Truck looks like was blue color

[pa.rich]

What was this truck from , the air force? Weren't they the blue color? Is an M51A2.Just curious.

 

[Knucklehead]

The USAF did use Strata Blue on their trucks. A dark gloss blue.

 

[pa.rich]

O.K. thanks. I dont think I will repaint it that color, I like the O.D. best.

 

[hndrsonj]

Air Force paints everything Strata Blue. My personal favorite is the 3-color camo.

 

[cbvet]

My 1952 Stude M35 is Strata Blue under the Forestry Service orange, under the funky OD.
Eric
CBVET

 

[carguy455]

Nobody restores em in Strata Blue, EVERYBODY paints em OD, be different, restore one in USAF trim.

 

[CGarbee]

Not every Air Force truck is painted blue... I have a '83 USAF M35A2C that was painted in three color camo while in the Service (tactical trucks got painted camo just like the other branches rigs...). Also, I have a buddy who fondly rmembers bright yellow Air Force rigs (flightline...).

Anyway, if you want to see what a fresh Strata Blue paint job looks like (although on a smaller truck), take a gander at the photos of Ed's USAF M37 that I have on my website at:
http://www.garbee.net/~cabell/photos35.htm

Enjoy your truck whatever color you paint it.

 

[67Beast]

Here is a pic of a deuce painted Strata blue. This was from a show here in Michigan. The owners name is Bill Presten.

 

[Recovry4x4]

That brings up another question. What color were the tops on the soft top trucks painted strata blue or were they all hardtops?

 

[acetomatoco]

Most of the AirForce deuces on the DEW line and radar stations around da Canadian Border were Strata Blue... there are a couple just over the border in Quebec from me..and a lot of M37s were procured in SB in the 50s... ACE

 

[pa.rich]

You know, now that I see those pics of the blue duece, it doesnt look that bad. BUT! would everyone let me in a convoy???

 

[m139h2otruck]

There was a big SAC base in NH, Pease, and a lot of the trucks on-base were blue, 4 door Dodges, M37's, M715's, and M35's. All the flight line stuff was yellow, and they didn't allow anything that had run on the roads to run out on the taxiway in the winter because of the salt. Watched them clear the 2 mile runway and huge concrete taxiway/parking/tiedown with the plows after a big snow storm w/ ice and all they did for two days was scrape the paving! No idea of how many plow blade cutting edges they used.

 

[Knucklehead]

Recovry4x4, I had never seen a soft cab top Air Force truck. I asked my buddy,USAF 32 years, and he could not remember a truck of any kind, M37, M35 or 5T, without a hard top. He also said the exhaust stacks were level with the top of the cab and a flapper type rain cap was fitted. Also he said oil leaks were not allowed at all, no oil dripping on aircraft floors. The stack was shortened to allow the truck to fit into aircraft.

 

[jasonjc]

The hard top on my '67 M36 is SB under the green inside. It's DOB is in the 50's.

 

[rdixiemiller]

I saw a pic of a Navy base in the early sixties and there was a battleship grey deuce out on a pier. Only saw the one pic, a couple of years ago. Can't remember where. I've never seen a grey deuce in person, anyone else ever see one?

 

[N1265]

Yep, Pearl Harbor Hi. in the Mid '80s.

 

[Ferroequinologist]

Oh yea, I can get all the deck grey and battleship grey I want!

 

[steelypip]

Not all USAF blue vehicles were Strata Blue. In fact, Strata was gone (except at the base boneyards) by the time I was old enough to be interested in blue things with wheels (that would have been about 1972).

Strata Blue is the color of the deuce above. It's correct for stuff from the 1950s through some date in the mid '60s (help here with date ranges would be much appreciated). After that they went to a darker blue - not as dark as (Royal) Navy Blue, but about the color of new blue jeans after about five washings. The only USAF wheeled assets that weren't painted this dark blue between about 1970 and 1982 were either tactical (green or 3-color camo - rare in USAF as a whole), flight-line only (yellow), or fire/rescue equipment (red, yellow, or bright green depending). AVGAS trucks might have been red, too, but I never saw one.

I grew up on SAC bases. Everything from the alert Dodge Crew Cabs to maintenance "bread trucks" (6-cyl swb Chevy Step Vans) to staff cars to pickup trucks to the AWD international dump trucks used as snowplows was that dark blue with yellow markings. So if your deuce was in service over a broad enough time range, you have a choice of colors available.

Now for the interesting part: I never saw any flavor of deuce variant except on TV until about 1983. At that point, there was a move toward unit forward deployability (kind of silly for an EWO-ready B-52 wing), and a few old M35s appeared along with the Army reserve construction unit suddenly attached to the SAC base where I lived. I think they were single-color CARC green, but it's been a long time. I remember clearly that they were built during the later years of the '60s. I vaguely recall that they had the usual reflective yellow stick-on letters on the doors, which looked strange on the OD paint.

Into the middle eighties the dark blue got rarer and was replaced by the NATO Euro 1 standard on things that were called deployable assets.