I am building Italeri's Crusader Mk1, the instructions call for MM 4720 Acryl (Sand) Its a very light colour, worse than my skin tone in winter... Is this a close colour or should it be darker?

Can anyone point me to some listings of suggested british colours during North Africa?


Thanks

That would be a good base color to start with.With weathering,it will darken up some.Other colors used for base in Brit N.Africa were 'Light stone',which cuold be 1of 3 colors ranging from a light gray-white to a very light kahki.Basically,the desert is loaded with color that one does not usually think is there.
cheers!

The MAFVA site has a full listing of the colours of WW2 British AFV's... converted to Humbrol enamel colours..... however the MAFVA site appears to be down (according to THIS thread it should be up soon)...

If you email Kulik (email addie in above linked thread) maybe he'll mail you the relevant bits from the Brit camo sheets... it's worth a try...

Rudi

Hi SKurj,

Here is an interesting article that discusses RTR colors: Bellman, a Stuart Story

:-H

The Caunter scheme was rare on Crusaders, though the Osprey book does show one Mark I in the scheme. While the MAFVA site is down, try the Matador site for very similar information, the paint references are mostly Humbrol though.

http://www.matadormodels.co.uk/tank_museum/5_camo_1.htm

Hi,

David Fletcher of the Bovington Tank Museum wrote:

> Fred
> Officially the
> British 'desert sand'
> colour was Light Stone (No 381-1930 in the British
> Standard colour series)
> but the evidence suggests that, in the Middle East
> supplies were intermitent
> and tanks painted locally often used paint acquired
> locally so it is never
> wise to be pedantic about it. In addition of course
> a few days exposure to
> the desert climate and sand soon reduced it all to
> more or less the same
> bland shade.
> DavidF
>
>
> To: David Fletcher
> Subject: FW: British 8th Army / North African Desert
> Color
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: F. Boucher [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: 30 March 2005 12:54
> Subject: British 8th Army / North African Desert
> Color
>

> Can you advise me on the proper color for WWII
> British 8th Army/North
> African campaign vehicles? The reason I ask is a
> discrepancy of the desert
> color.
>
> Recently I read that the sand color was a
> whitish-buff called "stone".
> Model Master brand paint makes it.
>
> Three other brands of paint, Humbrol, Tamiya and
> Polly Scale, produce an 8th
> Army color called "desert yellow", which is a
> yellowish tan.
>
> I would like to know which is the most accurate
> color, or how to mix it?

Regrettably the colour scheme for Bellman is not correct. The Caunter scheme of 3 diagonally striped colours lasted until December 1941, after which it was replaced by overall Light Stone or Portland Stone without a disruptive pattern. The so-called two colour patterns similar to Caunter are a cock-up in research. Bellman was in 3 colours not two. How do I know? because I have copies of the Official Orders issued by GHQ Middle-East Command and the photographs to prove it as well.

Take a look at the photo of the Stuart from the same unit as "Bellman" :

http://www.warriorsaga.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/.pond/m3tanks2.jpg.w560h256.jpg

There are quite clearly 3 colours. (This photo came from the website http://www.warriorsaga.com/).

There are plenty of other photos of Stuarts, Matildas etc showing three colours as well throughout 1941. The pattern varied slightly from tank to tank and in some cases it is difficult to distinguish between the three colours. Bellman is one such case as it has the whole of the lower sand shield painted Silver Grey making it hard to see the difference between the Silver Grey and Light Stone.

As another example look at this IWM photo of A10s, all from the same unit, taken in November 1940 shortly after the Caunter scheme was authorised:

http://www.iwmcollections.org.uk/media/images/Photographs/Image/E_001001.jpg

Note the different pattens. The tank in the foreground has nearly the whole of the sand shield painted Silver Grey. The only way to tell that there are three colours is to look at the rear of the turret where all three colours occur side by side on the same surface.

As for Crusaders, 6th RTR were painted in the tri-coloured Caunter scheme prior to Operation BattleAxe of June 1941. In addition, there is photographic evidence showing that some surviving tanks of 6th RTR were still painted this way at the time of Operation Crusader of December 1941.

Very nice,

Many Thanks all