Can someone please tell me the correct color for a canadian churchill tank at Dieppe ?

Thanks in advance.

The Churchill would have been a shade of SCC No.2, Khaki.

If using Tamiya, a good mix that I used was 3 parts XF62 Olive Drab and 2 parts XF59 Desert Yellow.

Thanks for the info. One sight mentioned german red brown and that just didnt seem right to me.

Kevin,

You have the right colour spec, the Churchills were indeed painted SCC-2, but that isn't a Khaki colour. It's Brown. There is no green or olive in it at all.

The colloquial description of this colour is "fresh dogsh!t brown". :-D

Mike Starmer's mix is:

SCC No.2 Brown

Mix: 5 pts XF68 + 4 pts XF3 + 1 pt XF1.

The result is just a fraction strong on the red so go careful and do not overdo the black as even a slight touch too much darkens the result a great deal. This should be OK with some medium grey added for scale effect.

68 is NATO Brown, 3 is Yellow and 1 is Black.


These vehicles were definitely brown even viewed under a mountain of dirt and dust. :-)

Paul

I do understand it is actually SCC No.2 Brown, but it sure does look like there is some green, while not a green color, I sort of refer to it as an "off-shade" of Khaki.

Thanks on the clarification.

Kevin

awesome. This clears some misconception from brown to green and so forth. So canadian churchills were indeed brownish in color. Thanks.

So brownish you could call them Brown!

Paul

Hi,

Tamiya makes a Khaki, is this not a good match?

Brad

No, like the term "Olive Drab," "Khaki" has been used for so many different colors for fabrics and paints, that it is a nearly useless term of description. Khaki, from a Farsi word meaning "earth," varied from period to period and country to country. In the US, it is a light tan color, what's called khaki drill in the UK. In British service, the darker Khaki Drab was favored as a fabric color for uniforms, and was an olive color in World War One, and a nearly straight brown in World War Two (though Canadian-made uniforms were often greenish). The three shades of green vehicle paint used in the early war period (usually two colors per scheme) were sometimes known as Khaki Greens, but they were discontinued on UK-made equipment as stocks ran out in 1942. The paint used from 1942 until 1944 in Northern Europe was SCC2 Service Brown, which could be made without using the scarce chromic oxide pigments used in traditional green paints (which were needed by the RAF). In early 1944, the British Army switched to SCC15 Olive Drab, which was close to the US shade, though a bit more green. OD could be made with yellow ochre and black pigments, and didn't require chromic oxide.

So is it a green or is it a brown? I have the new-ish AFV Club Dieppe Chuchill Mk III and wish to get an accurate colour as possible.

TIA
Brad

As I said above, the Dieppe Churchills were Brown. SCC2 Brown.

Tamiya Khaki matches no standard British WW 2 colour and should never be used on any Commonwealth vehicles.

Brown.

Paul

Here's a link to a contemporary (i.e. WWII) color photo of a Churchill in SCC2 brown:

IWM::Photo Collections::TR1410

It's one of a series of photos, taken on the same day of the same subject tank - TR1407 through TR1410.

Although you should always be careful of old color photos, these are remarkably clear and the colors of the skin tones, sky and vegetation are good indicators that the colors of the tank itself have been produced well and true.

Clearly, the SCC2 is "canine excrement" brown.

HTH,

"Camouflage and Markings of Canadian Armored Vehicles in World War Two: Part 1" (Armor Color Gallery) Paperback – May, 2013, by Steve Guthrie and Barry Beldam, has the specific information you need, including a chart with the subtypes, numbers, and names of all the Churchills deployed at Dieppe. It's available from Amazon as well as specialty hobby dealers.

Thanks Gerald, I have part 2, so I guess I should get part 1.

Thanks for the link Mike.

Cheers
Brad

Were the BEF vehicles and equipment in France painted the same SCC2 in 1940?

No.

:-)

A more complete answer comes from the MAFVA site (which should be required reading for anyone doing Commonwealth armour):

"1939-41 – Bold horizontal/ diagonal patterns of two greens following M.T.P. 20 of June 1939. The most usual colours were a basic of Khaki Green No. 3 and Dark Green No.4. Plain G3 was an occasional alternative. Infantry tanks Matilda I & II appear quite dark in tone, possibly Khaki Green No. 3 and Deep Bronze Green No. 24 in some cases."

http://www.mafva.net/other%20pages/Starmer%20camo.htm

Much of what you'll ever need to know about Commonwealth Camo is on this page.

Paul

Paul

What would be a reasonable color-match for the Khaki-Green #3? I was going to use the color references for Mid Bronze Green #23; Deep Bronze Green G4; and Light Bronze Green #22 for BEF vehicles illustrated on the Armoured Acorn site, by Barry Beldam, but I suspect there is some slight color shift, as the "black" shown in some illustrations looks like a dark green.

Well, the apparently most accurate answer is that nothing is a good colour-match for any of the Commonwealth colours in the realm of Tamiya paints. The following mixes are considered pretty darned accurate:

Nobels Khaki Green No.3/ G3

Khaki Green 3 was the new basic colour from mid-1939 till phased out in 1941.

Mix: - 3 pts XF62 + 2 pts XF59.

The resulting colour is slightly less rich than a sample matched to an original motorcycle part and slightly less brown than on a steel helmet in original colour, so a good average.

Dark Green G4

This was the colour specified in MTP 20 for use in scheme 1 for 'average European conditions'. This colour is matched to the colour that I use over Khaki Green 3 and which is based on the use of complimentary hues and low contrast values seen on numerous contemporary photographs and what few colour photographs exist for 1940 period vehicles.

Mix: 3 pts x XF61 + 2 pts XF58.


The MAFVA site has Humbrol mixes and I don't think anything else has been cross-matched by Mike Starmer, the acknowledged subject-matter expert.

White Ensign did make some enamel paints nominally matched to some Brit colours, but not all of them were accurate and they've also just gone out of business, so we're all SOL on that score.



As with any image you see on your monitor, _never_ use it as anything more than a guide. On top of that, Barry's colours are never meant to be more than indiciative of the general colour and are not colour matched by any means. He uses them as a guide to the pattern more than the actual subtleties of the colours themselves.

Use the mixes.

HTH

Paul

Thanks a lot Paul. You've been very helpful.