Hi All,

I have the following questions regarding to Valentine tanks.

1. What is the (real) size of the hex bolt heads on the turret side lower edges of Valentine tanks?

2. Is that hex bolt the same size on all Valentines i. e. MkII, III, IX etc...

3. What was the base color of the Valentines below?

- Mk.V
- Mk.IX
- Mk.VII

I suppose SCC 2 brown, but have no exact data especially with the canadian produced variants.

Thanks in advance!

Regards,

Adam

I believe that those Marks of Valentine would all have been factory-finished in SCC2. It is feasible that some few early Mks V and VII might have been finished in Khaki Green 3 as the changeover to SCC2 happened at about the time their production started but old stock paint was instructed to be used up.

MkXI was in production when the change to SCC15 happened. Canada was supposed to follow UK practice (MkVII), but there remains uncertainty about how exactly this was done and the actual paint colours as the paints were sourced in Canada or the US against The UK colour standards in BS381C:1931 or BS987C:1942/1944.

Don't forget that Canadian Valentines were constructed differently from those in the UK, using more castings and less fabricated parts, so some variation in things like bolt sizes might be expected. However, Canada, US and UK all used "Imperial" measurements at that time so bolts in the same head sizes (if different thread standards) should have been available. I'll see if I can measure some turret bolt sizes for you this weekend at Bovington. They have a MkI and a MkXI.

Under a coat of paint, the bolt heads around the base of the turret and where the front casting is joined are 31mm across the flats.

This is the same on both the MkII and MkXI at Bovington, so can be assumed to be the same for all UK-built. The same size bolts are also used on the glacis plate joins, but not apparently anywhere else that I could see.

So that's about 0.9mm in 1/35.

Peter,

Thanks for you to answer my questions. I also have been suspected that Canada possibly used Khaki Green 3 for early batches of MkVII.

That will be fine if you would neasure that bolt heads on the turret, I really apppeciate that.

Regards,

Adam

OH, thanks for that, the site didn't update the replies, and I not realized that you still answered yet...

Adam