A really slow year for building kits. I finished this back in March and have done nothing since. My first attempt at this scheme. My original plan for the M577 was to finish it as an IDF vehicle, but this was one of the in box schemes and it looked great.
Thanks for looking.
Paddy.
Wow, nice work! 
ummm, my brain is probably misfiring due to covid-19 and too much work but one of the “black” fields looks like a male figure holding up the star.
The figure seems to be excited about something …
Nice job Paddy! If you’re a MASSTER fan you’re amongst friends here - see for example Stikpusher’s Academy M151A1 WIP.
Thanks Brian, I’ve been following his thread. Great work.
There’s a great photo on pg. 57 of the Tankograd American Special No. 3017, “MASSTER, MERDC-DUALTEX” that shows an M35 2-1/2 ton truck with a van body that’s been given a 4-color camouflage (a sort of cross between MASSTER and MERDC) where all of the black portions are shaped like things associated with surfing, beaches and the ocean (waves, swimmers, sea turtle, submarine, shark, the shaka (aka “hang ten”) sign, etc.
That came out looking very sharp! Right down to the color coded fuel cans on the top deck. Red is MOGAS and Yellow Diesel IIRC… but I think somebody will get in trouble if that tool bag disappears from the top deck. Nice to see another MASSTER vehicle on here!
And, umm, he looks “Happy” 
Great build, love that scheme and era 
Great job on that camo !
Rich
This seems to be the scheme of the month. Several builds already. Yours came out very well. Nice splatter effects as well.
Nice! I agree, MASSTER is quite popular lately.
Cajun
Great camo and I love the stowage. Excellent build overall but the gear on top really makes it.
Never tried MASSTER but it’s quickly becoming my favorite camo pattern!
Robin, that was the guy trying to climb up when the nuke went off.
Excellent job! I was assigned to B Btry, 1st Bn. 2nd FA in Baumholder when the order came down to paint all our OD vehicles in the MASSTER scheme. I was the FDO at the time so my vehicle was the FDC track which was an M577, so this project is close to my heart.
So here’s my usual appeal to the modeling world! The directive to paint all of the USAREUR/7th Army Vehicles was USAREUR Reg 5-525 and it was supplemented by both a VII Corps Reg, and a V Corps reg, probably with the same number, 5-525.
I have been trying to get my hands on a copy of ANY of these regulations for YEARS, and it appears that NOBODY has a copy!
Oddly enough, I DO, have a copy of the 38 page Incl 1 which has drawings of various vehicles and the patterns to be drawn with numbers 1-4 to indicate which paint goes in which area.
HOWEVER this set of drawings was ACTUALLY created and issued in December of 1966, as a supplement to an earlier directive to paint all USAREUR vehicles!! How this 38 page set of drawings came into being is quite a funny story, but suffice to say that the 1966 initiative was placed on hold and then cancelled without having been implemented, in June of 1967. (I have some theories about the “why” on that as well.)
Some time in 1972 or so the decision to paint vehicles in USAREUR was resurrected, and the above regulations were what ordered it. The 38 page set of drawings from 1966 was dusted off and reissued with the new reg. And in one other twist, the COLORS specified to correspond to the numbers 1-4 in the new regulation were NOT the same has they had been in 1966.
SO, if anybody out there can get their hands on a copy of the USAREUR, or Corps regulations from about June or so of 1973 which ordered the implementation of the MASSTER program in Europe, I’d LOVE to get my hands on a copy!!
Tom
Hi Paddy, that painting is awesome!
Not just the scheme, which I love, but overall.
This is great work!
This is looking awesome. Excellent paintjob!!!
Hi Tom,
I was just down the road at C 1/83rd FA, though from 77-79. A question about the MASSTER application. My memory says that all of the MASSTER painted vehicles I saw were hard edged. And it seems that the photo evidence bares that out. But, from your up close and personal experience, do you remember if it was masked off or was it sprayed freehand?
In C 1/83 we painted our vehicles in Forrest Green, Field Drab and Black, trying to follow the MERDC scheme, but not very successfully without the fourth color. I always wondered why we weren’t issued the sand color. Most of our stuff ended up looking a lot like the later NATO 3 color scheme.
Oh and by the way…I love the job done on the 577! Two thumbs up!!
Thanks for your comments about the FDC track. That was my home in the field for the year that I was the Battery FDO.
I arrived at 2nd FA in October of 1972 and at that time all our vehicles were solid OD. We received the directive in June or so of 1973 to pattern paint our vehicles.
The template that was provided with those regulations had ACTUALLY been created back in 1966 as part of a previous concept to pattern paint vehicles which was never actually implemented.
The original 4 colors for that scheme called for Color 1 to be a Brown (FS 30045) and cover 34% of the vehicle, Color 2 to be ALTERNATED seasonally between a Light Brown (FS30219) in Fall/Winter or a Forest Green (FS 34127) in Spring/Summer covering 37% of the vehicle, Color 3 to be a Dark Green (Either FS 34052 or FS 34102) to cover 20% of the vehicle, and Color 4 to be Black covering the remaining 9%.
But by the time the regulations were published in 1973, Color 1 was modified to be Earth Brown (FS 30117), not a big change, BUT Color 2 was changed to the Sand Color (FS 30227) that everyone is familiar with. Color 3 was slightly modified to be a Green (FS 34079) and Color 4 remained Black.
Why the decision was made to replace Color 2 with Sand is a mystery, and there were all sorts of rumors flying around of being sent to fight in the desert! It may be that the original Fall/Winter color was slightly modified and the decision made to keep only ONE color for Color 2 and not change every 6 months. If so I think that was a GOOD call.
And after the vehicles were out in the field and got dirty, it sure worked. That color which is so identified with the MASSTER scheme really did work.
As you recalled, the edges for MASSTER were hard, because the way it was applied was that the patterns which were originally created in December of 1966 were re-issued with the new colors and we all went to the motor pool, chalked off the patterns on the vehicles by hand, entered the number in the areas as appropriate, and applied the paint, by hand with regular paint brushes. There may have been a few units which may have sprayed the paint on but that was NOT typical. There wasn’t the time nor equipment available in units to get that done, but plenty of manual labor. And as the vehicles got wear and tear touch up was also done by hand.
It MAY be that in the later stages, when vehicles were rebuilt and sent out from depots, that the colors were sprayed on resulting in softer edges, but that is NOT how the original scheme looked for the first 3-4 years.
