The Commander Series Forum

Guys, I have a minor dilemma.

I have a small British force (Late War) with a few Sherman 75's, some Cromwells, and a Firefly.

My 2010 project will be an American Late War force.

In the interests of saving some cash, I figured I'd buy some Sherman 76's for the American force, as I already have some 75's in the Brit force. I could then field my Brits with a mix of 75/76 and likewise with the Americans. Seems sensible on the wallet.

However, would it look OK on the table to field a Yank army with "Brit-coloured" tanks? Or do I paint the 76's in proper American tank green?

I would say not to worry about it, but if you need justification, the actual olive drab colour used by the Americans could vary for many reasons including different paint from one factory to another, fading due to exposure to the sun, and reapplication of a different paint. It's also my understanding that the British did not necessarily repaint the Shermans they got (being a bit of a waste of time and resources), so if you paint both armies with the American Olive Drab, you wouldn't be too far off.

I'm sure other more knowledgeable people will chime in as well.

Hey JB!

I know that this is going to be a minor viewpoint before I start, but what the hey!

First of all, American tanks were painted Olive Drab, not green.

But having said that, you don't have a problem - Shermans were the same colour (*stands back and waits for furious backlash*) in both armies. The Brits, Canadians, etc didn't repaint their lend-lease equipment, which is one of the reasons we changed our military equipment colour in early 1944 to Olive Drab to match (as near as paint specifications and production methods at the time would allow) the Americans. And we even used the same air recognition signs.

So go ahead - fill your boots!

All the best

Pb

I think that all the above advice re tank colours is pretty sound. I believe that some British Shermans were re-painted but by no means all of them were!

However, I think that Brits only used 76mm Shermans to replace Fireflys in Italy?

Hey Julesav!

Yes, some were repainted, but only when they needed it. It was forbidden to repaint just to change the colour and it was also compulsory to use up all stocks of old colours (even if they had been superceded) before using new stocks - all in the interests of economy, because there was a war on!

All the best

Pb

Thanks for the advice, chaps.

Next 2 related questions (sorry)....

1. I assume that US priests, Jacksons, M10's, etc, were the same colour as Shermans?

2. The US tanks had a big white star in a white circle on them (the air recognition sign that PB mentioned?) - was this also found on the Brit shermans?

thanks,

John

Yes and yes.

Pb

1 Yes, why repaint something that is already painted? Pretty much everything the US had was painted olive drab.

2 Only some of them. I've seen them without the circle too. On top of that, many crews painted out or covered up the stars because they made good aiming points for the enemy. I know that some Canadian tanks replaced the star with a maple leaf but others just left the star as is.

My gut feeling is that having a star on each side is the most common marking, followed by no star anywhere, followed by the star within a circle on the front or on each side (I don't know for sure but I think the star in a circle is the earlier form but I stand to be corrected by those who know)

I think the star in circle on the top was the most common on British tanks. Stars on the sides were unusual on British tanks.

British softskins seem to have had quite a lot of stars on the sides though.

To make sure they are not shot at by trigger happy Americans, no doubt

Here's a few sites with the pictures and you can see the wide range of how they marked the tanks:

http://www.olive-drab.com/idphoto/id_photos_m4_...
http://www.warfoto.com/weapons2.htm#top
http://www.militaryimages.net/photopost/showpho... (note how the star has been painted over on this one)
http://www.peachmountain.com/5star/Museum_Tanks...

And there's this:
http://www.anicursor.com/colpicwar2.html

For NWE British armoured/tank regiments NO star on the sides or front, star in circle on engine deck or turret roof some just the star on the turret roof some Churchill regiments carried the star on top of the front tank guard.
Some regiments had a star on the back of the turret.
Some RA Shermans had stars on the turret sides.
Some Carriers had stars on the sides

Quite a few British AFVs were painted with black patches as camouflage. This is more commonly seen at the start of operations as replacement vehicles seem to have often remained plain khaki drab or olive drab.

Hey Julesav!

I only know of one regiment that did that in NWE - can't remember which one off hand but it had Shermans! If you know of more than one I'd be interested to which they are. Thanks in anticipation.

All the best

Pb

Pb - if Olive Drab is not a shade of green - what is it?
Guy

4/7th Dragoon Guards their most famous tank was "Shaggy Dog" its the one with the black camo also quite possible that it was their only tank with camo.
Czechs had some Cromwells in camo possibly SSC2 and black.
Thats about it for 21 AG tanks.

Guy,
I'm not Pb but ... I've always taken olive drab as a mix of black and yellow (plus white for age) while green is a mix of blue and yellow: so olive drab has no blue element.
Geoff.

Hey Gwydion!

Depends what you mean by green!

To me OD is distinct from the usual hues you would call green - more belonging to ones tending towards brown and yellow. The way it was made (going back to Napoleonic times and earlier) was by mixing ochre and black pigments. Over the years different ratios between those pigments were used - that used to paint ACW gun carriages and limbers generally being acknowledged as at the lighter end.

There is a lot of debate about the actual shade of OD used by the Americans in WW2 - fuelled by such things as poor colour reproduction in photographs (which often make it look almost black. There is also much debate about how close British OD was to the American colour of that name.

My own opinion/preference is that the two colours were as similar as makes no difference (apart from the vaguaries resulting from mass production and the substitution of materials due to shortages). I believe that this is supported by the fact that when the Brits (etc) changed the basic colour of their vehicles to OD they specifically excluded Bailey Bridges so that they could not be confused with the American versions because the two were not compatible. In addition the change was at least partly brought about to eliminate the necessity of repainting lend-lease vehicles.

As for the hue and shade of OD I use the exhibits at The Tank Museum at Bovington for reference. Images of these can be found in Google. The only thing to watch for is that known colours (especially black or white) do appear that way in the photographs (I use the colour correction tool in Photoshop to do that).

Sorry if that was a longer answer than you expected.

All the best

Pb

Hey Pongo!

Yes, those are the guys!

All the best

Pb

Hey Sancho/Geoff!

Just so!

All the best

Pb

PB My info was from the D-Day to Berlin book in the 'panzercolours' series. As I recall it said Tanks had irregular black cammo patches added while softskins had 'mickey mouse' ears patterning in black.

If this is now 'disproved' I'm glad I sold my brits and I don't have to repaint them all!

Hey Julesav

That's a good book. And no, it hasn't exactly been disproved, it's just that more recent research moves the balance a bit - now it's seen as being much more likely that AFVs would be in a single base colour and that softskins could be either one tone or the two-tone you describe (in several different variations, the Mickey Mouse Ear variant being common in 21st Army Group, but strangely absent from official documents as far as I know). I think this change in emphasis has come about from a deeper review of the photgraphic evidence.

There are some excellent Concord books (photo-compilations) on the Brits in NWE, just take care to assess what it says in the captions. Also Warpaint by Dick Taylor is an excellent refence for the colours and markings of British Army vehicles from 1903-2003 (the first two of a planned four volumes have been published so far).

All the best

Pb

Thanks Pb, and no, not too long at all.

I thought, and still think (I think) that there is an element of green about the brown of Olive Drab.
The pigments used to produce black paint usually render a greenish effect when mixed with a yellow (ochre). The chemical mixing of colours being less precise than the optical mix.

Its difficult to judge colours through the medium of photography - but I think from a modeller's perspective this article is useful - you may well be aware of it, but the colour table at the end says a lot given what has gone before in the article itself.
http://www.militarymodelling.com/news/article.a...

Cheers
Guy

As i understand it both US OD and UK OD were greenish when new but the US version went brownish as it aged while the UK went greener.

Hey Guy!

Yes, OD is a greenish, brownish, yellowish mess! And that article by Steve Zaloga is excellent - but everything by him seems to be first rate.

All the best

Pb

Hey Johnboy!

No Sherman 76s in the British Army that I know of. We either sent them to Italy or gave them to the Poles! Maybe you should stick to roots and not have a British army, but a Polish one!

All the best

Pb

PS OD was also used as the camo colour on USAAF planes (at varies times and places) in WW2 becuase at that time it was the ARMY Air Force and therefore subject to Army procedures.

Pb

Pb,
I love the description of it by the curator of the Patton museum as 'pig slop'
Cheers
Guy