"British Armour in the Jungle" Topic

Decided to make a bold move into part of the war i know very little about, so far I know valantines and Grants were used in the period we are about to game. question is what colour should these be, or are they close enough to the colour used in Europe to not make that big a difference?

cheers
jon

There was a long TMP discussion about this a while back; R.Mark Davies providing a raft of information…try searching TMP for 'WW2 Burma tanks' or similar.
You might also want Honeys (Stuarts)and I seem to remember that some units were sent from N. Africa and their vehicles went into action still painted with desert camo.
My wife's Grants, Honeys, Carriers etc are in a motley variety of 'Jungle Green' and 'Bronze Green'[ (I may have got that wrong) shades and they look pretty convincing as differing levels of wear and weathering.

Take a look at the fire and fury paint guide:
PDF link

Hi Jon,

Have a look at my guide linked by AONeill above.

It depends which period of the war in Burma you want to fight:

a. During the early 'retreat' period, the 7th Armoured Brigade deployed to Burma with two regiments of Stuart I.

b. During the 'early-middle' period (i.e. the 1st Arakan Campaign of 1942/43) a single half-squadron of Valentine IIIs from 50th Tank Brigade was involved, but was lost in very short order. No other tanks were involved and the Valentines never saw action again.

c. During the 'late-middle' period (i.e. the 2nd Arakan Campaign and the Kohima/Imphal Campaign, late 1943/44), the Lees of 254th Indian Tank Brigade were heavily engaged at Imphal/Kohima, along with a regiment of Stuart III. 50th Indian Tank Brigade also became more generally engaged in the Arakan, with a full regiment of Lees and a squadron of the first Shermans.

d. During the 'late' period (i.e. the reconquest of Burma and the 3rd Arakan Campaign, late 1944/1945), the 255th Indian Tank Brigade with three regiments of Shermans and another of Stuart III, joined the Lees of the 254th Brigade on the main central front, plus another regiment of Stuart III. In the Arakan, the 50th Tank Brigade got more generally involved, with both Lee/Grants and Shermans being deployed in amphibious operations along the coast.

In terms of colours:

The Stuarts of 7th Armoured Brigade were repainted No.3 Green while being shipped from North Africa to Rangoon. That's quite a bright green. The Valentines of 50th Tank Brigade were probably also painted this colour.

The Lees and Shermans would mainly have been painted SCC 13 Jungle Green, though some may have appeared still in SCC 15 Olive Drab or US Olive Drab. The differences between these shades are so minor as to make them indistinguishable when covered in Burmese crud.

Very late in the war (only seen on photos of 19th Lancers' Shermans in the Arakan), SCC 16 Very Dark Drab also appeared, though this is VERY dark and was officially banned from being used for personal equipment, as it was too dark for effective camouflage. One wonders therefore, why it was used on tanks… They look black in photos.

thanks, for the info. I did a quick search as I had assumed it had been discussed before, but to no avail.

my friend sent me this link

there appears to be a two or three tone camopatern, was this common or just on New Zealand tanks?

jon

I've not seen that before, but I guess it was just a Kiwi thing (they had a single squadron of Valentines operating with 3rd NZ Div for a short time in the Pacific). There are precious few photos of Valentines in India and none of them actually in the Arakan, but those I've seen appear to be painted a single colour (presumably No.3 Green) without camouflage.

By the way, if you want to do the 3rd NZ Tank Sqn for the Pacific, every third tank (i.e. one per Troop) had a 3-inch Close Support Howitzer.

… which was a modification unique to the Kiwis. The Australians also used Matildas in the Pacific.

Nice photo here of the NZ Valentines in the Pacific:

Note the additional dragon badge (apparently white on black). The AoS square (superimposed with the number '26') is apparently yellow.

RMD – what's the source for the 7 AB Stuarts being re-painted en route to Burma? Did both regiments get repainted?

From some B&W film footage of Stuarts and Dingos, it's hard to tell, but they look a fairly light colour. eg this from about 9:40: YouTube link

Would that just be a trick of the film/dust/fading?

Its discussed in one of the unit histories – Delaforce's 'Desert Rats 2', I think. All the tanks were loaded into one ship, so would probably have been painted in one go. No way of knowing for certain, however. Their brigade jerboa sign did change to green allegedly as a result of this change in colour, however.

Sorry I can't watch the video from work, but I'll have a look when I get home.

Yes, it is notoriously difficult/impossible to identify colour from b&w photos. As you say, dust, crud, fading, lighting and contrast all conspire to confuse. I would however say that No.3 Green is a surprisingly light shade – much lighter and brighter than later and earlier greens such as Bronze Green or Olive Drab. From the few photos I've got, it is noticeable that the (yellow) squadron signs for 2 RTR do stand out very pale from the ground colour, which does tend to suggest green as a ground colour, rather than a desert shade such as light stone (on which yellow markings normally look darker).

Great, thanks – that all makes sense if they were on the same ship. I think I'll go for a faded/dusty green then.

Also thinking about it, I'm reading a book on the 1 Glosters' retreat and there's one battle when they were approached by a number of Stuarts that they initially took for Japs – if our tanks were still desert colours, I can't imagine IDing them would have been an issue.

I guess so, but that Japs could sometimes use light brown as a base colour for tanks! :)

The amount of dust in that part of Burma at that time of year (towards the end of the Dry Season) is apparently quite phenomenal, especially as you move up into the 'Dry Belt' between the Irawaddy and Salween rivers. I would therefore expect everything to be very dusty indeed. Ironically, desert camo would probably work rather well…

Out of interest, what book is that? I've read little snippets here and there of the Glosters stealing Rolls Royce India Pattern Armoured Cars from the BFF depot and M3 Scout Cars (including some interesting 81mm mortar carriers) from the US/Chinese depots in Rangoon, so is there any detailed information on that?