I've painted the base colour on the flamethrower. Coat d'Arms' Russian Green was a good match, which is coincidental since Russian Brown was a good match for the straps.
So now I'm ready for the weathering, and was looking for confirmation on the metal used for the pressure tank. Could the red actually be copper showing through instead of anti-corrosive red oxide paint?
My searches eventually turned up the manual for the M2A1-7.
It has a really catchy title:
"Operators, Organizational, Direct Support, and General Support Maintenance Manual (Including Repair Parts and Special Tools Lists) Flamethrower, Portable, M2A1-7 FSN 1040-586-4560", Headquarters Department of the Army, November 1973.
https://the-eye.eu/public/Books/World Tracker Library/worldtracker.org/media/library/Military/TM 3-1040-204-14 Flamethrower, Portable, M2A1-7.pdf
It gave me the answer I was looking for:
"The pressure tank (2, fig. 1-5) is a cylindrical
steel tank which contains the pressurized air for dispersing the fuel from the fuel tanks..."
So definitely not copper, and more likely to be anti-corrosive paint.
Some photos from the manual:
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