M42 uniform, colour of, discussion

ATF M42s rock and rock hard. They are way more accurate than the tan cheapies, if thats you goal. I'm just back from a week in Normandy and as you might imagine, there were one or two original M42 suits to be seen.
Not one was the dusty tan shade seen on SoF and Epic uniforms. All showed the green hue common to the ATF products. The tan colour is popular with re-enactors but isnt right from what I have seen last week.
I've just got rid of my ATF import jump suit, I'm replacing it with the new version when it comes out.

just be carefull in museums mate, the constant light fades the originals, sometimes they replace them with slightly faded repros.... i did some work for a guy who was a history grad, he did a lot of work at the parachute regiment museum in aldershot, and at the hartenstein. these days its hard to know whats genuine, and whats new, made to look genuine. but i have heared good things about AFT, and i have an ATF brit collarless shirt, i think its ace.

and i have an ATF brit collarless shirt, i think its ace.

That's a WPG one. ATF don't make brit kit.

oops , my mistake

Oh I'm careful, I've been around this [and other] games for long enough. Exposure fading would remove much of the green hue which is still obvious in so many examples. Forest Guth and Dick Winters uniforms, whilst not the same exact shade both show the green tint, they certainly are not tan. Are we to surmise that these are both replicas? Someone will be well upset, not only Guth and Winters.
ATF are very careful with colour matching, they own several originals.

not looking for an argument..... all i am saying is uniforms fade under light, museums have ways to stop it, and not all uniforms were cut from the same cloth.

Interesting Poacher. I've always wondered why on earth the jump suits we see at reenacting shows and on the battleground are lurid shades of tan - it's never made sense to me. And now I know why!

All I can say about ATF is that I've never ripped the arse out of my ATF M42s, where as I've seen many other repro M42s come completely undone.

The ATF website has a whole page dedicated to the the Tan/Kahki/OD3 debate, with the owners particular style, of course:

http://www.atthefront.com/khaki.htm

there are many US airborne websites that have tan (od3) as the colour of jumpsuits. many sites are historic sites rather than reenactors. looks like they are all wrong.

The ATF website has... the owners particular style, of course:

http://www.atthefront.com/khaki.htm

And I like it

Well I never, my monitors resoloution could prevent me from noticing the difference between tan and green that must mean this forum is in tan ?

Seriously though, its not the best of arguements on ATF perspective. In one breath they claim

has had enormous amounts of editing done to suit the desires of the directors- that will not work. Besides the uniforms used in the movies being dirty and artificially aged, the film itself has had enormous amounts of editing done to suit the desires of the directors- Therefore, the saturation and colors you see on screen are not entirely accurate

Then to prove their point (bear the above in mind please) they use a tunic, from the SPR series (which is done on a film budget with holywood directors ) and claim that theirs must be accurate on that point, despite the fact they've just said " has had enormous amounts of editing done to suit the desires of the directors " .

Now I know SPR was televised but surely thats one of the more recent things that has got those people that always wanted to do airborne/US more into it ? ergo its pretty much "has had enormous amounts of editing done to suit the desires of the directors"

End of the matter is, the only way you could get a 100% accurate item is an unissued, dry stored, tuck away at the back of some stores on a US base, untouched by vermin/moths, twitchy airsofters/reenactors etc etc.

Past that I've wasted 5 minutes reading that site as I've no interest in US uniforms at all

End of the matter is, the only way you could get a 100% accurate item is an unissued, dry stored, tuck away at the back of some stores on a US base, untouched by vermin/moths, twitchy airsofters/reenactors etc etc.

And that is exactly what ATF used to match to.
The exact shade isnt the question here, tan or green is the question here. OD3 is not tan when it comes down to M42 jump suits. Lots of makers, lots of shades none of which were the same tan we see on the chinese made suits as far as I have ever seen. Not seen them all but seen lots just last week and more in the past. I'd be the first to say and agree there are no absolutes, you can find threads where I've said that going back 6 years at least. What there are are acceptable paramaters within which we should try to work.
I'm sure some of the suits I looked at last week might have been repro. I'm very sure some were faded and 65 years old, they had not faded to tan and you cant get tan to fade to green can you? You might under very specific conditions get tan to turn green over time but what are the odds of that occuring in every case over 65 years with the subjects being spread across the world?
I'm not saying you cant wear whatever you want, what I can tell you is my opinion on the correct colours for M42 jump suits based on some very fresh and first hand research.
Some people believe in God without evidence, I believe M42s had a green hue based on a lot more.

Thats fine I've no qualms at all on this, American kit has abosolutely no interest to me whatsoever. Not deflecting on your comment Poacher, merely trying to be objective (and not objectional I'll save that for when I really am annoyed )

However a trader stating they've used originals is one thing, but bear in mind they all state that. I'm not disputing ATF quality as I have no knowledge to base it on to start with. I merely highlighted the huge faux pas on their part of using an arguementative statement about why not to base an impression on kit, and then low and behold a great picture of a tunic to compare to SPR (am sure theres more contradictions but I lost the will after reading that one in the very first paragraphs).

To me as a complete novice on American kit, I think WTF (maybes as I've done 5000 words on discursive and arguementive writing at one point, I'm reading it differently to others?). It doesn't read as a professional comment anyways preaching from above, telling people in that manner they're wrong. And thats nothing to do with their kit being right or wrong, its because they're a trader, and they want to sell something, thats what starts alarm bells for me. Don't buy of xyz (who also declare their tunics are cut/matched from original items) buy from me whose uniforms are oh yes cut and matched from original items.

He may well be right (and I was being silly which I'm quite sure you know in respect to my vision of tan-green), but I'd need more proof than the man that runs ATF (or xyz site) which I'm sure you have.

Guess I'm trying to pre-empt someone saying oh but ATF must be accurate when 6 months down the line they sell something thats not. Which does/can and has happened before now on the more intensive side of things with reenactment.

I'm in no way saying ATF are accurate in everything they do. I am saying that as far as M42 suits go the ATF product is as close in colour to the originals I have seen as anything else on the market.
As a sub set of this I am of the opinion that tan is not a correct colour variation for a Normandy period M42.

I think half of that guff on the ATF web site is for entertainment value, therefore probably pinches of salt are required here and there. Still, I like his style and I find it very entertaining - acerbic and rude comments are just up my street

Q: Gee whiz, what did they do with the "incorrect" color gear in 1944?
A: Stored it until the end of the century to aggravate reenactors.

Heh, and I'm obsessive about perfect colour too - part of my business is fine art reproduction. However, I wish some of my clients would accept vagueness about what constitutes khaki!

okay enough of the green discussion... it's worse than bloody blanco.

I think the fact is that almost any shade from green to tan is probably acceptable. Just look at original webbing, it comes in all those shades as well. The tan mostly due to aging.

Anyway... This is Latest Aquitisions... and I have a Sten MkII and you don't nar nar ne nar nar...

Well some of you will have one tomorrow night...

The tan colour is popular with re-enactors but isnt right from what I have seen last week.

Sorry to resurrect this discussion but these look pretty tan coloured to me -

http://www.historylink101.com/ww2_color ... _1377.html

- unless they're re-enactors or something. Come to think of it, I'm sure I saw that pigeon at Beltring last year.

EDIT 1 Here's another - http://www.historylink101.com/ww2_color ... T1842.html
Am I missing something here?

EDIT 2 Plus this - http://www.historylink101.com/ww2_color ... T0390.html
I must have got the wrong end of the stick or something because these are ostensibly original pictures and the uniforms can't have faded or anything?

They also look well up in the exposure stakes too. Old colour photos are not a very reliable source for colour matching either, the dyes used are not stable, green seems to be especially subject to degradation. It seems to be a feature of many green pigments of the period.
Also, why cant the uniforms have faded? The Sicily pictures especially could be subject to fading, those guys had been in North Africa before they jumped on the island. New jump suits were not used for the Normandy re-enforce suits, they turned in one of their existing suits. But even then those that survive show a green tint. Its not a strong colour, we are not talking M43 or HBT green but the green cast is there.
The ATF suits are a much better match for the original suits I saw the other week in Normandy than the tan/beige chinese, thats all I can say. Even if every other suit was a fake or a repro the majority had the green cast.
I'd also say the cloth of some of the chinese suits is wrong. It looks and feels soft and some are even 'fluffy' looking. The real deal is smooth, almost with a sheen. This can be seen on the unissued items that can be found on various sites.
There are so many wearing the tan suits that they wont go away, it is becoming the norm. This is known as a 're-enactorism', where perception of the nature of something is used before the truth.

Third picture, chap getting into the aeroplane.

How come the dodgy 1940s over-exposed photography, combined with my dodgy monitor set-up, doesn't affect the subtle hint of green in his bazooka, gas mask bag, helmet, front pack, reinforced knee bits and of course the C47, but DOES affect ONLY the jump suit to make it look tan?

I don't understand the argument frankly.

From the ATF website - - this picture is apparently showing unissued, mint condition M42s and they all look pretty much the same colour as our cheapo chinese knock-off ones. They also look about the same colour as ATF's own brand, see here - .

Here's another picture from ATF which they are using to demonstrate the differences in shade of originals - . (Our chinese ones match the one on the right by the way).

But if the originals varied as much as ATF contend, from a light sage green (left) through OD (middle) to the more brown side of OD (right), what's the point of the whole discussion on them having to be more green to be right? Also, how can they then go on to argue that their colour is right and everybody else's is wrong?

Heh Barrie - its really difficult (actually impossible) to make any colour comparison with a piece of material on your lap with a picture on a computer screen, let alone a dodgy one, let alone of a 60 year old colour photo that has been scanned from god knows where, passed through endless hands on the way, possibly ending up in a book that someone rescans before ending up on a web site!

All colours fade in time, dyes in WW2 would have been mostly vegetable or mineral dyes and very susceptible to change even over a short time. I well remember my grandmother closing curtains when it was sunny so as not to fade the carpet! Furthermore photographic dyes are very prone to light fading and it's disproportionate across the three dyes that make up a colour image and this leads to characteristic colour shifts (which depend on material/manufacturer/process). Even today where someone like Fuji says colour photos have a 100 year life also say in the small print that this is only so if kept in the dark under certain temperature and humidity conditions, and even then 100 year life means 'acceptable fading', not that it remains exactly the same!

So, colour changes over time. And as has already been stated, batch dying gives variable colour. What was acceptable must have depended on who was approving product supplied by a manufacturer. One would imagine if a maker handed over a batch of M42s that came out bright red they would be rejected by the purchaser - even the excuse of 'there's a war on you know' wouldn't wash!

So, an illustration of how misleading a web site photo could be:

Here is that photo you referred to greens of:

And my colour corrected version to restore missing colour information:
compare jump suit with canvas cover on door lock(?) and the tan thingy at his neck and contrast with the green knee reinforcement. I'd say the suit is a greenish tan but neither green not tan.