEBA,
Chris and his vehicles were 100 miles inside Kuwait.
The vehicles were painted the solid sand color with three large black
inverted V's on the hood and both front doors. There were NO unit
markings anywhere on the external vehicle. The inside of the HMMWV was
left in its original olive drab, with the exception of both front doors.
The inside of the doors were painted solid sand with the vehicle number
done in large black stencil. Chris' vehicle was "Papa-three-nine", thus
a large P-39 was painted on the inside doors. When parked in base camp
the doors were left open thus identifying the vehicle.
The interesting part of this is the wheel hubs. When they first
arrived in Saudi the hubs were painted the same sand color as the
vehicle. From a distance the recessed wheel wells of these HMMWV's
appear extremely dark due to shadows. And right in the middle of this
black hole is a large 'white' circle. As Chris told me: "They look like
two big white bulls eyes rolling across the sand dunes."
Their solution was rather simple. Replacement rims that left the
stateside factory were in the standard O.D., with the intention of being
painted sand once they reached Saudi. The unit simply left them O.D.
thus eliminating the bulls eyes.
Lance
MVPA 22125
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