Four color pattern for M880 - mystery solved?

Hello all,

I've been stumped by this for some time, but I may have figured it out now. I've been looking for the 4 color pattern for the M880 but all I could find is the NATO 3 color pattern. Recently I discovered something interesting. The old pattern for the M1008 and the NATO 3 color pattern for the M880 are very similar. The only perceptible difference is that the M1008 has some brown in the pattern in the bed of the truck whereas the M880 3 color pattern hasn't. So bearing these similarities in mind, I thought, what if the 4 color pattern was done in a similar manner? I can't find the M880 4 color pattern, but the M715 four color pattern is easy to find. So I decided to do a comparison. Recently I found a web site for a guy over in Europe who has an M880 with the camo pattern in pretty good shape. Check it out:

http://www.dusss.com/dodgeindex.htm

Now compare some of these photos to the M715 pattern:

http://209.151.88.8/od_images/m715_camo_fig39.gif
http://209.151.88.8/od_images/m715_camo_fig40.gif
(note: 1 = forest green, 2 = field drab, 3 = sand)

Do you see the similarities?
I think what I'm going to do is take the nato 3 color pattern and erase the lines on it and redraw in the four color pattern from the M715 and these photos.
<img src="emoticons/icon_smile_thumzup.gif" alt="Thumb Up">

I just took another look at the pics of Kenneth Engle's M887 and it confirms my previous assertion. It looks like the pattern used there is also essentially the same as the M715 four color pattern.

Only problem with my M887 is that there are only 3 colors on the thing. The black Y shaped designs seem to be on all MERDC camo. I'm trying to figure out where the 4th color came from.

Or is that where the 4th color went!

Hi Kenneth,

it looks like your M887 is painted in the "Winter US & Europe - verdant" configuration but it's missing the sand color. Generally, the four color pattern goes like this: color 1 = 45% color 2 = 45%, color 3 = 5%, color 4 = 5%. All of the seasonal patterns (except arctic, which is all white) use black as the #4 color, that's why it is just darkened in in those areas on the four color pattern (unlike th NATO 3 color pattern). Check out this page for details.

http://www.olive-drab.com/od_mvg_camo.php3

Here's an example of an M880 painted in the four color pattern in the "Summer US & Europe - verdant" configuration.

http://www.users.fast.net/~tepes/77_M882_John_Bensch.JPG

The only difference between the winter and summer configs is that the #2 color is light green in summer but is changed to field drab in the winter.

You know, after looking at this picture, I have a hunch that this guy used the dark green where he should have used forest green in his Summer pattern.

Here is the 3 color cammo scheme for the 880 truck.
My question is, which color is the base coat, 1 or 2 and which one is brown and which is tan?
http://www.olive-drab.com/images/m880_camo.pdf

there is a thread somewhere on this site that shows the correct pattern for the 4 color camo pattern for the M880. I will try to find it and post some pictures here as I had mine in the summer variant .


I believe the 3 color pattern should be:

#1 383 green
#2 *** brown
#3 Black

I do not think that tan is is used in the 3 color pattern, I am pretty sure it should be the same colors on the hummer you have in your avtar.

4 color summer...

I remember a desert scheme that I think was 3 color, tan, field drab brown, and black.
That is what I was thinking of, seems to me that was the scheme that the one in my old neighborhood was.

There was some conversation on this a while back in another thread, I cant remember for sure, but I think the general consensus was that the military did not have an official 3 color desert pattern. They had a 4 color desert pattern, then went to the all tan. ( just like the Artic pattern is all white )

That being said, it would not be uncommon for a unit to make up their own camo pattern. When I was in the Marines we had a tiger striped M880