Getting ready to paint my Matador for pulling a 6" howitzer in North Africa circa 1941-42, I want to verify the pattern and colors beforehand. While this site says it should be a base of Portland with silver gray or slate gray and "terra cotta," I am seeing a lot of vehicles with a disruptive band of green (AFV Club recommends RLM 71 Dark Green).

OK, this is outside my area of expertise, so?????

Hi Bill,

trying to decipher British camouflage colours and schemes is a challenging task at best. From what I have read over the years, I would take the info on the site you linked to with a grain of salt (or two).

For the period you are looking at, the base colour would be either Light Stone No.61 or Portland Stone No.64 with a single disruptive colour of either Slate No.34 or Black. The pattern and/or use of the disruptive pattern was at unit/command discretion. Given that repainting of vehicles was not a priority task it would not be out of place for your Matador to be freshly painted with Portland Stone and Black, while the howitzer was very faded Light Stone and Slate.

Further reading that will help you:
Mike Starmer, British Vehicle Camouflage, 1939-45
and his Acrylic mixes

I hope this is of some help.

cheers
David

Thanks, David, very helpful indeed.

As Dave says the 41-42 period was a 2-tone system. If you are looking for the three tone angular desert camo, it is called Caunter and stopped being applied in 1940 althuogh early vehicles could still be seen in it into 1941.

Starmers references are generally considered to be the best and he has them for the Caunter scheme as well as the later 2-toned desert scheme. Mike's mixes for Tamiya paints also do a really good job of replicating all of the British standard colours.

Paul

Thanks, Paul. I went with Portland and Slate Gray.