"Dien Bien Phu 1954: M-24 Chaffee from Warlord" Topic

Of interest to some I hope, Red Star Miniatures' excellent blog link now has pictures of a M-24 Chaffee from Warlord Games painted up for Dien Bien Phu.

link

A fantastic combination of Paul Hick's superb range of figures and Warlords excellent Chaffee. I am very impressed.

That looks fantastic. The camo shows through the grime very well.

Very nice work !

Great model and painting. But it is not Dien Bien Phu, and in fairness the Red Star Miniatures site doesn't say it was supposed to be DBP.

The "bisons" at DBP were called "Conti", "Bazeille" (originally "Aristide",) "Douaumont", "Mulhouse", "Ettlingen", "Posen", "Smokensk", "Ratisbonne" and "Neumach".

Instead of the plain overall dark green finish common in Indochina the DBP tanks were camouflaged with lighter reticulated striped overlay.

The best source is Mengelle, Andre, (1996) "Dien Bien Phu. Des Chars et des Hommes."(Paris: Lavauzelle.) Mengelle was a Sous-Lieutenant and one of the volunteers parachuted into DBP. He commanded "Mulhouse."

Cheers,
Bertie

Good input, Bertie. Thanks.

Thanks guys.

Bertie, you know of any pictures that will give a decent look at that cammo pattern?

Dear Thomas,
Here is a link with some, there are plenty of others around the internet:

link

(And if anyone thinks that we are a mite sad discussing camouflage patterns these gents are discussing whether the tanks had metal or rubber plates on their tracks!)

That site also gives links to some other sites, this one is particularly good with two good shots of "Posen" and a front shot of "Conti":

link

The colours seem to have been (and this is only my speculation, not a certainty,) lighter yellowish green and red brown stripes over the basic dark green. (And the basic green seems to have faded pretty rapidly into a mid-green under the Indochina sun and rain.)

The camouflage was applied in the field and so it is not really a "pattern." There were certainly differences which can be seen from the illustrations in Mengelle's book. Not all tanks seem to have had the red brown, (if that is what it is,) stripes, and the application varied too. On some it seems to be crude brush stroked stripes, on others, such as the picture of "Bazeille" in Megelle's book, the top colour is in multiple patches, that take up more space than the darker undercoat, giving a reticulated effect, rather like a giraffe or British WWII Malta camouflage. That might just be because "Aristide",as she was, was one of the first tanks rebuilt at DBP so maybe they just lavished a bit more time on her finish.

I'm not sure if the differences were between individual tanks, or between the three platoons. Certainly in the first link the camouflage on "Posen" and "Smolensk" looks similar, and they were both in Blue platoon under Ney.

Cheers,
Bertie

Lovely! Thank, Bertie!