AEC Matador Bowser Camouflage

[Dan_RAFBC]

Evening all,

 

Could anyone help me with this question. Would RAF Bomber Command AEC Matadors ever have been coloured in the pattern and colours seen below?

(S.C.C. 2 and S.C.C. 14)

 

 

Thanks,

Dan

[Graham Boak]

It seems very likely, given the build time and entry into service.  Early ones are perhaps likelier to be in G3/G5 with a more sweeping demarcation.  From memory, there are photos showing this or the similar "Mickey Mouse" pattern which would point to these colours.

 

Strictly speaking the entire uppersurface should be in the darker shade rather than just the edges.

[Dan_RAFBC]

1 minute ago, Graham Boak said:

It seems very likely, given the build time and entry into service.  Early ones are perhaps likelier to be in G3/G5 with a more sweeping demarcation.  From memory, there are photos showing this or the similar "Mickey Mouse" pattern which would point to these colours.

 

Strictly speaking the entire uppersurface should be in the darker shade rather than just the edges.

Thank you Graham, I thought that it would have been likely although I was unable to find any colour images so didn't want to bet on it.

[Graham Boak]

The colour pictures I'm familiar with are of an early AEC refuelling a Stirling, and are a little ambiguous depending upon their reproduction, but is probably G3 which is a bit ambiguous anyway.

[Dan_RAFBC]

I presume you are referring to this image. I have found two tones of the image.

This dark one

And this light one

To me it's seems it is a brown/green 'wavy' camouflage?

[SleeperService]

Yes, that combination is perfectly OK. This picture is wartime and shows the scheme perfectly. It's also a rare petrol engined tanker. Note Autovac on LH Front and extended radiator housing.

 

 

Note that the extra bit on the roof has still got brown sides although the top should be dark. As the edge was undercut it has, quite correctly, not been given dark paint as instructions.

 

[Graham Boak]

Both early builds, judging from the cab top and the spare mounting.  I'd suggest that the Stirling one is in G3 khaki-green with a band of darker green G5, and the latter one may be G3 but is probably SCC2 with SCC 1 or Nobel's Tarmac (a blue-black).  Other opinions may differ, as they say.

[Troy Smith]

IIRC in the Nightbombers DVD there are 'mickey mouse' camouflaged refuelling trucks, what they are I don't know, and a quick search is not turning up any stills.

The DVD is highly recommended as it has servicing, refuelling and bombing up, plus a drive round the perimeter track, all in colour.

there is a clip here to give an idea of the quality , note the crane looks to have dark uppers

 

HTH

[Troy Smith]

a look at @Etiennedup flickr

Lancaster by Etienne du Plessis, on Flickr

 

 G3 khaki-green with a band of darker green G5?

[fatfingers]

The darker colour looks like dark green G4. If i recall correctly G5 was a lighter green.

 

Regards

 

Steve

[Graham Boak]

SSC2 and one of the later colours? Prbably just black.  That would be more compatible with the period, although it seems unlikely that the RAF bothered to keep its vehicles "up to date", and indeed even in the Army painting to the new schemes was usually deferred until the supply of old paints ran out.

[Mancunian airman]

The colours applied to RAF vehicles are a mine-field despite the sincere opinions of some serious enthusiast.

 

Quite right, the RAF did not revise the paint scheme immediately as issues of AMO's.

In fact looking at the tanker in front of the Lancaster with the SBC's, I would argue that the very top of the tanker looks Brown but as the earlier post shows/proves, with the Stirling, a different image reveal that colours can vary but for what its worth I personally would go with the top photo basing MY estimation on the Brown colour on the aircraft camouflage which most of us can agree on . . . .

This photo changes colours as I change the settings 

 

 

 

[JackG]

Just an fyi, the coloured photo in the first post is, I believe, a photo shop  compliments of a member from the MapleLeafUp forums:

http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/showthread.php?t=28220&highlight=cmp+scc2

 

SCC2 was a brown introduced as a replacement paint due to a shortage of green pigment.  Generally, introduction of new colours did not mean existing equipment would be repainted - that usually would occur when there was a major overhaul of a particular vehicle.

 

Mike Starmer had done a load of research on British colours:

https://www.mafva.org/british-vehicle-camouflage-1939-45/?v=3e8d115eb4b3

 

regards,

Jack

Edited April 28, 2020 by JackG
corrected web link

[Kingsman]

Until May '42 the authorised scheme was green G4 in broad bands over khaki green G3.  I believe that scheme came in late in '38 or early in '39.  At the end of May '42 the change to Nobels Dark Tarmac over SCC2 brown was authorised. Exhaustion of existing stocks of paint was permitted, so the change took a while to be complete.  As mentioned above, light green G5 was not used.  As a rule of thumb, a broad striped scheme will be G3/G4 and "Mickey Mouse" will be SCC2/NDT.  Having said this, blue-black over green SCC15 "Mickey Mouse" was authorised for soft skins in NW Europe in preparation for D-Day so an RAF vehicle at a forward airfield in Europe will most likely be that colour.  SCC2 vehicles were not supposed to cross the Channel.

 

AFAIK RAF vehicles were never green and brown despite some suggestions that aircraft paints may have been used on them.  While not relevant to tankers, the colours of canvas tilt covers are something of a minefield as there were special paints for them which did not directly match the vehicle paints.

 

As noted above, there was no requirement to retro-paint existing vehicles in the new colours unless they underwent major repair or refurbishment work or the finish had deteriorated badly.  So after mid-'44 it might be possible at UK airfields to see vehicles in any one of 3 different schemes.  Newly delivered vehicles after mid-'44 were probably SCC15/blue-black.

[Troy Smith]

On 8/11/2018 at 20:14, Troy Smith said:

IIRC in the Nightbombers DVD there are 'mickey mouse' camouflaged refuelling trucks, what they are I don't know, and a quick search is not turning up any stills.

and, I was able to get to my copy... and I was recalling correctly.  

 

here's a still, to my untutored eye this looks very similar to image posted by @SleeperService

 

Nightbombers still refueller vlcsnap-2018-11-09-22h29m04s007 by losethekibble, on Flickr

 

Hmm, SCC15 /blue black? 

 

HTH

T

 

PS the writing above the roundel says "B1"  as a later shot shows the rear door open.  

As an aside the bombing up footage is of note as both US and British bombs are being loaded together.

[Graham Boak]

B1 means 1 Group Bomber Command.

[Kingsman]

The Mickey Mouse would be "near black" in either case.  The sheen on the tank body makes a tone comparison with the black of the Lanc difficult, but the matt-er finish on the cab suggests blue-black which means the green is probably SCC15.  Which means the photo is probably late '44 or '45.

 

The radiator cover illustrates my point about the different colour of canvas emulsions.  The cab roof is an odd colour as it doesn't match either of the colours and should be blue-black.  Perhaps damaged and repaired with an older part and put back into service without repainting?  Having a tanker VOR for long would be a problem.  If the date is correct the likelihood of air attack on RAF bomber stations was virtually nil, so camouflage might be seen to be less important.  IIRC they were beyond the range of surviving German aircraft by then forced to operate from Holland and Germany.

[Vicarage Vee]

Attack by intruder aircraft was a real possibility up until the closing weeks of the war, as Operation Gisela showed.

 

[Graham Boak]

The still is from the film Night Bombers, which was made very late in the war, so there's no real doubt over the date.  However use of SCC15 was only after Spring 1944, so there can't have been many UK-based RAF vehicles in this scheme, especially if we assume (as seems reasonable) that vehicles on the Continent with 2 TAF received priority.  There doesn't need to be many, of course, to have one or more appear in this film.  I'm told that some vehicles are seen in this film with yellow tops, suggesting that the postwar standard saw some use earlier.  This may however be cases where post-war takes have been spliced into the film to assist the story.

[Hardcastle]

Hi all

 

What I found interesting about the video clip was the Coles crane, while camouflaged on the sides still appears to have an RAF blue jib with the topside of the jib a yellow colour, unless I am missing something subtle. The same appeared to be true for the jib of the ?Rapier crane lifting the prop off the Lanc!

 

Help me understand if I was wrong. So maybe the paint rules are not so rigidly applied as some others seem to have us believe. Or, was this movie-clip actually post-war recreation?

 

Tim

[Troy Smith]

38 minutes ago, Hardcastle said:

Or, was this movie-clip actually post-war recreation?

 

No, a private project of H.I Cozens, shot late 44 i think

Quote

The wartime colour film of Lancasters used in in this now re-mastered DVD is the only known to exist. It was de-classified under the "Thirty Year's Rule" in 1978 and so was not available for use in earlier documentary programmes such as "The World At War". Since release, parts of the film have appeared in other Video/DVD's and used on TV. For example, footage was shown by BBC TV last December in their "RAF at 90" programme.

Viewed as a whole, the film reflects a full day of activity at a front line RAF Bomber Base. It shows ground crew changing a Merlin engine, replacement of a rear turret with twin 0.50 inch machine guns rather than four 0.303 inch guns and then the fuelling and bombing up of aircraft. Bombs of various sizes are shown being manhandled on to trolleys then moved by tractor from the bomb dump to have fuses attached before being taken to aircraft and winched up into the bomb bay. Aircrew are shown being fully briefed and getting into flying gear prior to taking off "for a mission to Berlin". The latter section appears "staged" but still reveals what it was like to be in a Lancaster and the near impossibility of getting out if an aircraft was hit by shell or cannon fire from anti aircraft guns or night fighters.

The quality of the footage is astonishing given that the bulk was filmed using a 16mm camera. The interior shots of a fully operational Lancaster (and perhaps the reason for the ban on release until 1978) show the use of all the electronics that became available later in the war for navigation and early warning of night fighter attack.

from

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nightbombers-DVD-H-I-Cozens/dp/B0001GNJK6/

 

[Kingsman]

8 hours ago, Vicarage Vee said:

Attack by intruder aircraft was a real possibility up until the closing weeks of the war, as Operation Gisela showed.

Gisela was a night fighter operation, where the colour of ground vehicles would be irrelevant and the German aircraft had the opportunity to disguise themselves among the bomber stream and partly nullify the radar advantage, even with IFF, as well as the inherent lack of visibility.  Such an operation could not have been mounted in daylight at that time.  I remember reading that even in the run-up to D Day not a single German aircraft got close enough to photograph any of the real or artificial preparations - ultimately rendering all of the deceptive works wasted.

[Graham Boak]

However, that doesn't mean that camouflage could be completely abandoned as the tides of war can change, or the vehicles be required for more active areas.  Plus just what other paint would have been widely available?

 

It has been claimed that there was no successful  recce missions flown over the South coast leading up to D-Day, but such missions are known to have been flown by the surviving Arado 240 in late spring and I've seen reference to successful missions by Fw190s during the preparations. There certainly seems to have been no means of guaranteeing a total block on such flights.  Of course, the deception involved much more than the visual side.

[Vicarage Vee]

Gisela was indeed a nightfighter operation. The point of bringing it up was to show that the Bomber bases were certainly still within range of the Luftwaffe should they decide to try. 

[Mike Starmer]

The first image shows the tanker in Khaki Green G3 and Dark Green G4.  The reason the base colour looks brown is that Khaki Green G3 is more brown than green in certain lighting conditions.  I have a 1939 dated steel helmet in original Khaki Green G3 and in 2007 managed to mix Revell enamel paints to 1.5 on the DE.2000 colour scale to match preserved motorcycle components.  Both mix and components were checked by spectrometer.  There is a variation in the colours, not greatly though, the helmet is just slightly more brown.  The best verbal description is a very strong or deeply saturated olive drab.   A very close match can now be made with Humbrols;  5 x 155 + 1 x 10, matt varnish will provide the correct appearance.  By late 1944-45 yellow was being applied to upper surfaces or small areas on RAF vehicles to assist ground crews at night and aircrew view from cockpits which are higher than the vehicles.