Karkee Color Is Driving Me To Drink

[phc35]

I am at my witts end,which is a rather short distance,on what color of Karkee the 37 Pattern web gear was in Northwest Europe. The 2 volumeset I have on the British soldier by Historie,shows a tan.ocher color,. the plates in the Osprey men at arms show the webb gear as gray/green.the web-site,WWW,karkeeweb.shows a khake in brownish color. I am painting the MC PIAT gunner bust

thanks in advance

Jay

 

[captnenglish]

I have yet to see a uniform color for web gear. Any of the colors you mentioned will work. If you google 37 Pattern web gear you will see what I mean.

 

[PaultheMilitaryModeller]

Hi, it depends on how long the unit had been in action, fresh units on the battlefield, the webbing would still be covered with Blanco which was a very pail duck egg green, but this would have soon worn off leaving the webbing a light buff colour or khaki. Also the khaki used for webbing is quite different to the khaki used for the battle dress uniform, it was much lighter.

Hope this has been of help

Paul

 

[billyturnip]

the webbing would still be covered with Blanco which was a very pail duck egg green,

There's quite a few different shades of Blanco too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanco_(compound)

Roger.

 

[Tony Barton]

Might I recommend some Vallejo colours which match the various colours ?
First , the raw , unblancoed webbing : use 914 or 880. The colour varied slightly depending on where it was manufactured .

Blanco seems to have come in three main colours :~
Khaki Green light ( use 881 )
Khaki Green Medium ( use 888 +978 about 1:1 )
And Khaki Green 3, which was a dark olive green colour ( use 889+888 ).
And obviously there would be worn and faded versions of all those, depending on how long the man had been in the field.

Blanco was used on the personal webbing , such as braces, haversack pouches, holsters etc. The colour used was a matter of Regimantal preference.
But probably not used on things like utility pouches, Bren spares wallets etc, since they were essentially add-on, throwaway items
rather than part of a man's personal kit.

This pic shows the real thing , original webbing straps, blancoed in those three main colours.

This pic tends to look a little too blue-green ,which seems to be a trick of Photoshop .
In reality the colours should be a little more yellow-brown , just a touch.

 

[Helm]

The raw webbing could also be a yellowy cream. Like many kids my age the 38 pattern large pack was my school book bag!

 

[PaultheMilitaryModeller]

There's quite a few different shades of Blanco too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanco_(compound)

Roger.

They where not all used by the Army though, some where Airforce and Navy

 

[billyturnip]

They where not all used by the Army though, some where Airforce and Navy

That's correct Paul. I read an article on who used what, when and where but can't remember whether it was online or in a magazine. I have a suspicion it was a letter in Military Modelling.
We used the Light Khaki on our belts and gaiters in basic training in the RN early 80's
Roger.

 

[Dennis]

Blancoed webbing colours are a nightmare, from personal experience if you were posted to a new unit/depot and they used a different colour blanco a period of frantic scrubbing blanco-ing was undertaken, following this was a series of show parades "showing belt and anklets webb blancoed to regimental standard Sir" reply "not good enough show again at 22:00" What a waste of time. I must thank Tony Barton for giving us a really good expanation and colour chart explaining the vagaries of the hated Blanco.
Dennis