I'm building a Crusader Mk III and the directions show a black and buff Sahara camouflage scheme and an overall olive green Tunisia camouflage scheme. I'd like to try my hand at the black/buff scheme.

My question is whether the tank was buff and the black added over or vice versa? Also the instruction sheet shows the side of the hull and running gear in buff but the front and rear of the hull black. This just seems rather strange. Were the road wheels all the same color or did they alternate black & buff?

HI

Is that the Hasegawa kit in 1/72 scale?

I built one of those a while back. It's in the Track-Link gallery.
http://www.track-link.net/gallery/1338

I believe they were sand colored with black added. I've never seen pics of the painting in progress, but the black paint seems to be worn to a lighter color in pics, and the light color is not worn to black.

And if it's the old Hasegawa kit, I'd take the painting instructions with a large grain of salt!!

Cheers
Andy

hey rob,

they were buff/sand with the other colours painted over the top.

loads of combinations appeared and were field applied, but usually very neat.
like herberta says the extra camoflage colours tended to wear a lot more.

ive seen pics of crusders with camoflaged wheels and without, if i were you, unless your making a specific vehicle, i wouldnt worry too much about it.

one of the most common schemes was dark earth brown over buff, with black borders on the brown

cheers

joe

Hi Major Rob,

This may be usefull:

http://www.wwiivehicles.com/images/britain/crusader_mk_iii_01.jpg


Happy modelling

I'll try again :




Happy modelling

Good shot. That's the camo scheme depicted in the kit diagram. This is the Airfix 1/32 scale kit with the various shades of gray and cross hatching to represent the colors in the instructions.

That scheme looks relatively easy to do (compared to NATO 3-color or MERDC) and the photo makes more sense than the instruction manual. That 3rd road wheel could have been black or all road wheels could be buff. Guess I'll do whatever I feel like when I've gor the brush out.

Still wondering about the top of the vehicle, I've got nothing on the top side

As to the colour of the road wheels, you'll find that the second and third (fourth also on occasion) would be black. This was for use with the "sunshade" disguise, which was to make tanks appear to be less valuable lorries.

OK, I understand Geoff, the black was to make the center road wheels invisible in the shadows when having the sunshade on. I have seen the lorry covers on tanks before. This makes sense using this camouflage pattern. Learn something new every day. Thanks.

Sabot,
theres quite a good article in Ospreys modelling books on Armour for the beginner,
it tell you about applying the colours ect and if your using say brown for the cammo
pattern this had a white and black border round it #:-) if your interested I'll send some
photo's over tonight after work ! makes for quite a nice looking tank PM me if you
want the photo's with your e-mail address

Rob, if you are thinking of getting into British early war/ desert armor and (bearing in mind the vehicles and camo. schemes are so attractive) what sensible person wouldn't ? A couple of pointers,. Now I don't know if your Crusader is going to be a one-off or not, if it isn't, there are two privately published works on British Desert Camo schemes, the 2nd concerns Sicily and Italy (1943-45) the first, the Western Desert. They are available by mail from the following address (send an I.R.C. for details)

Mr. M. Starmer
18, Hillside Road,
Piddington, Northants, NN7 2DB
England,

Each of the volumes costs ten pounds, comes in A4 size, contains 15 pages of Camo diagrams and with some color patches.Volume 2 includes the Sherman, Grant, and the Crusader. Hope this is of some use, Jim

I have convinced myself that some Crusaders carried a two-tone green scheme in Tunisia. I suspect these were the medium and lighter of the three greens available at the time. If you have the Ground Power magazine on the Crusader the demarcation between the greens is just noticeable. I have also read a written account of this too.

No thanks, I have this book.

This post is another reason, we need some kind of cross-referenced data base, I have pics, everyone else has pics, but the idea of having properly titled pics in one source....Jim