Academy M3 Stuart colors

Is that the 3-tone sand/blue/black camo you're doing? That 'black' seems to have turned into a multitude of colours on operational vehicles, due to the action of the sun, in particular. I've seen it replicated with various shades of dark grey, but also, on several occasions, with a very dark reddish-brown.

I plan on doing the sand, dark green & slate grey scheme. I've found several of these in model galleries, but I couldn't find any mention of color in the build reviews.

I don't know if this will help, but here goes.

I have the Hasegawa 1/72 version of the M3. It showes the 3 color scheme as being sand, olive drab, and a 50/50 mix of olive drab and navy blue. I have know idea how accurate these colors are, but it's a start.

How did you like this kit? I've been contemplating doing either an Acadamy Honey or Stuart.

Have fun.

Bill

This ones a tough call to make. In the past when building British AFV in desert with this type of camou I'd just mix my own colours to match either box art or a colour plate from a book. DML's Valentine instructions suggest Gunze Sangyo #323 for the light blue. In Osprey's Vanguard book on the Matilda, it refers to the two shades of grey as probably being drawn from Royal Navy stores(hmmm .... more research!). Of the colours you mention, sand and dark green are standard for British armour. The slate grey -appears as a shade of olive- does exist and was used for British aircraft temperate scheme. So if the army used RN stores, its plausible that RAF stores were also used. Hope this was of some help.