hey,
quite awhile ago,while going thru are armor books at home,i came across a B/W photo of a Brit Matilda.The Matilda was painted to look like a large stone/brick wall,the caption stated ,that it was on a Island,possibly in the Med.area.I believe it mentioned,that this was the only place,this camo pattern was used.it was used to blend in with the buildings and walls,found on the island
we've acquired a second Matilda,can anyone help us,in getting the colors,as close as possible?and the unit,that these Tanks came from?

Joe

Hi Joe

You are thinking of the Malta camouflage, used by the Matildas of a detached company of 7RTR in this case (and other vehicles too, including carriers and Vickers Light tanks of other units based on Malta).

Looks like this



The colours given by Mike Starmer are G3 Green as the base colour, overpainted with either Light Stone 61 or Portland Stone 64. The British AFV Camouflage 1939-45 pdfs which you can find on this page

http://www.mafva.org.uk/Resources.asp

give mixes for Humbrol paints, this should give you somewhere to work from.

David

hey David,

Oh,yeah!thank you,thats real close and a excellant starting point,we came across the b/w photo in one of our books ,a good 8-10 months ago,and thought then,what a neat scheme,but we searched thru are books ,and haven't found the pic,but wouldnt have a clue on color or unit,from what i recall from the photo,that the camo pattern was alittle more rectangular stone blocks ,that where staggered pattern(from memory tho,i could be wrong),but we needed the colors and unit,and thanks to you,we got them.Trading off my 1/48 Bandai's,we just acquired our second Matilda in trade..

Joe

Hi Joe

Here's another one, looking very different:



David

hey,
Thanks Dave ,super pic of a tuff looking lady.building Tamiya's Matilda II,O.O.B. would be okay ?,or where these tuff ol girl different on Malta.

Joe

Hi Joe

The Tamiya Matilda has some problems with scale and proportions (like a lot of 70s Tamiya stuff), but does build up to look like a Matilda. I have trouble telling the different marks of Matilda apart, and can't be certain, but the model does look like the ones in the photos as long as you use the mantlet with the BESA co-ax and leave off the auxiliary fuel tank at the rear. Then I can't remember seeing the auxiliary tank fitted anyway.

Happy modelling

David

Most Matildas had their suspension raised after their arrival in France to improve ground clearance. Zaloga did it for his article in Military Modelling a few years ago. He had to cut the tracks to do it, but hid the break on the top run behind the armor. The turret roof is missing most of the screw detail, and the smaller hatch is mispositioned and should be slightly convex. Osprey has a book on Modelling Matildas which should be helpful.

Raising the suspension caused problems with extra strain and breakages of components and was abandoned soon after the fall of France. Both of the Matildas in the Malta photographs have the normal suspension set-up.

There are some detail photos here

http://tanxheaven.com/rob/matilda/matilda.htm

this one's a Close Support version with a different gun, so ignore that bit!

David