Achilles paint job 1944

[OllieG]

Was looking to get some info on the Achilles colours for 1944. So the UK adopted the M10 in 1943 and were starting to convert them to the Achilles at this time aswel. Now between 1941-1944 the standard british colour was SCC2, so its safe to asume that some Achilles would have gone into combat on D-Day, and throughout Normandy without being resprayed with SCC15, since at the time paint wouldnt have been in a numerous supply. Sadly there really isnt any picture evidnce as theyre all in black and white, and most we see now are painted SCC15. 

Im currently building the Tamiya 1/35 Achilles, and dont want to do SCC15, but also want it to be historically correct.

Reading the Tank Craft book on the Achilles, alot are depicted with the SCC2 colour, and not the usual SCC15. 

Just want your guys thoughts on this. 

 

Cheers All!

[Black Knight]

8 minutes ago, OllieG said:

. . . since at the time paint wouldnt have been in a numerous supply. 

On what evidence do you make that statement?

The allies had plenty of paint

[OllieG]

7 minutes ago, Black Knight said:

On what evidence do you make that statement?

The allies had plenty of paint

Im only going off whats said in the tank craft book.

Sorry i guess i may have worded it wrong and i quote "SCC2 was replaced by SCC15 in April 1944, SCC2 could still be seen for sometime after as paints were customarily used until stocks were exhausted"

Could be wrong of course.

[Bullbasket]

When the UK received M10's from the States, they were probably finished in OD. Most like Shermans, were only repainted in the SCC15 when they had been converted to Achilles/Fireflies. I could be wrong, but I've never heard of any M10 (Wolverine)/Achilles being painted in SSCC2..........but I could be wrong.

From what I've read, US manufactured armour, meant for British/Commonwealth use, was finished in a version of SCC15 which differed slightly to the British produced paint (DuPont???)

 

John.

[Graham Boak]

This is the first I've heard of any US-manufactured equivalent of SCC15, and it would go against the (by then long standing) principle of Lend Lease.  They will have simply been in Olive Drab, which is indeed different to SCC15.  Slightly browner?

[OllieG]

Obviously i could be totally wrong here, so was just wanting some input onto the matter, taking most of the info from the Achilles Tank craft book (Linked below) 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tank-Destroyer-Achilles-Anti-Tank-1944-1945/dp/1526741903/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

 

I know all American tanks came over in Olive drab, but in 1943 the SCC2 was the main colour? So maybe it is possible for them to be painted that? Even if just a small number (I guess anything is possible in wartime) 

Link below to a pic for referance from the book. 

https://imgur.com/a/tx2qvD3

Cheers!

 

 

[Kingsman]

US supplied vehicles were NOT repainted in the UK base colour of the day unless they were converted or their finish deteriorated to the point of needing a repaint. N Africa being an obvious exception. SCC2 Brown was a temporary expedient colour introduced because diminishing stocks of pigment to make greens were reserved for RAF use from mid-42 until early 44. SCC15 was introduced as soon as feasible: early 44. We used SCC2 because we had to, not because we wanted to. OD was a much better colour and was not that far away from the Khaki Green 3 we were forced to give up in '42.

 

US OD No9 was an acceptable substitute for green, black or brown disruptive painting in N Africa and Italy. But we're not talking desert here. OD was a brown anyway, although at the greenish end of brown. Pigmented with ochre and black. SCC15 was a green, despite being called OD, and was quite different to US OD.

 

So your M10 would have arrived in OD and is most likely to have stayed that way unless it got really scruffy.  We operated many unmodified M10s as well as Achilles.

 

Achilles conversions were probably repainted SCC15. It is possible - and I stress possible - that they may only have been patch-painted SCC15 as external changes were minimal. Gun barrels would have been issued in SCC15 anyway. There were some mods to the mantlet. A different colour inside the turret to outside wouldn't matter, and the most significant mods were inside the turret.

 

There is little or no justification for an M10 or Achilles in SCC2. The book's author's may have seen a period colour image with the inevitable colour shift typical of film stock of the era. There are a number of images which pop up regularly and are debated green vs brown. Or, worse, they have seen incorrectly colourised images. Or they have made an uninformed assumption. Artwork in books or online articles by anyone is rarely fully trustworthy.

[Bullbasket]

@Kingsman Peter, am I mis-remembering it or were US built AFV's, meant for British/Commonwealth countries, painted in a colour similar to SCC15? I seem to remember that the paint was produced by DuPont as a match for SCC15, but was slightly different. Is there an inkling of fact in there?

 

John.

[Kingsman]

@Bullbasket all US-produced tanks under Lend-Lease were the same colour as neither US Ordnance nor the factories had any idea where they would be going at the point of order and manufacture.  Allocation to customer destinations was a function of the Ordnance Tank Depots according to need and direction at the time.  This applied even to vehicle types destined solely for Lend-Lease such as the M4A2.

 

That colour was Olive Drab No9, an ochre-black mix with a flat finish.  In mid-late 1944 a reformulated OD No 22 was introduced.  While this used the same pigmentation as OD No9 the new base formulation with a satin finish altered the reflectance and it appeared somewhat greener than OD No9.  IIRC this may have been a DuPont product.  But sources vary on whether many if any vehicles in this finish reached operational theatres in time to be issued and deployed.  Sherman-wise you're almost certainly talking only HVSS tanks for the revised paint.

 

British cash-purchase vehicles pre-Lend-Lease did not accord with this.  Khaki Green 3 was specified but OD No9 was probably used and accepted to meet this as the 2 colours weren't that far apart and OD was both available and in use.  The Dewar papers apparently mention KG3.  They also mention a commercial colour Coronado Tan for vehicles destined for direct supply to N Africa.  But we digress.

 

Many paint companies must have produced millions of gallons of OD paint in WW2.  Was every batch from every manufacturer identical in shade?  Absolutely not.  But the variance would not have been great.  You certainly wouldn't get greens as some model paint manufacturers seem to think: ochre and black do not make green.  Noting that "ochre" itself was not an entirely consistent pigment, varying from yellowish to brownish.  The USA was in the same poor supply position as the UK regarding pigments for green paints, most usually chromic oxides: that which was available was prioritised for the zinc chromate primer used extensively by the aircraft industry.  As has been said before, even with 21st century pigment manufacture technology, synthetic pigments and computerised mixing and matching we still cannot achieve absolute consistent uniformity from batch to batch.

 

It has been said elsewhere, but AFAIK not absolutely confirmed, that Canada adopted US OD rather than SCC15 in 1944 simply on the basis of ready availability.

 

I don't believe it has ever been explained why the UK ended up with the mid-brown SCC2 rather than something more like the US OD, which was much closer to the KG3 we reluctantly gave up.  KG3 was a brownish green and OD was a greenish brown.  SCC2 used an ochre-ish clay pigment from Devon and it would appear to my simple mind that by adding and adjusting Lamp Black or Prussian Blue a greener shade of brown not unlike OD could have been formulated.

Edited January 20, 2023 by Kingsman
grammar bad was.....

[Bullbasket]

Thanks for the clarification Peter. I was harking back to an article (possibly MM or Scale Models in the 70's) that I'd had a vague recollection of. Memory plays tricks with you after a while, but I'll see if I can dig it out.

 

John.

[thebig-bear]

Making a long-time later contribution to this topic.

 

I've just read a caption in a book that states that in two photos from the IWM featuring Achilles (of 11th Armoured Division in October 1944), both vehicles retain the US shipping details on the hull, and in one case the original US Army serial number as well. I've just been and checked this, and to my eye it appears to be absolutely correct. (although I am happy to bow to someone who knows far more about such details.)

 

Surely, this would mean that (at least in the case of this particular pair of examples) Achilles were only patch-painted, and did not receive a full repaint after modification.

 

The photos are IWM B 10489 and IWM B 10490, should anyone care to look.

[Kingsman]

This same question is also being covered simultaneously on this Achilles thread here.

 

[thebig-bear]

2 hours ago, Kingsman said:

This same question is also being covered simultaneously on this Achilles thread here.

 

Thank you - I was wondering if there was some way of doing something like that.