Dear friends,

I am very used to using red brown/ oxide red as the base coat for German tanks.
And I used red brown as base coat for my fee earlier russian tanks

When it comes to Russian armor, I wonder what is the color beneath the Russian green? Is it bare metal color (steel). My references seems to show bare steel color below chipped Russian green paint, but I must say these are b&w photos, so I can be really sure.

Kiong

...endless matter. No sure answers

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/119501

Hi all , the factory photographs i have seen show chalk marks on the armour . Based on my experiance in heavy industry for 37 years , I know you have to prime steel to stop it rusting , this also gives a surface for chalk lines to be marked on . So red oxide is the primer used . hope this helps cheersian

Hi Ian

You're absolutely right, but the problem is that probably the 4bo green which Russians emploied to paint their farm machinery...was actually the russian primer!!

According to this theory there were no other paint coats under the green
Instead someone else thinks that actually there was a red oxide primer beneath the 4bo green coat

I'm sure that some russian modellers is a lot more informed than me, but as far as I know, at the moment there's no solution to this dilemma

cheers

I can say with a fair amount of ceratinty that indeed, red primer was used under the 4BO protective green finish. While researching "Sniper" a few years ago, I came across photos of the actual vehicle in various stages of rebuild. For the most part, the structural components of the engine compartment were found to have been painted green. But red primer was evident when the removal of fuel and oil cells exposed the primer during the inital teardown at Kubinka. Also, the color of the primer was not oxide in appearance at all. Instead, the color resembled the same lead-based Tabasco sauce-colored primer used in Europe in the heavy machine industry prior to the war. It was nearly the same identical shade the Germans adopted !! It was, after all, a commercial-industrial coating.

Kirchoff

Thanks a lot for the info Mike

thanks guys for the info.

Cheers
Music

you can see the yellow-ish color under the green here, might be a post war arsenal refinish?

If you look very closely, you can see vestiges of red ... very faint, but still apparent.
Thanks for the image.

Mike

So this is totally commenting on a long dead thread, but I've been researching this subject and came across this.

Everything before 1942, there was no primer they just layed the first layer of paint which was 4BO (I use russian armor green ) and then all other colors went on top of that. 1942 and later some manufactures started using primers That was a light pale green, that picture looks to be more rust then primer, though it might very well be the pale green fading into yellow. One thing of note is we are taking Russian tanks here, there was a point in the war they were pushing tanks out the door with out paint.

That being said that's the official stance... the reality Here is a picture of a t-34 . Bottom line they used EVERY thing and anything they could get there hands on. Now i would point out that the reds your seeing could very well have been an addition to these tanks after a repaint. Because some of these things had service lives that went well beyond the war. I suspect this t-34 was primed this color much later after repairs . What ever resonable color you want to use would be more then accurate

Even now, when pulling tanks out of rivers etc, the debate still rages about primer under 4BO. I would imagine that unless we see a directive given to the manufacturers to actually use a primer, vs just a final paint color, the debate may never end.

Also, I have done some metal fabricating/welding/cutting/torching in my day. You can very easily use chalk on rusty metal without issue. But you better wash those marks off before you paint.

But...

Who cares?

The point we are trying to get to is, can I paint a Russian WWII tank and give it some of the cool effects I see being used on German/American armor? Just paint it how you would like to. Enjoy what you are doing. If you are so worried about it being accurate, then don't even mess with trying to show primer, avoid the issue entirely. If you want to show primer and are looking for justification, well, skip the middle step and just do it. Once you have done it, a million internet researchers will tell you how you have done it correct or incorrect, but will not speak up until there is something to criticize.

Example: Someone asked if they could build a T-64AV for the Ukraine Conflict. Most people said no, it is not there and to build the BY FAR more common T-64BV. Then pictures showed up of a couple in use. I said to build what you want BUT if you do not want to sit and explain or argue with people about it being accurate, even though it would be, then just build a T-64BV. I still say build for yourself and ignore the rest.