Hello all.

I'm new on this great site!

If someone can help me it would be much appreciated.

I'm looking for color pics of Indian Peace Keeping Force T-72's deployed in Sri Lanka in the end of the 80's.
I only found a pair of b&w pics so it doesn't help.
I need the camo scheme of the tank, and if possible the camo scheme of tanker uniform too.

Another question is what version the Indian force deployed there?

Thanks a lot for your help!

Hi Paul;

It mite help if you can describe more about the B/W photos, are the T-72s in A Camo sceme and at what angles are they in reference in the photo. Even in B/W they would show lite vs dark as Black vs White in the color spectrum. ex;) The Black or Dark color would be Green, and if the Lite color is Stark White, it would be A sand color. I know this is Not much help, but trying to Match colors from B/W from 1980s period photos is A Crap Shoot !! As for the T-72s, they are most likely M1s and could even be M1 Ajeya's built in India.

CHEERS; MIKE.

Hi Paul,
This is a subject that interests me, but information is quite hard to come by; as far as the IPKF intervention goes, I think it didn't turn out well for anyone involved hence it is not exactly celebrated...

Mike is right that the T-72s were M or M1, as India purchased both models. They were deployed into Sri Lanka as part of the 65th Armoured Regiment.

There are some colour photos, including a small album on the 65 Armoured Regiment on "bharak-rakshak":
65 Armored Regiment - this includes two or three photos of T-72s. I won't link directly to them as there is a copyright notice at the foot of the page.

Photos in that album, and elsewhere of other Indian troops in Sri Lanka suggest that both plain green uniforms and three colour camouflage were used. See other photos from the same site:
The Indian Army in Sri Lanka, 1987-1990 (I should say that there are a couple of grisly photos on the page.)

Sorry, the photos are a bit of a tease, because although they are in colour, they are 1980s colour film, and it is still not that clear, but to me the tanks look like they are just green. Notice there is a photo of a truck being loaded on to an IL-76 that clearly has a sand / green camouflage, but the tanks don't look like that to me.

Actually, this page
Inducting T-72 tanks by air into Jaffna
has a nice colour photo of a T-72 emerging from an IL-76, not clear if that is being unloaded in SL, or if it is just a practice run. Notice the white number "242" on the right hand of the rear (it is coming out backwards obviously) matches the style of what appears to be "240" on the track guard of the photo on this photo.

Here is another colour pic, not that helpful perhaps, but for the record:



Fascinating article linked above by the way: "Inducting T-72 tanks by air into Jaffna" about the difficulties of getting the tanks on and off the aircraft.

Mike and Matthew, thanks a lot!

The pics in b&w i have are some linked above.
So it seems there is the all green camo and some green/sand camo.

Got it for the version, M or M1.
In the pics we can also see green uniform and green/brown/sand uniform.

Thanks again guys it helps a lot!