my father in law is a published author on ww2 historical books. i am not sure he would know this level of detail, but I will certainly ask him.

one thing i do know, is that i made a tank model that was fully covered in mud, like really filthy. he commented that patton would have had that tank commanders behind for having the tank left filthy like that. i explained that it was right after a long haul.

unless i misinterpreted, it made me believe that the tanks where supposed to be kept clean during rest periods maybe. not sure, i didnt really follow up

Quoted Text

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my father in law is a published author on ww2 historical books. i am not sure he would know this level of detail, but I will certainly ask him.

one thing i do know, is that i made a tank model that was fully covered in mud, like really filthy. he commented that patton would have had that tank commanders behind for having the tank left filthy like that. i explained that it was right after a long haul.

unless i misinterpreted, it made me believe that the tanks where supposed to be kept clean during rest periods maybe. not sure, i didnt really follow up

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The crew hadn't gotten to cleaning it yet or the movement was still underway.

A tank can get completely filthy in minutes and Patton would be more interested in getting at the enemy than the mud on the tank.

As for the previous person going on about how boots don't chip paint, when you've crewed one for a few years get back to me. The veterans posting here aren't making it up to mess with you. They lived what you do in plastic.

And civilian vehicles do get chipped up and totally messed up. Ever been behind a gravel truck? And there's dings everywhere and I don't have the money to get it detailed and there are little chips and sometimes they even rust.

Photos posted for discussion purposes only.

Both vehicles in this photo display obvious chipping with photo dated June1942. The tank has been in service less than 4 months.



The vehicle in this photo dated March 1942 and this vehicle tank has been in service for less than two months.





If you believe chipping is inappropriate on armor models as a whole that is a choice you are free to make, but as people who served on them have said above, it can and does occur. The environment they in which they operate and how they are being utilized determines much about those patterns.

Obviously, I’d recommend the careful use of reference photos to prevent going to excess and I’d begin those patterns in heavy use areas. Speaking from experience, if you are going to a competition, those reference photos should be printed and placed next to the work to help prevent judge’s biases from having too large an effect.

Very interesting discussion. The photos seem to make a case for heavier chipping, but it should be borne in mind that they were taken in the western desert, where the sand is extremely abrasive, and the Grants were originally olive drab and were given a coat of Light Stone by the Workshops before being issued to the troops in the field. I have looked at them and others on several occasions and still cannot make my mind up as to whether what I am seeing is chipping to the metal, or simply abrasion to the Olive Drab underneath. I eventually came to the conclusion that at the end of the day, it is my model, my other skills are such that the models will never win any prizes for anything, and therefore I will finish it as I want to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmVdE6xGt5o

Most weathering now is wasted on showing discolored and chipped paint, when in fact, there was usually little time for finishes to deteriorate in combat. Most actual weathering is layers of dirt, dust or mud on top of rather new, even pristine paint. It can take years for paint to fade, but a tank can get absolutely filthy in an afternoon. ...showed off his masterpiece to a German Eastern Front veteran. The old fellow shook his head sadly and smiled, saying "If only they lasted long enough to look like that."

I like chips especially with fish
Hate colour modulation but that's another story.

Well, I’m going to throw in the towel. Several of us have shared years of experience with real life paint “chipping” of military vehicles. Yet we are told to believe that WWII was different, and chipping didn’t occur on vehicles because the paint was better and the boots were better, and most of what we’re seeing is dust or mud. We’ve also heard dirt and grime were not ground into finishes back then like it was in more modern times. Photographs have been proffered to argue for, and against chipping (one of a Sheridan, where a lot of my experience comes from, which clearly shows aluminum brightly showing beneath the paint, I guess the crew just used paint thinner to remove it, so some modeler in the future could argue about it).

Now folks, feet are feet, paint is paint, and dirt is dirt. Heavy things can be dropped or scraped across paint, on any surface over time, but I guess I’m just dreaming there will be an effect from that. Oh, I forgot, vehicles don’t last long enough to show wear anywhere but in the desert. Or the tropics. But why is that? is it hotter? wetter? Numerous veterans have shared their “chipping” stories. However, some unknown veteran of the Wehrmacht has made a non-descript comment that “if only they lasted that long”, chipped paint didn’t occur in the German Army, because their vehicles didn’t last in combat. If that was the case, how’d the Wehrmacht ever make it through 5 years of combat— and they must have gotten a new vehicle every few weeks. And the same went for the “Arsenal of Democracy”— our paint was great, and we were very careful not to scratch or mar it.

Now, I do agree sometimes chipping is overdone on models. But to say it never occurs in real life is a bit hard to believe. We know it occurs, if it didn’t, and we hadn’t seen it, we wouldn’t be discussing it. I have a two year old lawnmower I was pushing around my yard just today, and it’s got a pretty nice epoxy coat. But I hit a patch of gravel, which in turn bounced back off a wood fence. When I paused to look, I had a nice pattern of chips in the epoxy paint. But I guess heavy military equipment has better paint. Please give us veterans who’ve seen it (and you’ve seen it in many of the attached photos too) a break. I think I’ll go eat some potato chips. Out here.
VR, Russ

The reason I don’t often post here on armorama that so many discussions devolve to rage quits. We can disagree like adults. Maybe.

I stand by my argument. All things chip. The key is logical placement and in scale tiny size. Sure you can make a vehicle with zero chips. But the logic that soft boots mean WW2 vehicles had no chips is laughable.

The fact is you need to find high res pics of close ups of WW2 vehicles to actually make a comment about the paint surface. Most pictures are zoomed out shots of entire vehicles. More evidence through the years—
M10. Mostly dust effects. But check the engine deck... clearly chips.

Cold War French tanks, they had chips.
http://put.url.here
Modern stuff? Oh it gets beat too...

Even the might Abrams.

No arguing with those excellent photos. Scale them down to model size and you wouldn't see much... with the exception of the Abrams