What colour do you paint your storage boxes?

[Doggy]

So I'm the process of painting a Sherman and a few Soviet tanks, t34, su100 isu122, ISU 152, you get the idea. 

I can understand if the various boxes were painted green but I'm wondering what is more authentic, green or plain wood.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks.

[Ade H]

It depends on the box... Bit of a cop-out answer, but true. If you look at old boxes (search for the type, use, and/or nationality, etc.) you can find a lot which were painted.

[Kingsman]

Different nations had different standards from one another and each usually had different standards for different contents.  They may also have varied over time.  There is no universal answer or rule of thumb.  The only answer is to research the individual type(s) of box(es) concerned.  However, metal boxes were always painted whereas wooden ones were not always painted.  Which is, I suppose, the original question.  That answer would depend on whether they were intended to be durable - such as equipment boxes - or single-use disposable, such as ammunition boxes. Little point painting the latter.

 

There are a surprising number of surviving historic ammunition and other boxes which come up in Google searches.

 

If you were to ask a more specific question with country, time period and original box contents (all were originally for something regardless of later use) then you might get a more helpful answer.

[Doggy]

I think I've got my answer.

 

Painting them to look like wood would be more interesting but also more difficult.

 

Painting them green would certainly be easier for me. 

I would imagine the tank crews weren't too fussed about the condition or colour of wooden boxes and I think they would probably get swapped between tanks etc.

 

I was wondering about Gerry cans too, at the moment I'm painting them a slightly different shade of green from the tank just so things don't look so bland.

 

Thanks for your help guys.

 

Doggy.

[Kingsman]

Jerry cans of all nations were painted the same colour as authorised for military vehicles at the time.  Standard paint.  But yes, this did vary inevitably from batch to batch and weathered differently from environmental exposure. But the differences would be subtle: shades of the same colour, not a different colour.  So, using US Olive Drab as an example, add a hint of white or a hint of yellow or even a hint of black (OD was made from ochre and black, it wasn't actually a green) for different cans.  Don't use a different "green".  Same for German dunkelgrau or dunkelgelb or British colours.

 

So US cans would always be OD.  So would metal ammo cans.  Their wooden ammo boxes could be OD, brown or unpainted IIRC.

 

German cans would be dunkelgrau until 1943 then dunkelgelb.  Same for metal ammo containers.  I believe that German wooden ammo boxes were generally unpainted.

 

By the time Britain got round to producing its own jerrycans I believe that SCC15 had become the standard colour.  I'm not sure that any were produced in the SCC2 era but I'm open to correction.  WW2 British metal ammo boxes were always Khaki Green 3. Chocolate brown was post-war.  Our wooden boxes could be painted or not, but we didn't make much use of wooden ammo boxes compared to other nations.  Loose 0.303" SAA and outer boxes for 2 Vickers or BESA belt cans spring to mind.  Bren 100rd drum boxes were painted.

 

I think you miss the point about wood vs painted.  No, crews would not have minded much.  My point was whether these boxes were manufactured and delivered painted or unpainted with their original contents.  And despite what some of the many after-market stowage sets give you, tank crews would be very unlikely to carry boxed additional main gun ammo on the vehicle.  One bullet or fragment through a box would set off the propellant in a cartridge, setting off the rest.  Boom time.  Small arms ammo was less dangerous if hit.  But you do see SPG and tanks employed as static artillery outside the direct fire zone stacked with both loose and boxed ammo.

 

British AFVs are commonly seen in Italy, NWE and the Far East with discarded metal ammunition boxes bolted or welded on for additional stowage.

Edited November 8, 2021 by Das Abteilung
Bad spelling!

[Doggy]

Thanks very much for the post, it answered a few pending questions.

 

Thanks.

 

 

Edited November 7, 2021 by Doggy

[APA]

May I add a suplimentary question? Storage boxes both fixed original kit and stand alone such as ammunition etc. Would the interior be painted? In particular storage on british AFV's. Would the external storage interiors be left as red oxide or "waste paint and time" camoing the inside of a metal box? 

 

Cheers 

 

Andrew 

[Kingsman]

I'm fairly certain that painted British, US and German metal boxes would have been painted on the inside as well as the outside.  British boxes certainly were.  Paint protects against corrosion and that can happen from the inside out as well as the outside in.  Late war German may just have been primed inside.  Painted wooden boxes were almost certainly unpainted inside

 

Russia didn't use a separate primer.  4BO Green - Protection Green - contains 15-20% Zinc Chromate.  It's a one-coat solution.  Zinc Chromate is of course extensively used as a corrosion protection paint and primer on aircraft.  So if it isn't painted 4BO it's bare metal.........  Other colours were to be applied over 4BO.

 

For Russian colours you should look at the 4BO Green site here: http://www.4bogreen.com/

Edited November 8, 2021 by Das Abteilung

[Black Knight]

If I may throw something into the mix.

In about 1969 my father bought a job lot of ex-British Army ammo boxes.

There were over 600 assorted boxes; large steel ones, half-size steel, wood and compressed moulded card/paper and other sizes and shapes

The boxes were from pre-WW2, WW2 era through the 1950s

Of the wooden boxes they were coloured with a wood stain, inside and out and the ammo info was stencilled on in yellow paint. I had to paint these ones black and they were sold for tool boxes to the ship yard workers

Of the steel boxes; they were all painted on the outside,  but on the inside there were, unpainted, silver painted, white painted, black painted and green painted.

Of the green painted ones it appeared they had been painted by dipping in paint and allowing the excess paint to run off the outside and through small holes on the inside

 

I got a few of them for storing my modelling items in. afair I may still have one or two of them. One I painted blue, Humbrol 15 afair

[APA]

Cheers both. Bottom line yes they were painted the main colour on vehicle and mostly for other metal boxes. Wood boxes also probably. 

👍👌😊

 

Andrew