WWI British 18 Pounder Field Gun - Paint Colour in WWI?

[Rob Pulham]

I know that colours are subjective and I have read a few posts on here about the non standardisation of paint colours during this period so all I am looking for is a starting point such as brown, Khaki, green etc.?

 

Most of the preserved examples seem to be painted in what looks to me like bronze green. Which I suspect is what they might have been painted in later in their service life.

 

Any pointers will be gratefully received

[Black Knight]

Certainly early in the war the guns & limbers and all woodwork was painted grey

[Lothian man]

http://www.landships.info/landships/artillery_articles.html?load=/landships/artillery_articles/9_2in_Howitzer.html#

 

Info however seems to be taken from Osprey New Vanguard 94 "British Artillery 1914-19 - Field Army Artillery" by Dale Clarke and Brian Delf.

 

I *think* the website is dormant and not maintained, so just make sure your virus checker is operating.

[Circloy]

Link above is to the 9.2" howitzer from which you have to navigate (looks to be a quirk of the website that the web address doesnt update as you switch between pages)

 

Try this for a direct link to the18 pdr QF

 

http://www.landships.info/landships/artillery_articles.html?load=/landships/artillery_articles/18pdr.html#

 

WW1 pics appear to show a light / dark (grey / green) camouflaged pattern.

[Kingsman]

As frequently discussed here and elsewhere at length, WW1 colours are a difficult subject because there was no codification and no colour imagery.

 

It is commonly held that pre-war artillery pieces and associated limbers and wagons were a mid-grey shade.  It is also clear that some artillery pieces, like the early tanks, were painted in gaudy Solomon-style schemes.  With the arrival of static warfare and aerial observation camouflage quickly became important. Grey was quickly seen to be the wrong colour.

 

The colour mixes for all British military paint colours are contained in the Handbook for Artificers, the 1912 and 1915 editions being germane to WW1.  Facsimile reprints are available: try Abe Books.  But these are mixes using dry pigments in linseed oil and rely on white lead, which gave a yellowy tinted white unlike today's brighter titanium white.  So they don't give much impression of the actual colour.

 

Service Colour became pretty much universal during WW1 from 1915 and I imagine that most wartime production of 18pdrs would have been this colour.  This colour is often meaninglessly and uselessly called Khaki.  It was certainly a brown, and probably at the greenish end of brown.  From the ochre main pigmentation it must have been similar to the WW2 SCC2 Brown, probably a touch more greenish.

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks Gents,

That's a great help.

I have found one photo in a camouflage scheme, so that's something to consider.

I had in mind that the livery might be 'brown' but I hadn't considered that there might be the option of grey. 

 

Thanks again,  I just need to decide on which period I want to depict with it.

[Kingsman]

No-one knows what the Solomon colours were, or even whether they were "standard" colours from the Handbook.  As a working assumption for field use it would be logical that they were.  There are mixes in there for a dark Brunswick green and a sandy colour as well as grey and Service Colour, a reddish colour, black and white.  So a working hypothesis might be Service Colour, Brunswick Green, sandy yellow and grey.