looking for colour images of vehicles used in the desert after 1942

[RichardT10829]

hahaha well you have inadvertantly made it the colours i mentioned as the photo when printed out matches my swatches perfectly

[Jordan Baker]

strange becuase the KG#3 was matched to some original paint on parts. Just goes to show how close a lot of the original colours were. And also how much the colour can change between my screen settings and yours and what your printer is setup to print out.

I remember reading something years ago that stated alot were done so that they were the same tones in black and white photos.

[RichardT10829]

i was using a cannon bubblejet with with its own print wizard using kodak gold quality gloss photopaper, the swatches i have are in colour in Mike starmers book labelled SCC shade no 5 described as having a grey appearence with yellow brown cast introduced 1942, veterans describe it as khaki or dirty sand. and the black disruptive is SCC 14 (blue blackdisruptive).... i am only quoting from the book itself which is worth buying the guy seems to go to the Nth degree about paint colours and schemes.

found this on youtube which is very very close to the swatch but there is an awefull lot of light flooding into the lens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed6mq...eature=related

[sapper41]

Starmers books are pretty good i have to agree, he has spent an awfull lot of time in gathering the relevant documents together.

As for the comments on the schemes and dates it must be rememberd that supplies were critical and repaint jobs were really not on unless the situation really called for it. Thier are pics of vehicles and artillery pieces at alamien and they are still wearing the caunter scheme (granted i am biased as my truck is in that camo) If you have the history of the units he served with that could well point you in the right direction.
Have attached pic of truck so you can see the colours full bore as it were,
Middle stone, slate, silver grey

Regards
Tim

[Mark Mackenzie]

Light Mud was the colour for Sicily. It was considered too light for Italy. British AFV in Italy were repainted with green or brown paint until supplies of Olive Drab became available.

[McDell Bros]

Light mud with blue/black camo was used by all New Zealand armour and a lot of transport for the first few months of the Italian campaign. Infact our Staghounds remained that colour untill the end. Although a lot of the Kiwi veterans refer to it as Mud/Grey, I,m sure its still the same colour. Apparently some of the vehicles were painted on the ship on the way to Italy using & mixing the closest colours they had on hand. We have painted our carrier in these colours as serving in the 21st Infantry Battalion. The colours we used were a bit of an educated guess, but they probably varied a bit in service anyway. Here are a few photo's, the colour seems to vary a bit in different lights & is slowly dulling off & looking better.

[Mark Mackenzie]

From what I have been able to dig up, a request was made by 15th Army Group at the beginning of November 1943 for the replacement of the Light Mud/Black scheme as soon as possible. A colour similar to Olive Drab was requested. Orders were issued by HQ 8th Army in January 1944, stating that Olive Drab would not become available until early spring and that until then a uniform dark green or dark brown was to be used where available. This applied to Commonwealth AFV as well (both these documents are attached).

New Zealand Divisional Cavalry Staghounds were repainted in April 1944, and I'm pretty sure from photos that the colours weren't Light Mud/Black (page 338):

http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2DiCa-c21.html

New Zealand tanks (18th Battalion) were repainted "Dark Green and Brown" in April 1944 (page 442) :

http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2-18Ba-c30.html