Significant Colors |
Color |
Interpretation |
| Yellow | Indicates the presence of high explosives |
| Brown | Identifies low explosive items or components, or indicates the presence of a low explosive |
| Gray | Identifies ammunition that contains irritant, incapacitating, or toxic agents when used as an overall body color except underwater ordnance |
| Gray with dark red band | Indicates the ammunition contains an irritant (riot control) agent |
| Gray with dark green band | Indicates the ammunition contains a toxic agent other than binary agents |
| Gray with broken dark green band | Indicates the ammunition contains a binary nerve agent |
| Gray with violet band | Identifies ammunition with an incapacitating agent |
| Black | Identifies armor-defeating ammunition, except on underwater ordnance, dummy hand grenades, and when used for lettering or marking |
| Silver/aluminum | Identifies countermeasures ammunition |
| Light green | Identifies screening or marking smoke ammunition |
| Light red | Identifies incendiary ammunition or indicates the presence of highly flammable material for producing damage by fire |
| White | Identifies illuminating ammunition or ammunition producing a colored light; exceptions are underwater ordnance, guided missiles, dispensers, and rocket launchers and when used for lettering or marking |
| Light blue | Identifies ammunition used for practice |
| Bronze, gold, and brass | Identifies dummy/drill/inert ammunition not for firing but only used for handling, loading, assembly and testing, training, and display. Some dummy hand grenades may be painted black |
Non-Significant Colors |
| Olive drab | All ordnance items |
| Black | For lettering |
| White | For lettering, also used for guided missiles, dispensers, and rocket launchers |
| The following colors, or when applied as stated, have no identification color coding significance: |
| 1. | The colors gray, black, white, or green on underwater ordnance, such as mines and torpedoes, and the color white on guided missiles, dispensers, or rocket launchers. | |
| 2. | The colors black and white when used for lettering or special marking | |
| 3. | Unpainted or natural color | |
| 4. | Colors specifically applied to identify the color produced by smoke ammunition or pyrotechnics |
