M42 uniform, colour of, discussion

Let me refine/define what amounts to only my opinion.
Direct contact with a number of M42 suits in various collections, under various lighting conditions, in Normandy within the last 2 weeks has led me to be of the opinion that one correct shade for the M42 suit worn in Normandy is OD3 with a distinct green cast. The very few that did not show the green were still not the same colour as the Tan chinese suits. Od3 isnt tan though there is no doubt it came in almost a rainbow of shades, I'd never deny that.
This opinion should not spoil you enjoying your hobby, it was mentioned not as a spoiler but as a direct result of first person contact with the item in question. Perhaps you might get to stand with the same suits in the same museums I did and you will be able to see first hand what I did and form your own opinion.

heh... Could it even have been because of the lighting in the museums?

I know that for a fact some of my tan items look rather green in artificial light!

This has also been very true when trying to colour match pea-green webbing to paint in B&Q. In fact what I ended up with was tan! In the B&Q lights it was VERY green.

heh... Could it even have been because of the lighting in the museums?

I know that for a fact some of my tan items look rather green in artificial light!

I had thought of that but again I dont think it is a factor in this case. Why? Stand in any airborne museum for any amount of time and some person will walk in wearing Jump trousers. This happened in both Dead Mans Corner [who also have an extensive shop selling the tan trousers which were clearly not the same shade as those on display in the museum section] and the Airborne Museum in St. Mere Eglise[which is mostly natural light]. The exhibits and the repros were just not the same colour.
Could it be the fact I was viewing through glass? Possible but other items such as the webbing were not affected. I have enough original US webbing to be aware of the myriad shades it comes in, sometimes on the same article.

How right you are Yith - lighting conditions are really important! Most indoor lighting is rubbish for colour assessment whether it is fluorescent or tungsten lighting in a museum or mercury vapour lamps in B&Q. My lab is fitted out with colour matched daylight tubes to the industry BS standard but even those have little dips in the spectrum and some dyes even exhibit metamerism under this light. When colour matching really matters I use natural north light - can't be bettered!

Added to that human eye see colours in different ways and its a wonder anyone can agree on anything! That said, although the eye/brain is poor at absolute colour 'accuracy' is is very good at comparison - put two samples together and the eye can detect the difference even if you can't possible describe it. This is the method Poacher describes - direct comparison under the same lighting conditions.

I'm not disputing that colours fade, or that photographs can be deceiving.

Chomley, I like your colour-corrected photo better as well, however I still disagree that his jumpsuit is at all green. In any case, even after colour correction, there's no more of a green tint to the jumpsuit than there is to the white stripe on the aircraft! Can we therefore conclude that white paint in the 40's had a bit of green in it lol?

I'm not saying Poacher is wrong, I'm sure he's right (mostly because he's seen them in the flesh), only a madman would send their army to war in NW Europe with bright khaki uniforms.

But, the ATF website appears to be suggesting that other manufacturer's jumpsuits are khaki and hence wrong.

I am merely pointing out that our SoF jumpsuits aren't khaki, they SEEM to be a good match for the one on the right in this photograph - .

ATF argue themselves that the originals came in different colours and shades and present pictures of differently coloured originals, some more green than others, one of which SEEMS to match our ones.

All I am saying therefore is that the ATF website has not yet convinced me that ONLY their colour M42s are correct.

Here are some of our pictures taken from one of the Normandy museums. I'm guessing these aren't the ones Poacher is referring to though. They all look khaki (which is wrong, yes?), and the chap on the bike looks like his jacket just went through a hot wash with some sage green socks for company.

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There's no need to remind me these have been photographed under artificial light, developed, sat around for 4 years, then scanned and finally put through your monitor.

LOL, most crucially Poacher is telling you what he has seen with his own eyes and therefore holds great weight (as opposed to looking at photos or web sites which hold next to none at all) and the ATF site is full of contradiction, questionable logic, goading, provocation and humour - oh, and they also want to sell their kit!

Lol just to make it clear, the above photo's are taken by us, in person, in one of the Normandy museums - so we've seen them too, not just taken random pictures off the interweb.

Try as I might I can't see any socks in the photos, how do you know they were sage green? Which variety of sage? Salvia officinalis can vary from light silvery grey to a purple, not to mention the complication of variegation...

Those photos are from St. Mere Eglise, the Airborne museum?
To be brutaly honest if we are going to argue logic and fallacies then my evidence, being anecdotal, holds very little weight. As Chomley said earlier the memory is not an ideal mechanism for recall. It cant be relied upon, thats one reason why lawyers can make a living.
That being true I still hold the opinion that all things being equal the ATF is the best representation of a Normandy jump suit in colour and finish and type of cloth for the above reasons. The WPG ones are not bad, towards khaki colour wise but the cloth was ok, the last batch I saw from WWII impressions were TOO green, pea green.
I just cant bring myself to like the chinese version. Some even ship with 101st SSI and an arm flag sewn on, thats an airborne 101 dont do. How good is their research if they allow that error?

How good is their research if they allow that error?

Ah good, another twist to the debate! One would suspect it has little to do with research and more to do with the fact that they can sell more units when an arm flag is included with the package. Perceived added value and all that...

I'll wager there was little or no research, just a direct copy of one of the cheaper M42 repros from the USA. WPG? They were rather more brown than green but still not tan.

I've just had another look at the piccys posted by B&A. The one of the chap on the bike I think shows some good points.
His tunic has a green cast whilst his trousers are well faded out and do indeed look tan. It's hard to tell from the image size if either are re-enforced, I cant see any contrasting colour that would support re-enforcing. They might be so faded out that contrast has been lost. If this is the case they cannot be held up as representative of the M42 in 1944. The contrast of the dark green canvas and the OD3 cotton is very obvious in so many photos.

I've just checked our original photo's and there's definitely no reinforced knees or elbows that I can see, which as you say makes them pretty irrelevant.

I'm still a bit bemused though. Is the green of the bike rider's jacket the right colour, albiet faded. I can see how a light green might fade or become washed out in a photo to produce the results in my previous examples. I can't see how OD could though.

Please don't mistake me for being argumentative or precious about our SoF stuff, I'm just genuinely interested to find out.

Just thought I'd throw this one into the pot after a bit of "research".

Check out this site - http://www.101airborneww2.com/uniforms2.html - which seems to be maintained by a collector of genuine stuff who has contacts with veterans.

Note this paragraph under the title "Delong's Jacket" -

"Several years ago, I acquired an M42 reinforced jump jacket from Jim Colucci, a veteran of H/502. Jim told me he won a drawing to come to the states on a War Production tour, shortly after the Bastogne campaign. Like others, Jim had turned-in his M42 jumpsuit, to be replaced by rigger-modified M43s. But he wanted a TAN jumpsuit to wear during the Tour. He entered a building full of barracks bags belonging to men who were KIA or MIA. Opening one at random, he found this jacket, but was not familiar with the original owner, a 'Delong'."

My caps/bold.

But - here's a re-enactor with what I think Poacher is saying they should like like -
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The light green seems to square with the museum picture above and I can see how that could end up looking like the over-exposed pictures I originally posted. However, it's a million miles away from OD which was the thrust of ATF's argument. (And looks nothing like the pictures in the collector's website above).

I'm confused.

I'm still a bit bemused though. Is the green of the bike rider's jacket the right colour, albiet faded.

Yes the jacket is of the correct general colour, as you say faded out a bit. It really isn't a strong green colour but as I have said a slight tint or cast.
It is not the lack of re-enforcing that makes them irrelevant, not all Normandy jump suits got re-enforced but the fact that if they were so faded as to be re-enforced but not show contrast then they are so faded as to be an unrealistic representation of what was worn.
I'm sure, against the deep green of an M43 set the M42 would appear more tan than green, that is what you will notice as the difference between OD3 and OD7. OD3 IS a paler, more brown shade than OD7.

The fundamental problem, as I hope I've illustrated, is that you can't tell diddly squit with any accuracy what the hell any colour is from a photo - be it old or new, original print in your hands or in a book or on a web page. You just can't. The best you can do is a comparison photo which stuff on the same image - then at least you see stuff is different.

Couple to that the utter crapness we have in any ability to describe colour - its personal interpretation. Is OD3 brownish green or greenish brown? What the hell is tan?
In the print world we have the Pantone system which in Europe and America at least is a common language. Its a proprietary system but by means on swatch books and ink colour mixes it gives clients, designers and printers a known target to aim at. They have a similar system in the textile world and in the paint industry they have the RAL or BS coding.

Bored yet?

So. how to nail this? Well, you need some sort of device that reads a colour sample using a known and calibrated light source and compares that with a reading taken from a known colour sample. Not that difficult, I use one every day. I used to used densitometers to compare manufacturer exposed film samples processed in my lab machines with ideal values and this told you whether the process was in control and how to correct it if it wasn't. These days I use a spectrophotometer to adjust inkjet prints to produce optimum output. Prices have plummeted over the years and there is now a handy tool produced for print media designers to take a reading from a fabric sample (say) and convert it into a known value such as a Pantone number. Easy! Zap an ATF M42 and whatever you like to compare it with and the colours are there for all to see, no matter where you are in the world. You will also need a swatchbook so that it means something to the eye but you could also use a chart on screen which will show variance from the norm even if not showing exact colour. Alternatively you can plot it on a colour spacial chart that shows exactly where in the visible colour wheel it sits.

An even simpler method is just using a Pantone swatch book and matching the garment by eye. Close enough, and a hundred times more accurate, repeatable and transferable that attempting to make judgements from wb sites or books!

my SOF one looked like that till the second wash, now its tan/ khaki. no green left at all.

Heh, he ain't no soldier - pull your shoulders back man!

he's a yank...