Good morning
I found this picture, caption. “3-64 Armor M1A1’s Platoon at Hohenfels. Photo taken circa 1987”.
As the image is a little blurred: would these tanks still have been painted in plain FS34079 ? Or allready in NATO three tone camo ? On a first glance they look solid green, but the longer you look at the picture, the more brown and black shades could be there … 
Thanks in advance - Roger
Early M1s were medium green overall, some units applied camo patterns, according to their SOP (Standard Operating Procedures).
When the M1A1 went online, they came off the factory with the standard 3 Color NATO pattern, which was adopted in 1984, but it took years for all vehicle to be repainted from MERDC
Then that would mean that this statement is not correct ?! No units with M1A1 in Germany whose tanks were plain green.
I’ll be honest. I don’t know 100% about that. AFAIK, all the new M1A1s were NATO 3 color painted.
You can see the black patches on the turret face of the second tank in the photo. Plus the overall colour of the tanks is very close to the colour of the ground so my guess is they’re just dirty.
And brown on the edges of the righthand turretfront plus the barrel.
After return from the OP Desert Storm most M1A1s where re-painted to overall Green and a few even remained their Tan color.
Since the majority of M1 tanks did not return to Germany after the conflict you would find the remainder sporting an overall Green camo for a few months until repainted back to the 3-Tone camo.
The TANK MAGAZINE special issue Oct.92, M1A1 & US ARMOURED VEHICLES reflects this transition phase of 1992 with some color fotos.
Or contact the TANKOGRAD author Mr. Walter Böhm …
Cheers
Christopher
The only Abrams in Germany I saw in plain green were M1/M1IP. All other tanks were painted CARC. Tank who are training in GTA and JMRC take quite fast the color of the ground., i.e. tan or earth brown. it´s a far more efficient camo than CARC. So this particular tank is defintly CARC camo.
That’s my old battalion. Yes, they had NATO Green, Brown, & Black paint scheme when we recieved them as replacements for our straight M-1s in 1987.
Our straight M-1s were just forest green. .
I think ours in 3/66 AR were solid green in ‘88-89 but can’t be 100% sure since I wasn’t a tanker but could be a special case since our battalion swapped with an infantry one that got sent back to Ft Hood so maybe they came from existing stock.
But this picture I took at CAT ‘89 is definitely camo.
I was in the 3d AD from 1986 to 1989. The M1IPs were in plain forest green, all the new M1A1s were in NATO three tone.
It is definately Friedberg Training Area at the Winterstein
Probably, this vehicle was repainted in plain forest green after returnig from the Gulf War. I saw some tanks still in sand color.
