Info needed: correct colours for WWII Aust vehicles

[Richard Farrant]

Originally Posted by Lynn Eades

Richard, That's fine. I posted because :
1. The ACIs are probably not that common.
2. Gina may not have had access to them.
3. Because the British paint standards would have had an influence on
Australian Paint considerations.
4. Because much of it is gibberish to me and although I have little
understanding, it seemed the you had over simplified the information in
ACI 1160.
5. How these Army Council Instructions affected the Australian Military I
don't know, but these instructions were certainly not anecdotal. They were
the the law as far as the British Army went. Orders are orders, and
contrary to what some might suggest, Commanders did not ignore orders
by a whim.
6. Knowing the basics of how the British paint system worked would help the
overall understanding, for not just me but many others that say nothing.
here.
E.g what does a Cat. No. xxxx mean? What is a C.S.?

I was of the mis guided impression That S.C.C referred to an actual paint, not just a colour. This then means (to me) that the paint would have varied much more with time, weather, u.v. etc because the components required to arrive at a colour can be many.

I have followed this thread with interest, but much of it is like reading radio posts when you have no idea about them.

Gina, I aplogise for hijacking your thread.

OK, thanks Lynn,
I thought we were going off on a tangent and did not wish to hijack the thread. The way I have understood the UK situation was that although Army Council Instructions were issued, it often states that existing stocks of the old paint are to be exhausted before the new colour is used. There would be factories with a large stock of a particular colour and still turning out vehicles in the earlier colour, until they have run out of it. So if you are going by dates of ACI's with colour changes, they were not embodied straight away, there would have been a huge waste of unused paint if that happened.

To answer your question 6, Cat. No. refers to Vocabulary Catalogue number, or to put it plainly, the stock number to demand by. HA is the prefix for paint.

SCC was a range of camouflage colours introduced, not just for vehicles, but for buildings, etc as well.
If I can find the time I can expand on ACI 1160, but a lot to do this weekend.

cheers Richard

[Mrs Vampire]

There is both a specification and a chip of KG3 in the Australian archives which compares nearly exactly to Bob Moseley colour.

Mike Thanks for the reference But isnt that an RAAF order ??? I will chase it down in any case but it still fits with my contention that KG3 was most likely used as a replacement for BDG24 up until the Introduction of the Australian colours early 1942 and that there would be hang over until the colours were available.

I would be interested to obtain those documents mentioned Lynn

I have forked over the cash to have this put online

tem title: [Transport - Trailers, Tractors, W4 A-C-G Trolleys] - Camouflage of service M/T [Mechanical Transport] vehicles [2cm]
Series number: A705
Control symbol: 211/9/430
Barcode: 516462
Access Status: Open
Price Code: Standard Digital

[Mrs Vampire]

Mike I have another problem with the painting of vehicles with Local purchase and it is this. In Jan 1942 we didn't have all that many vehicles and they wernt all that dispersed.

Pearl Harbor was only the month before we had little deployed for the defense of Australia ...or did we??... I am supposing most vehicles would be near the main city centers and especially near Sydney and Melbourne with the intention of ME shipment

All Army Vehicles would have already been painted DBG 24, KG3 or Desert colour .
Units would have been quite close to the paint manufacturers or the Engineering workshops.

For Armour we had about sixty tanks including the recently arrived Stuarts .... So how many vehicles were out there that needed a total repaint and were so deployed that supplies of the required colours were ungetable ??

I would suppose there were adequate supplies of whatever paints were being used on production vehicles which would satisfy the Instruction cited ??

Also from my reading of the files I had the impression that local supply was a reference to local paint manufacturers not the local paint shop ... There was a list of about fifty manufacturers in the files.

Mike Starmers difficulty with KG3 was resolved with the provision of the formula from the Australian archive and plate matched to the one extant chip also in the Australian archives. He also updated his Light Stone based on material from the Australian archives.

But that aside to you think there is any photographic or artifact evidence that local purchase colours were used ???

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by Gina Vampire

In Jan 1942 we didn't have all that many vehicles and they wernt all that dispersed.

That's a interesting theory but the photographic evidence doesn't support it . In early 1942, there were army units spread all over the country from Tasmania to the Northern Territory. Each unit had vehicles on issue of course.

I wish you all success with your research but it's a wide ranging and complex subject . Will we ever really know the true facts ?

In such a harsh environment like the N.T. , the paint would have gone powdery and faded quickly , I don't think the army workshops had sophisticated equipment available . The factory paint jobs would have been neat and tidy but once the vehicles were out in the real world it was a different story.

Distributing paint to remote locations was another issue. Paint would be low down on the list of necessities , the priority would have been given to food, munitions etc.

[Mike K]

Discussing paint, this is a interesting pic.

These may be impressed trucks. 1940 GMC's . Notice the chrome grills and bumbers . Has the khaki paint fallen off the grill or has somebody scraped it off ! The wooden tray looks like a farmers setup to me.

[Mike Cecil]

Gina,

I'm a bit puzzled and having some difficulty working out what your perceived time line for KG3 is. Several posts ago you said:

"KG #3 was not used on Vehicles by the Australian Army according to the documentary and photographic evidence that exists until December of 1943. Army orders and paint availability indicate Deep bronze green and British desert yellow (light stone) were used until the Australian "Berger" colour set was adopted. "

and more recently:

"Mike Thanks for the reference But isnt that an RAAF order ??? I will chase it down in any case but it still fits with my contention that KG3 was most likely used as a replacement for BDG24 up until the Introduction of the Australian colours early 1942 and that there would be hang over until the colours were available."

I've bolded the parts of the two statements that appear to me to conflict, ie the use of KG3 not until Dec 43, and the use of KG3 before 1942. Or am I missing something/misreading something?

As for MC301: Army. There are a string of Army Mechanization Circulars. Taubert has published at least one of the later ones that superseded MC301.

Vehicle numbers: I agree with Mike K. Thousands of vehicles in service, and widely spread. Why would that statement about local purchase be placed into MC301 if there was not the strong possibility of gas resisting paint being un-available to all users through the normal Army supply chain within a short time frame?

Mike

[Lynn Eades]

Mike, Is there not the possibility that they were never painted in the first place?