Greetings from a broke down trucker Does anyone know, or maybe someone has, a painting guide for W.W.2 Soviet 76mm ammo? I know the bottom half is brass However what colors would the tips be for AP and HE rounds?

I have the Verlinden Soviet 76mm tank ammo set I am using them for my Romanian Tacam R2 TD It's set #2170 The photo on the box shows brass on the bottom half and what looks like all black for the top

Sadly and suprisingly it doesn't come with a painting guide The photo also shows writing on the rounds I am not concerned about that Or should I be?

Thanks in advance

Well, you’re only partly right about the case; they could be either brass or steel and at this point I’m under the impression that the two types of case are interchangeable at least to some extent (which is to say that the steel case would not necessarily be related to a single type of round).

As far as the projectile goes I have a single page of a report concerning Soviet wartime ammunition which says that they were not painted, merely greased. BUT, specialty rounds would have a band whose width would be equal to ¼ of the diameter of the round painted on the ogive or below the bourrelet as follows:

Anti concrete rounds – blue
Gas shells - yellow
Smoke shells - black
AP-Tracer - blue

An exception to this may have been the Shrapnel round (USh-354T) which was painted yellow overall with an unpainted band at the base of the ogive.
Soviet rounds are extensively stenciled with production data on both the case and projectile

Each of these rounds would have a driving band of brass (sometimes called out as a “copper” driving band so I’m not sure which is correct) at the base of the projectile.

With all that being said contemporary photographs of 76.2mm cartages seem to show the AP rounds not so much “greased” as thinly painted with a semi-transparent and semi-glossy lacquer.
The Shrap rounds appear to be treated in much the same way. They definitely don’t look to be painted yellow.
HE rounds in some photos follow this pattern but in others seemed to be finished in a dead flat coating with a dark colored band just above the driving band.
Detonators on the Shrap rounds are described as “brass” and those for HE rounds are a light metal, probably unpainted steel or aluminum.

I wouldn't look on any of this as definitive but I hope it's of some help.

Mark

Mark
Thanks for the info As far as the writing goes that will be a fun thing to try and do

Hi Chad,

I have links to some drawings and photos which might help. Here are some from two great pages about T-34s...

The T-34-76 ammo...

http://www.battlefield.ru/t34_76_4.html

...and some for the T-34-85...

http://www.battlefield.ru/t34_85.html

Here's a good photo of some SU-100 shells...



The original was on this page, but now the link is broken. Mine is a bit different in that I tried to clean up the image an balance the color as best I could...
http://stef124.tripod.com/SU100.HTM

Good luck with it.

ColoArtist
Thanks for those color pics They help out a lot I am still tryin to figure out a way of getting those small letters and numbers on :-)