Steven Zagola wrote the definitive article on US Army olive drab paint. The article is old, but the information is still very relevant. There are several important points that he makes in this article. Olive drab has been slightly different colors over the course of the 20th Century. During the course of World War Two, the color did vary a little bit, but was remarkably constant.
There is also something called scale effect. It causes small objects painted in the same color as a large object to look darker than the large object. That means that when you use the exact color as the real vehicle the model will still look wrong! So you have to use a lighter color or lighten the original paint a bit.
Wear, sunlight, dirt, dust, and different batches will make the paint look different. Even different times of day or damp or wet paint will look different. Due to all these variations, I just paint my vehicles in whatever looks right to me. I don't enter my models in IMPS contests so I only have to please myself.
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