While working on my M4A3E8 I came across some discussions here and on Missing Lynx about the British SCC No. 15 paint colour that Sherman Firefly's were painted in after being upgunned with the British 17 lb field piece. I had previously seen Mike Starmer's suggestion for SCC No. 15 using humbrol paints but didn't realize until now that he also had a suggested Tamiya paint mixture of XF-61, XF62, XF3 at a ratio of 5:2:2. So, I decided to take a break from the easy eight and re-do my Firefly IC which was the second kit I did since returning to the hobby. My painting and weathering skills I believe have improved and I figured this would be a good opportunity to improve the look of the kit.

Take a look and let me know what you think.

You can see higher res photos on my fototime site:
http://www.fototime.com/inv/E67C957F9D3EF16


Improvements: New set of T54E1 tracks(very common on Firefly IC's) from Dragon's DS Track set, Driver's hatch is from Tasca, extra spare track from the original kit, tarp made from apoxie sculpt. The orginal barrel was aluminum from LionMarc but I replaced it with the Tasca barrel which, although you have to glue it together and get rid of the seam, is slightly more accurate than the LionMarc Barrel from a length perspective.

Dave,

Good job on the repaint. That is a nice looking firefly.

Do you have the mix formula for the Humbrol paints?

I believe that a lot of the US tanks might have been repainted to SCC no. 15 when they were rebuilt in England before the invasion.

Take a look at this color photo. It seams to match your mix pretty well.

Hi John,

thanks for taking a look. The Humbrol mix for SCC No.15 per Mark Starmer is:
Mix 150 + 159 + 33 in ratio 5:5:2. A reasonable match is 159 + 33 in ratio 8:1

As for SCC No.15 being used on U.S. Tanks I am not aware of this being done as I beleive it was done only on British and Commonwealth Firefly or British producted tanks such as the Churchill The US tanks in your picture look like they are painted in US Olive Drab however the paint looks faded and could be represented by mixing Tamiya OD XF62 with XF60 in a 60:40 ratio. This is the mix Steve Zaloga came up with to best represent faded US Olive Drab for US Armor. As an additional note even British and Commonwealth Shermans that were produced in the U.S. I believe went into service with these forces painted in US OD as there was no need to repaint them unlike the sherman based Firefly's which had to undero remanufacturing and conversion and hence a new coat of paint.

Thanks for the paint mix Dave.

Here is my theory on the SCC 15 paint use on US Vehicles. Bear in mind that this is just my theory. The paint color in the photo looks to “Blue” to be US Olive drab. I don’t have all the FS numbers in front of me, but US Olive Drab was more “Brown” Than that pictured, (Take a close look at the 2 M7s on the LST next to it). Or as I understand Steve Zaloga’s explanation as a darker color.

Those tanks in the picture have been repainted. They underwent rebuild in England with the addition of appliqué armor and wadding trunks and any other mods and such. It seams logical that While undergoing rebuild, British SCC No 15 could have been obtained locally to repaint the tanks.

It might just be me, but those 2 tanks don’t look like standard US olive drab.

John,

Interesting points. SCC No.15 was very similar to U.S. OD when new as I have read and faded green whilst US OD faded with a greyish tone. So while to my eye it looks like US OD given the conversions on U.S. tanks I would think it is entirely possible they would be re-painted with local stocks which I would assume was SCC No.15.
David.