I am build a T34/76 with detailed crew and engine interiors. I found info for the crew compartment from earlier posts however nothing about the engine and compartment colors. If anyone knows the colors or has a color photo that they could post it would be a great help.

Found a pic of a finished trumpeter kit and the engine bay seems to be painted white
Take a look for yourself:

HTH
Evan

It appears the same as that used on U.S. armor. Thanks!

I am presently doing one myself, Trumpy 1/16th.

http://cs.finescale.com/forums/1/1032250/ShowPost.aspx#1032250
If this does not link straight through just copy and paste into browser.


I have posted links to real vehicles on page 4 of this post. .


Terry.

NOT WHITE!!!!!
Of the several wartime and early post-war non-rebuilt, non-museum piece photographs I have or have seen showing the engine/transmission area NONE of them have been painted white. Nor would they have been "primer red" if only because it seems that the Soviet Union, like the US, made it a practice to use a paint that was also primer.
These areas should be painted the same 4BO green as the outside of the tank.

Mark

I would take his word for it
I dont know anything about russian armor
I just found that photo and assumed it could help
Sorry
Evan

Thanks Mark! It looks like I will go with the 4BO green.

Hey Even,
I hope you didn't think I was taking a swipe at you. No way, Amigo.
Now if you had said, "I KNOW the compartment should be white", then, yes, I would
have for your own good and the good of the T-34 building community.

Mark

Hi Ronald,

Welsh man then are you

T34s Love em! the engine compartments no not green, well as always I am sure it depends where when and what was available at plant. That said I would back this up with the following take a look at this site its cool

http://www.thetankmaster.com/images/afv/sniper/T34_SNIPER09.jpg

despite been very wet the t34 displays any colour other than green more like a primer red. but under the oil stains its anybodys guess possibly black green black blue???.

However areas protected by paint and subsequently mud or none oxyegenated water show little signs of rust and I would assume that that is the original colour or very close to it. as indicated in the pictures there is lots of red showing no signs of rust and yellow where oxidation is taking place on newly exposed surfaces new rust forming.

I think this is one of the best refs for original colours taking into acount the camera colour correction. as it is how it was then



Hope this helps

Guy

No offense taken what so ever!!!
I was just a little embarassed because I made it sound like I knew what i was talking about but really don't, i was just trying to help the best i could
c ya
Evan

Hello Guy,
Sniper is a very bad example to use as a painting guide.
It sat at the bottom of a lake (or was it a river? I forget) for 60 years. Even accepting the water was anaerobic it certainly wasn't chemical free.
That hull was full of diesel oil, engine oil, sulfuric acid and lead (from the large batteries), and mud (which has its own chemical properties).
It had brass, steel, aluminum, zinc, copper, the seepage from explosive and flammable machinegun and cannon rounds, and who knows what other metals and compounds exclusive of anything carried by the water it was soaking in for those decade.
There is even some suggestion that Sniper suffered an internal fire (though I can't recall anyone who actually worked on her retrieval saying so unequivocally). The fighting compartment firewall, once white, is now soot black as are the two turret hatches.
All of this practically guarantees changes to the chemical make-up and therefore the color of any paint that once covered nearly every component of Sniper.
The once 4BO green F-34 gun is now tan, brown, and black. The turret interior which used to be white is now red-brown, tan, black. The once white fighting compartment is now anything but white.
Green is now tan, white is black, red, and rust.


Mark

Hi,

I've seen them painted white, I've seen them painted green (like exterior) I've seen them painted with orange-red primer - you name it, you paint it, and for sure you will not make a big mistake...

Andrzej

But have you seen Soviet, WWII painted T-34s painted that way?

Post war the T-34-85 was made by the Czechs, Poland, and even in the PRC. At least for some of their production, and to me it appears most of it, their painting specs varied quite a bit from the same designs made by the Soviet Union.

Mark

Hi Mrak,

Do not Disagree with you but please take a look at this,

This is stug in similar condition both blasted,burned and submerged. The Primer colour has changed very little as can be seen by the white lettering. The interior is in a similar condition showing the german classic red... all be it its German and different paint(':D')

http://www.detektorweb.cz/index.4me?s=show&lang=1&i=17062&mm=2&xb=2&vd=1

I have been involved in many recoveries both aircraft and vehicles all be it not in the soviet union.
some recoveries from extream depth, even badly coroded parts reveal the paint colour wher mud oil/petrol etc or even water has been present that is given the time laps form aplication to recovery there is bound to be some change in colour, but this is usually from UV influences.

What I am saying is I think sniper shows the under coat or primer where the original green or paint coverage has weathered but not necessarly the pimer

All the recovered T34's (last 9 years)show different colours both externally and internaly however the majority colour is always red brown in this area well.

best regards

Guy

N/M

Guy,
I’m not entirely closed minded to the idea that there was some use of red primer on the T-34 but that does fly in the face of available written evidence that 4BO was used without any undercoat in the same manner as US factories used Olive Drab.
To be sure, there are some photos of recovered T-34s that suggest the presence of such an undercoat:

http://legion-afv.narod.ru/USSR/T-34-76/T-34-76_Velykye_Luky/T-34-76_Velykye_Luky_053.JPG

But, even with photos such as this you have to be careful. As I’m sure you are aware from your work with recovered aircraft and vehicles (Neat gig, by the way. How’d you get it?) paint and primer may react differently over the years depending on what sort or metal they are applied to as well as their environment.
I have a very little direct experience with this from work recovering parts for the restoration of a 1944 Willy’s Jeep. The donor Jeep had sat in a farmer’s field since, we think, the 1950’s along with several other ‘30’, ‘40’s, and ‘50’s vintage cars and trucks. Without getting into too much detail what I found was that the sun exposed olive drab paint on certain steel components had changed to a bright tan/pink whereas the paint on iron parts had become a deeper reddish. Portions of the wheels (which had sunk several inches into the ground) were, well mostly rust, but what was left of the paint was now chalky white.
I’m not suggesting that an old truck sitting in the open is analogous to a tank buried in muck but this does illustrate that the color seen is not necessarily the color painted after the environment has taken a sixty year toll.

In regards to the recovered StuG IV, yes, very, very cool. I’ve also seen some photo of a recovered StuG III that appeared to still have traces of winter whitewash as well as nearly pristine yellow bases paint.
The problems is however that the conditions at the bottom of that stream can not be used to infer (or would in be “imply”?) the conditions anywhere else. How acidic or base is the water and mud? How much iron, copper, or other trace minerals are there that can effect the paint?
And how much oxygen in the water and mud? Heck, I would even think that microbial life can have an effect (i.e., by attacking certain component chemicals in the paint as well as taking up available oxygen).

Speaking strictly of recovered T-34s (I can think of “only” five off the top of my head), I can recall only one that has extensive photographs of the engine compartment and that would be “Sniper”.
One other has a good selection of fighting compartment photos from the time of the actual recovery. These are interesting in that one photo shows one of the floor ammo storage boxes to be red whereas the other visible ones are more or less the expected black, while only small traces of the original white (appearing tan in the photo) cling to bits of the sidewall storage racks, bits of interior components, a rack for the DT.
There is also some red on the bottom of one of the turret seats but the rest of the interior looks black. (It appears to me that whatever pigments the Soviets used in their white paints was not very durable to say the least.)
Two others have tantalizing though very limited photos of the transmission compartment and Pomon air cleaner though little else and it would be difficult to draw any conclusion about colors from them.
If you have others PLEASE send them along!

The point of this long diatribe is that recovered tanks are not a trustworthy basis for interpreting what color any given T-34 component was painted. There are far, far too many variables and the behavior of paint in any given environment too unpredictable.

I like to think of the conclusions I draw about the subject as “safe” (and erring on the side of caution) in that they are based on period photographs and what limited written historical evidence exists.
With some luck new and more trustworthy information will come to light in the near future!

Mark