Colours Of '67 Colours Of '67
with James Brown & Phil Yates

The Arab-Israeli War of 1967 presents a whole new palette of colours for modellers. The Israelis used a range of grey-khaki and olive colours, while the United Arab Republic used unadorned pale creams, and the Jordanians used sand, green, and khaki. This article is an introductory guide to painting the forces that fought in the Six Day War.

One of the most interesting discoveries when researching the Six-Day War was the scarcity of detailed information. The Israeli Defence Force still maintains a high degree of secrecy about its operations, while Arab sources suffer from a lack of cameras at the time and quite limited detail. Even research by modellers looking at original vehicles comes to conflicting opinions. As a result, this article is our best guess, but if you have different information then feel free to try something else (and let us know!).
Fate Of A Nation
The fate of a nation hangs in the balance. Israel cannot lose even a single battle. One defeat would mean the destruction of the tiny Jewish state. Not waiting to be attacked by the Arab forces massing on its borders, Israel strikes first.

Learn more about Fate Of A Nation here...
Fate Of A Nation
Colours Of '67
Painting Middle Eastern Skin
Painting skin tones is perhaps one of the most tricky and most debated parts of painting miniatures. After a bit of experimentation, we came up with the following method.

■ Basecoat the skin areas in Wool Brown / Vallejo US Field Drab (873).

■ Apply a wash using Zukhov Shade / Brown Wash.

■ Highlight with a 50:50 mix of Wool Brown / US Field Drab (873) and Dry Dust / Iraqi Sand (819), and add further highlights of Dry Dust / Iraqi Sand (819) if you wish.

Israeli Tank Markings
The Suez Crisis was Israel’s first large-scale use of tanks. In it they discovered that small markings were liable to be missed in the heat of battle. As a result, their markings in 1967 were far larger and more obvious. Unfortunately, their meaning is still somewhat obscure due to the Israeli penchant for secrecy!

The three most obvious markings were barrel stripes and chevrons indicating the battalion and company, numbers and letters indicating the platoon and the tank’s position in it, and a big stripe for air recognition. The following seems to be the most common pattern, but others have been observed.

The number of the battalion was indicated by the number of stripes on the gun barrel. Companies are indicated by chevrons (V-shaped markings) pointing down for the first company, forward for the second company, and up for the third company. These were painted on any convenient flat panel on the side. On Centurions this was usually the side skirt. On Pattons, this was usually the turret side.

Colours Of '67
Platoons were generally indicated by the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4, with the individual tanks indicated by the letters aleph (א), bet (ב), and gimel (ד) the first three letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The platoon commander may have been marked as aleph or perhaps just the unadorned platoon number.

A broad white stripe with a black outline formed the Israeli air recognition marking. The stripe ran fore and aft across the engine deck, and often down the rear plate as well. It may also have been displayed on the turret top as some photos show this. Halftracks and jeeps had a stripe running across from one front wheel to the other forming a T with the fore and aft stripe running back to the passenger compartment and often down the rear of the vehicle as well.

Many vehicles also carried battalion or brigade symbols on the front left (looking forward) mudguard, but the meaning of most of these is unknown.

Israeli Decals Deciphered:
A Guide To Using The Israeli Decal Set
Blake provides a guide and examples for using the Israeli Decal set for vehicles featured in Fate Of A Nation.

Israeli Decals Deciphered...
Israeli Decals Deciphered
Israeli Defence Force Download a PDF of Vallejo version of this colour guide here...
Colours Of '67
United Arab Republic Sinai Field Army Download a PDF of Vallejo version of this colour guide here...
Colours Of '67
Jordanian Arab Army Download a PDF of Vallejo version of this colour guide here...
Colours Of '67

A Guide To The Arab & Jordanian Decal Set
After explaining how to use the Israeli decal set for the various Israeli vehicles featured in Fate Of A Nation. Now it is time to cover the Arab and Jordanian decal set.

A Guide To The Arab & Jordanian Decal Set...


Last Updated On Wednesday, December 3, 2014 by Blake at Battlefront