Thank you.
About the decals of the kit, the bumper numbers are on an orange rectangle, but most photos I’ve seen don’t show it but the numbers painted directly on the camouflage background. Are the orange rectangles right, then?
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When the bumper numbers are black, there are usually lighter colored rectangles behind them so the numbers showed up better. The bumper numbers surround on NATO camo is usually sand. On overall green and later MERDC, the surround was often white. I think Academy was attempting sand, but went too dark.
Some examples:
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When I arrived to my first line unit in March ‘84, the bumper codes were painted onto the MERDC camo color of whatever was there, Dark Green 34079, Light Green 34151, or Field Drab 30118 of the Temperate Spring or Fall schemes. Later that summer, we were reflagged from 3/10 infantry to 4/6 infantry and when we changed the bumper codes, we also added a light color background. That color was actually labeled as “buff” on the cans we were issued, and I didn’t see any Federal Standard color number listed on the paint can. I was already a modeler at that time and paid attention to such things.
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So these decals are not usable. I can look for numbers without background and put a collage of them on a buff area. Thank you for your suggestions.
By the way, the optics for the Dragon missile are missing on the kit. I hope to recover them by a set of US infantry of Tamiya.
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The optics probably wouldn’t be mounted most of the time, though. They clip onto the launch tube before firing and are removed when the tube is empty.
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Yes, the sight only takes a few seconds to mount. But if one is taking them into combat, it’s best to mount them before the shooting starts.
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Most of the M113s photographed with a Dragon launcher on the commander’s hatch were not going into combat, though 
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