HELLO.

I'M BUILDING A T-34/76 MOR 42 EARLY (YOU KNOW, THE ONE WITH THE BIG TURRET HATCH) I HAVE A DOUBT ABOUT THE INTERIOR COLOR OF THE HATCH. WAS PANITED WHITE OR ON THE GREEN EXTERIOR COLOR?

HOPE SOMEONE CAN HELP ME WITH AN ANSWER.

BEST REGARDS.

Would you mind NOT using only capitals in your threads? It just looks like shouting...

Here ya go Dan,

Looks white to me



But as this pic of the later /85 shows - I'll bet there were plenty in the field - in exterior colour as well



Greg

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4BO Green, the same as the exterior of the tank. This will be true in the VAST majority of cases.

Some late production tanks from STZ (as in the photo above) appear to have been issued with a white painted turret hatch, perhaps in an effort to enforce orders to keep the hatch closed during combat, but these are the exception, NOT the rule.

In addition there are a number of examples of tanks with various hatches being painted white but in most cases this seems to be the result of hasty rebuilding.

Mark

I study this alot while working on a T-35. The best I found after looking at tons of pics is that all pre war tanks had white hatches. It appears sometim in late 41 or early 42 they started painting them extrenal green. This is just what I have observed from looking at pics. I have no reports from the factory or anything. I am not a expert on t-34 but I wonder if the one shown in the pics is not a 40-41 time frame.

Interesting observation Scott,

I'm not picking up on the same thing myself, but I'm not much of a Soviet armour afficianado - photo caption purports to be Stalingrad area late '42.

I also, after studying my refs so far, am yet to see significant evidence pointing to the fact that external colours were universally used - to the contrary - for every one of exterior colours I am finding at least one pointing to lighter (white) colours being employed - even on later vehicles





Will keep looking tho'

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Hi, those are T-34/85 late versions of the T-34 and could not be in Stalingrad 42'. I'm unsure, but they may be post wwii tanks. Here's a link:

http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/t3485bg_2.html

Greg

Sorry Greg -

Stalingrad reference is for the earlier pics that I posted. Not the /85's

Greg

At the risk of being repetitious 4BO, the same base green as used on the exterior of all Soviet armor during the war, is the color all hatches exposed to the outside of the tank when opened should be painted.
There are exceptions but they are just that, exceptions; some very late production STZ made tanks, many obviously rebuilt tanks, and some T-34-85's (but nothing like all or even "most" from what I've been able to find).

As far as pre-war tanks getting white hatches, I honestly can't say because I really haven't researched that particular aspect of Soviet painting practices. I can say however that none of the small hand full of photos I have of T-34 protos nor any of the Model '40s show white hatch interiors. If anyone here knows of one I like to see a copy to add to my collection!

By way of credentials I have been studying the T-34 specifically for several years. I've collected literally dozens of books on the tank, many more magazine articles, and several hundred photos gleaned from the web and friends.

The question of which is the proper color for the hatch interiors has come up several times which is what prompted me to research the topic in the first place. I'm pretty comfortable in the conclusions I've come to now.

For what it's worth,

Mark

Mark,

Noted, And I am more than happy to take your advice on this matter.
But for the record, I am not seeing the same thing in my references.

Greg

Out of pure curiosity which references are you using? Perhaps you've found something that could change the way I'm looking at the issue.

To give you an idea of my methodology in arriving at the conclusions I have, I took the 25 best photo references I have (it may have been more but I remember 25, lol) and made a simple spreadsheet noting the type (Model 40,41,42,), turret type (small cast or welded, Gayka "laminate", sharp edge, soft edge with or without cupola), manufacturer (when it could be established), and year the photo was taken (when it could be established). The T-34-85 was excluded from the spreadsheet because they weren't involved in the question that was being asked.
I used only photos that showed the hatch color unequivocally and discarded the ones that were "could be this or that color" or where the tank had obviously burned out. (For instance; I found several images where the driver's hatch inside surfaces appeared to be a lighter color than, say, the side of the tank BUT where the glacis was also lighter in appearance. Was the hatch really "white" or was it just dusty like the front of the tank or could it have been light reflecting off of semi-glossy 4BO paint? I excluded more "dark but not sure" photos than "light but not sure" however.)
The results were a hundred and some good, clear photos showing mostly the driver's hatch and around two dozen or so showing turret hatches from various turret types.

The result showed, IIRC, fewer than 1 in 15 (or something like that) driver's hatches being white and less than 1 in 10 turret hatches (when normalized for the manufacturer/year.)
They also showed all but one of the small turret hatches (the large single hatch on the small turret) which were painted white were late STZ production with the lone exception being what I think was a Factory 183 Model '41 or '42 turret on an unidentified (but non-STZ) hull.

It may be a good idea to recreate the thing adding a larger sample of photos and including the T-34-85. I wouldn't completely rule out changing my conclusions to some extent.


Mark

Mark,

SOME of the ref's that I looked to for pics: (admittedly initially I didn't exclude /85's, because I was looking more for trends) - clearly you have put much more effort into this than I - russian armour isn't exactly my "thing"
(most are Russian publications)


















Along with Concord 7019, 7020 (and others) plus Crowoods "inside the great tanks" by Hal Halberstadt

When I get time - I will deliver a more full accounting.

The Ian Allan book in particular (by Will Fowler) has a great colour pic of a /76 with the hatch open.

Clarification:
"This posting contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This material is being made available to the members of this forum for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research.

I believe this is not an infringement of copyright and constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law."


Greg

Tanks to everyone who bothers to response for this question. Your kindly help was very usefu for me.

I'll put pics of the finished model when completed.

Best regards and a big THANKS to all of you.

Happy to help, Dan-T

Greg, that is a heck of a collection of books! I have only two of the titles you show.
Who's your source for them? I used a couple of Russian on-line shops but over the last few years they became less and less reliable (and I ended up losing a fair amount of money when one just decided to not complete an order!).
If you have a trust worthy supplier I'd really like to try them.

Mark

Jim,
Was that called for? You could have been alittle discreet on your request and not so condescending. Come on man, you're better than that, and never answered his question!