Platform
Modules
By sector
By sector
By standard
Blog
News
Events
AEP-65
Project managers, paint specialists and the test laboratories that run AEP-65's acceptance test for paint systems resistant to chemical agents
AEP-65 is NATO's laboratory test method and pass/fail criteria for how much chemical agent a paint system absorbs and desorbs, invoked automatically wherever a nation ratifies STANAG 4360.
AEP-65 is a NATO Allied Engineering Publication that defines a laboratory test method and fixed pass/fail criteria for paint systems meant to resist chemical agents on military equipment. It is a test protocol, not a paint specification: it tells a laboratory how to measure a candidate paint system's performance, not what the paint has to be made of.
The method contaminates a painted test panel with a chemical agent, then measures two things on the same sample: how much agent the paint absorbs in total, and how much of it desorbs onto a contact sampler, currently silica gel chosen as "representative as is practical of human skin" (clause 1.3), within fifteen minutes of contact. That fifteen-minute figure represents an operational touch, not a storage or handling limit.
Chapter 3 sets the acceptance criteria against three chemical agents, at an initial contamination density detailed in AEP-7 Chapter 6. For HD, the total absorbed quantity must be 60 μg/cm² or less and the quantity desorbed within 15 minutes 10 μg/cm² or less (Chapter 3). For VX and GD, the total absorbed quantity must each be 12 μg/cm² or less and the desorbed quantity 1 μg/cm² or less (Chapter 3). A laboratory reports a plain pass or fail against these thresholds for a specific paint system.
AEP-65 is not itself a technical specification a supplier designs to from scratch; the specification it is usually invoked under is STANAG 4360, "Specification for Paint Systems, Resistant to Chemical Agents and Decontaminants for the Protection of Land Military Equipment." Ratifying STANAG 4360 automatically invokes AEP-65 (clause 1.2). Separately, the document says its own acceptance procedures and criteria "may be used by nations as a separate stand-alone requirement for paint systems" and are "not limited to joint NATO defence paint materiel projects which implement STANAG 4360" (clause 1.2), so a national programme can call up AEP-65's test on its own terms too. A tender or contract is where a supplier actually meets it, not the publication existing on NATO's own list.
Eighteen 50 x 50 x 1 mm test panels, aluminium alloy 5083 or 7020-T6, or steel, are painted to the manufacturer's instructions and to ISO 1514:2016, cured 24 hours then force-dried 10 days, and conditioned again on receipt at the test facility (clause 4.3). Panels are contaminated with HD, VX or GD within 150 seconds, held for 90 minutes, then decontaminated in ethanol within 30 seconds of that hold ending (Chapter 5). What follows is gas chromatography on two separate extractions, one from an adsorbent pressed onto the panel for 15 minutes (the desorbed quantity, Chapter 6) and one from the panel itself extracted repeatedly until negligible (the absorbed quantity, Chapter 7), each checked against a reference sample from an uncontaminated panel to rule out background interference from the paint formulation.
The document is candid about its own limit: the silica-gel contact sampler is a laboratory proxy, and several nations are still working to relate laboratory results to what an unprotected person actually accumulates from real "touches" of random frequency, duration and applied pressure (clause 1.3). AEP-65 expects to be revised again once that work matures enough to sharpen the pass/fail criteria.
The work AEP-65 describes happens on a laboratory bench: preparing painted panels, handling HD, VX and GD, running gas chromatography, and reading confidence intervals off the results. No compliance software runs that test or decides whether a paint system passes.
What ComplyTrain gives a programme working to AEP-65 is the evidence trail around that bench work: a controlled standard operating procedure for the eighteen-panel protocol, training and calibration records for the people running it, the pass/fail report and its supporting gas chromatography data held as controlled evidence, and a clear record of which paint system and which edition of AEP-65 a given test result belongs to. That is what an auditor or a government quality assurance representative asks to see after the fact.
It does not operate the gas chromatograph, run the contamination and decontamination phases, or tell you whether your paint system meets the thresholds in Chapter 3; that judgement stays with the testing laboratory. Which tier of testing a given programme actually requires, and whether AEP-65 is in scope at all, is set by the contract and the customer's quality clause, not by us. The standards explorer shows what sits alongside AEP-65 for a land armaments programme, and we are glad to talk through what the evidence trail should look like before a tender lands.
Tell us how you need to work with AEP-65 and what you need from it. We will come back to you about what ComplyTrain can do.
Thank you. Your list is on its way to your inbox, and we will come back to you on what working with these standards in ComplyTrain involves, usually within one business day.
Not on its own. AEP-65 is invoked automatically once a nation ratifies STANAG 4360, and can otherwise be called up as a stand-alone requirement by a national programme; either way, it reaches a supplier through a specific contract or tender rather than by existing on NATO's list.
STANAG 4360 is the agreement nations ratify, "Specification for Paint Systems, Resistant to Chemical Agents and Decontaminants for the Protection of Land Military Equipment"; AEP-65 is the technical publication it invokes, holding the actual test method and the pass/fail acceptance criteria a paint system is measured against.
The current edition tests HD, VX and GD, with separate acceptance thresholds set for each in Chapter 3.
No. AEP-65 describes a laboratory test that produces a pass or fail result for a specific paint system; the document names no accredited certification body, notified body or government surveillance scheme, and describes no certification of an organisation or a product.
It is the current promulgated edition, dated August 2023. The document available to us does not state what Edition B replaced.
One system for the whole compliance programme. Start with the module you need most.
Collect information the same way every time, and decide in advance what happens next.
Know whether your controls are operating, not just whether a policy says they exist.
Turn the compliance work you already know about into a plan with owners, dependencies and dates.
Know what you can offer, and hold the evidence behind every configuration you offer it in.
Eight built-in reports across every module, scheduled, delivered, and filed where the evidence lives.
The sector news that matters to your organisation - read and rated by AI, and delivered as a scheduled digest in your own language.
AI reads the tender pack and pulls out the requirements, deadlines and rules - then helps you draft the response from your own approved content, with you reviewing every step.
One current register of the suppliers and partners you depend on - each risk-assessed, re-assessing itself on schedule, and wired straight into your risk register.
See every requirement you face - across every standard, plus your own contracts and policies - traced to the documents, evidence and processes that satisfy it.
Identify, score, treat and review your risks in one place - with AI to help anyone run a proper assessment, and a defensible trail behind every decision.
Assign training, prove it was understood, and hold the competence records an auditor asks for.
Draft compliance documents with AI, keep every version under control, and export them beautifully branded - all in one place.
Audits, corrective actions, processes and approvals in one quality system, organised around ISO 9001.
Medical device manufacturers operate under more regulatory pressure than almost any other sector outside pharmaceuticals. The rules govern how you design a device, how you make it, how you track it after it ships, and how you respond when something goes wrong.
Learn how EU dual-use export controls apply to encryption, sensors, and software, how classification works under Annex I, and why sending source code by email can count as an export.
A practical way to turn in-your-head risk management into a register that survives staff turnover and answers the risk questions now showing up in tenders.