"Matilda II in Russian service" Topic

Just a quick question about some Matilda IIs that I am painting for Russian service. I know that a lot of lend lease gear was left in the original colours, but not having any reference material on British tank colours (all my books are Eastern Front orientated…) I was wondering what colour schemes these tanks would be? I use Vallejo paints, so if there is a particular one of those, I may have already got it!

Not sure this will help, but there's a least one example here:
o5m6.de/matilda.html

Maybe you can look around at the other lend lease tanks and determine a pattern?

Some profiles fron another site. It looks like most if not all were in a scheme of just one color. Robert

Matilda III of 5-th Mechcorps, South Front, fall 1943

Matilda IVCS of 5-th Mechcorps, South Front, fall 1943. Matilda from Kubinka right now have current paintscheme

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Quite a few more here Including a Winter scheme,

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Russian Mark II Matilda of the 38th armoured brigade, south-west front, may 1942. USSR

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A Lend-lease Russian Mark IV, with provisional washable white paint, Leningrad sector, winter 1942/43.
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Ah yes, it would seem there's a great variation in schemes, so I'll just have to settle on one. Thanks chaps, I knew TMP would come to the rescue!

Did we ever get the money back from the lend lease? Not thought of that before….must look it up.

The trouble with all the 'artists impressions' is that they aren't based on actual colour schemes for the USSR Matildas (unlike the BEF, Caunter, Malta etc schemes which are well documented). They are shown as having been repainted in Russian green.

Well, maybe they were and maybe they weren't.

1939-41 the base colour was khaki green, but from 1941 until 1944 a base of SCC2 (chocolate brown) was introduced due to shortages of chemicals used in the green paint.

So it probably depends when they were built and shipped, but the vast bulk of the lend lease Matilda IIs would have been built in the 'brown' era.

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Thanks Martin, from what little I'd read I thought the lend lease stuff, including the American vehicles, were left in their original colour schemes.

I'd just not come across any British equipment in my reference material, so wasn't sure how right that information was. I guess there wasn't much time for respraying a load of vehicles so it probably stands to reason they would be left alone, especially since it was still a different scheme to what the Germans were using?

As I have no chocolate brown tanks in my force already, I think that may the colour for me!

I think repainting would be very low on the list of priorities. So i'd go with brown myself.

A reasonable colour match for SCC2 is actually just uniform khaki (Vallejo British uniform or Humbrol Khaki) with a peat brown inkwash.

It isn't quite right but is close enough.

One of my pals has done his Lend Lease Matildas in the southern front brown & green disruptive scheme and that looks quite good too.

Thanks for that as well Martin. I will try out the brown scheme first and if I buy any more Matildas, they will be disruptive pattern!

As I mentioned earlier the profiles show one color. I assumed they were not repainted except for the Winter scheme. though they did add their own markings . Robert though

Since it was armed with a 2 pdr, did the Russians ask for the HE rounds to be included?