"Painting Armour and Tracks" Topic

I' just trying to get the Allied armour sorted my early war 20m gaming and have been trying out the Vallejo Lavado washes on some plain Shermans destined for EBay. I'm thinking the sepia tone is the way forward for my British and probably the French. Any ideas where I could use the black (other periods are fine too). I'm tempted t go back to my German stuff to try it, but there's a lot of it…

Also, I want to think about tracks that stand out a bit. Suggestions for the French and British would be appreciated, thanks.

Paul

In general, the Sherman Track was rubber (black) with steel link pins (like, a silver studded outside).

After that, pack brown mud and dust around there to make the other two colors unrecognizable.

Yep. When painting tracks, I paint mine "dirt" color, and usually drybrush steel to make the detail pop out, or dark gray for rubber clad tracks.

Damon.

When I was in the army, the tracks of every armored vehicle in the field were packed with mud and dirt and large clods of grass. The color of the bottom half of the vehicle was virtually unrecognizable, let alone the tracks. Mr. Elmo's photo isn't the half of it because dozers don't go cross-country at comparatively high speeds.

Cheers guys. My late war stuff had been given heavy coats of mud but I was debating whether to be a little more creative. Just fancied Matildas rolling across virgin French grass around Arras and thought I might be a bit more adventurous, but I like the idea of drybrushing certain sections.

Nothing virginal about the French grass once a few 25 ton tanks have rolled over it

Not to upset the apple cart, but there is something nice about "clean" models with gray/black/red-brown/whatever tracks.

A good covering of dust, mud, oil, cooking fat, egg yolk!!

Tally Ho!

Actually the Sherman track came in many forms. Up to 1942, on VVSS suspensions, the T41 and T51 plain rubber block track was the most common. While they continued in various forms throughout the war the T48 rubber track with chevron became the most common rubber track. However there is a whole family of steel tracks for the Sherman which are very common. For example there is the Chrysler designed T54E2 which was so common on the lend-lease M4A4 they became known as the "British track". The T56E1 which was similar to the T54E2 except 3 "studs" were added to the chevron design was also frequently called the "British track". Despite the name this track can be found on US M4A3 105mm and M4A3 76mm tanks.

On the HVSS suspension the most common tracks were the all steel T66 and the T80 which was a steel track shoe with bonded rubber inner pads and a narrow chevron grouser on the outer surface.

Since asking about British Shermans specifically you will find the all steel track much more common then the rubber ones.

For a good long while I've been thinking that the next time I build a 20mm tank I'll most definately slap a mixture of sand, PVA and plaster of paris to the wheels and tracks before painting.