Does anyone know why the Russians painted white stripes on tanks headed to Berlin? Was it just for I.D. or what?

They're air recognition markings, mainly to stop the RAF and USAAF from attacking them. The Russians didn't use the coloured air recognition panels used by the western allies, and in theory should have painted triangles on the turret roof/upper surface for SPs as recognition signs. The Red Army had a long tradition of using white stripes as markings for 'friendlies' (which carried on into the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia) so they used them instead.

I've read somewhere that this system was used not only because air recognition, but mainly to minimalize the risk of destroying own tanks by own ground forces.

I believe they initially used white triangles but these were then copied by the Germans on their own tanks so the Soviets changed to stripes. I've been looking for evidence of their use on ISU 152s in Berlin and have only seen two photos from the same unit showing their use.

Seems I remember reading somewhere that T-34's were mistaken for Panthers, which was one reason for the stripes.

Zukhow and Koniev were fighting not only "on paper". Both of them wanted to be the first in Berlin (and became the greatest hero for mother&country). So Soviet soldier could press the trigger even if he saw a tank with white stripe on turret.

The strips on the turret/upper hull sides were used for air recognition? Was there a stripe on top too?

If I remember right the photos I saw- there was white cross on the top of the turret, too

Right! the Soviet Army wasn't too bothered about blue on blue (or maybe red on red) encounters, but there had been instances of wandering RAF and USAAF aircraft mistakenly attacking the Red Army. This was only likely to get worse as the Allies came together so attempts were made to sort something out.

The Red Army used a variety of shapes and letters on the turret roof, both pre-war and during WW2 but these rarely get documented.

Here is an example on the ISU-152 I built:



And yes, they went right across the top. Sorry, no photo's of the real deal to share.

I'm not sure if Russian did it beacuse of Allied aircrafts. Their pilots couldn't fly over Soviet forces. It was highly forbidden. Stalin wasn't accepting foreign planes flying over his forces. Therefore Allied aircrafts had so big problems with delivering help for Warsaw uprising.

Also Soviet generals wasn't impressed by their soldiers. For them people were only the number of division. My grandparents during WW2 were in resistance. They told me a story about Soviet tank in winter 1945. Sleeping in tent soldiers were crushed by tracks of Soviet tank. Russian officer who saw it said that Soviet Army has a lot of soldiers and ordered the tank to go ahead.

Thanks for the advice! I've never come across any good refs for the stripes so I thought I'd put it to you all. I'm still debating wether or not to put it on my JSU-122 tank destroyer. What do you all think?