Airfix Chi Ha Type 47 Tank -alternative scheme required-

[phat trev]

I am wanting to make the Airfix Chi Ha Type 47 Tank with a different scheme to the box design and have been reading up about the SNLF 'Special Naval Landing Force' (Japanese Marines?) IJN?

I have found a passage in the following link that states an 'overall Naval Dark Grey' was sometimes used. Would any Chi Ha type tanks have ben used by this Landing Force and in this scheme (I have also read that an anchor badge was used on the side of the machines.

Trying to get away from the 'standard' 3 colour scheme I have witnessed on most Chi Ha tank images found but being an aviation modeller I have only a small degree of tank knowledge...

Any help would be of great interest.

Thanks!

[Graham Boak]

I can't be sure, but the SNLF tended to be carried by destroyers and the like, so tanks would be unusual. The IJN did have some tank landing ships (special transports) so I wouldn't rule them out. I have some volumes of the AJ Press series on Japanese tanks and although I can confirm the appearance of an anchor as a marking, there's no sign of a grey one in the volumes I have. The amphibious tanks were in this medium grey.

There is room for some variation in the colour scheme of the Chi-Ha, in that the late war colours were different in appearance to the early war ones, they are still basically variations of tan, brown, reddish-brown and greens. There is an example of a revised Chi-Ha (Shin Hoto) in naval merchant green, but that seems to be about an exotic as I've found.

Nick Millman has released a primer on Japanese tank colours, and you can get Mr. Hobby(?) sets of early and late war colours.

[Mike Starmer]

Nick Millman hasa pdf on Japanese AFV colours, well worth getting. Those bright yellow stripes are not what they seem.