Hi there, as part of a challenge for the British Bulldogs (IPMS Kitmaker) , in which we are building things we don't usually build, I'm building a small dio featuring a t34 with the excellent Master Box bail out figures, what colour should the interior of the hatches be?

Cheers

Andy

It depends on the model. If it's an early one (1940 thru 1942) the interior color of the turret hatches would most likely be the hull color (green), although the inside of the driver's hatch would still be white. The inside of all hatches of late 1943 models and the T34-85 were all painted in white.

It's a 1941 model, so drivers hatch will be white.

Any ideas on the interior of the turret? would that be green as well??

Thanks very much

Andy

Interiors were white for maximum visibility when closed down. Nearly all tanks except British used white or off-white (during the 1940's and 50's, most UK tank interiors were painted flat silver). German WW2 tanks were usually ivory inside.

The gun is green, not necessarily the same green as the outside. The inside of the hatch was normally the same green as the outside, although some white hatches were also seen. Boxes and gear and seats are all black. the inside walls are a very light greyish-yellowish white, not stark white. Shell boxes are green.

HTH
Scott Fraser

Thanks both, normally make wingy things, so i'm not up on tanks.

Andy

OK, but the turret hatch will be green on the inside.
The interior was white (both turret and hull), except for the gun (olive green), ammo boxes (black), seats (black, sometimes dark brown), compressed air tanks (dark blue) and radio (black), although consider that in 1941 very few Russian tanks had one. Most cables were black, although sometimes white was painted over when the interior was repainted (like, for example, when the tanks was fixed, often to clean every trace of blood...) The same is also true of many boxes (except the radio), originally black but repainted in white.

Well, actually, painting the inside of the driver's hatch white was not common practice, even on early examples of the T-34. (Sorry, I meant to say "even on LATE examples of the T-34". Mark 6/26)
Though white painted ones show up from time to time they are not particularly common and have been generally associated with rebuilt tanks.

All hatches that would commonly be opened to the outside were painted the same 4BO green as the outside of the tank.

(One exception may be some later batch STZ made tanks for which there are a couple photos showing apparently un-rebuilt T-34s with what could be white painted turret hatches. An odd practice to say the least considering how damn big that hatch is!.)

As for the interior, most of it will be white. The hull floor will be black or very dark grey as will be the storage boxes for the main gun ammunition (it seems to have been a common post-war practice for T-34-85 storage boxes to have been painted green but that's not to say they weren't that color during the war too) as well as the various linkages and controls mounted to the floor.

The main gun will be painted 4BO (as mentioned, the same as the outside) with a canvas catch bag for spent cases.
The turret controls for the gunner/commander seem in most photos to be the same color as the gun with black hand wheels with lighter colored handles (wood?). The PT-4-7 and PTK-5 periscopes also appear to be green.

Seats were covered with faux leather and in most cases that I have seen are, or appear to be, brown (in b/w photos they seem too light to be black).

The radios and intercom components appear to be light grey or grey-green (which fits with early post war Soviet radios that I've seen). The brackets for holding these items generally appear to be a very dark color, possibly black.

Exposed fuel lines appear to have been painted yellow and compressed air tanks and lines were medium blue.

There are a ton of items I haven't mentioned and I'm positive that is a lot of wiggle room in terms of color.

(As an interesting aside in a passage in "T-34 in Action" by Artem Drabkin and Oleg Sheremet one of the T-34 veterans interviewed mentions how impressed he was with how light German tanks were inside, recalling how dark and difficult to see in a T-34 when it was buttoned up.)

Hope this is helpful,

Mark

Thanks for the help chaps, i've finished the dio (three weeks before deadline) - here are the photos.

The real thing will be on the IPMS Kitmaker Stand at Scale Model World Telford 15-16 November 2008.








This is my first ever diorama and the first time i've painted figures.

Thanks for looking.

Andy