Greetings Everyone,

I'm battling with Dragon's Firefly Vc kit and except for tracks, it is nearly complete and ready for painting. The kit's instructions are terrible and it confuses you more than it helps you.

Anyhow, here's the question... The tank on the box art has a light green color, much lighter than Olive Drab. The painting instructions also call for mixing Olive Drab with Light Green on a 1:1 ratio. So what's the color on these tanks? I'm guessing definitely not OD. Is there any out-of-bottle color I can use that anyone can recommend? I'm not very familiar with British AFV colors, so help me please.

The tanks would have originally been US olive drab (from the Chrysler factory). However, it is generally assumed that during a large overhaul (such as 17pdr upgunning), the tank would have been completely repainted. What would have been used would be British SCC15, their version of US olive drab. Fresh, it appeared as US olive drab. Supposedly over time, it tended to fade showing a more greenish tinge. Thus, the formulation that DML suggests is a valid one although I wouldn't make it light green -- just a greenish Olive Drab.

Using the artwork as a color guide is rather foolish regardless.

What Roy said but I would add there is debate as to exactly what got repainted. British SCC15 was intended to match US Olive Drab, thus negating the need to repaint stuff. On a Firefly, the turret received major modifications but the exterior hull remained almost entirely unchanged. This leaves three main possibilities, in order of least to most paint usage:

1) Only those fittings altered by the Firefly upgrade were painted SCC15. All other parts remained US Olive Drab.
2) Only the turret was painted SCC15. The hull remained US Olive Drab.
3) The entire tank was repainted SCC15.

To my knowledge, no one has proven the procedure actually used, so the modeler has some latitude.

For a really interesting Firefly painting option, check out tanks of the 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guard in Normandy. To my knowledge, this was the only British armored unit to use black as a disruptive color on their Fireflys.

The MAFVA website is the best online source for British WWII color information:

http://www.mafva.net/other%20pages/Starmer%20camo.htm

Tamiya XF-62 is widely considered the best match for US Olive Drab in WWII.

Good luck on your project!

-Doug

Thanks a lot for the informative replies. I never use the box art as a color guide, but it mainly gives an idea (for example in this kit the box art and the kit contents are not even close!).

So, if I may inquire further, is there an exact match for SCC15 or should I play around with US Olive Drab Colors (such as Tamiya XF-62 or Gunze H78) to get a color resembling OD?

Here is a useful post on the subject:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/47208/message/1233100379/SCC+15+Olive+Drab

Mike Starmer's Vallejo mix:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/47208/message/1246305579/SCC+15+mix+Vallejo

Here is another approach to the process:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/110741/thread/1211264842/WIP+-+Firefly+VC

-Doug

theres a color in model master that is call uk olive drab is lighter than the us olive drab
hope is usefull

cheers

I've used the following Tamiya Mix for British SCC (the British equivalent of U.S. OD) which would be appropriate for NWE 1944. Fireflys.


XF52 x 8 + XF26 x 8 + XF1 x 1.

Cheers

PP

Model Master British Olive Drab and Faded Olive Drab are aircraft colors. You can use them, and I have, but they do not match fresh SCC15.

-Doug

what season are you depicting your firefly?

day of the D-DAY landings........original colour
summer 44' lightening of colour due to sun bleaching & dust
autumn-early winter 44'......darker green due to damp weather
winter 44'.......some fireflys were almost pure white-to a blotchey white camo
spring 45'-end of war.....winter camo wearing off leaving a light green appearance+dust

choose your OD + weathering to suit

so your choice is of 1001 shades and in between........

so just about any colour/shade will do.

cromwell