Thanks for your thoughts Tom, drawn towards SCC15 at the moment but a scruffy old Stuart III in SCC2 would liven up a collection of Olive tanks.

Hi all

This may be an old chestnut but I'm puzzling over the possible colours for a number of British tanks in Normandy. I've been building a Matchbox Stuart III as of the 31st Tank Brigade and a couple of MMS Stuart Vs of the 11th Armoured Division and was about to reach for the airbrush to apply various shades of US Olive Drab and thought I'd just check a few sources for colour references and ended up thoroughly confused as follows;
Mike Starmer's British Army Colours and disruptive camouflage in the united Kingdom, France and NW Europe 1936-45 states;
"Vehicles like the Sherman Firefly, M3A3 Stuarts and M3 half track series and other vehicles of American origin that were extensively modified to British requirements in 1943 were almost certainly repainted in the British colour of SCC2 brown."
Dick Taylor's Warpaint Colours and markings of British Army Vehicles 1903 - 2003 Volume 2
" Where US produced vehicles were modified by the British - for instance the Sherman Firefly or the upgunning of M10s with the 17 Pounder - patch painting seems to have been the most common method of making good the modifications." "This is not to say that some modified vehicles were not resprayed SCC15 overall, but it would seem reasonable to speculate that these were in a minority."

Concord's D Day Tank Warfare also has a M3A3 colour profile in SCC15
So this lead me to musing were M3A3s extensively modified for British Service? I thought they were built to a British spec but would have arrived in US Olive Drab and stayed in it. However could they have subsequently been repainted SCC2 and then SCC15? Might this apply to the Stuart III too. Although I've seen it stated that repainting was hardly a priority during wartime, a lot of units spent a lot of time training in the UK, years in some cases, that's an awful lot of time to keep men's minds and bodies active, I suspect there was a lot of time available for modification, maintenance, cleaning and possibly repainting. I appreciate it's hardly an issue as from our viewpoint deep in the 21stC who really knows and does it matter but having been content with US Olive Drab I now can't decide on any one of 3 colours. I'd be interested to hear views.

My next project are Churchills in Normandy and that seems fraught with confusion too, best left for another time!