"British Armored Brigade Markings Question" Topic

I am working on a tank for the British 7th Armored Division in Europe 1944-45, and want to also add the correct Armored Brigade marking/number.

I have a set of decals with small black, red and green squares all having white numbers, but am not sure which would be the proper one to use. I looked in the Terence Wise's book "D-Day to Berlin", but am still not sure which would be correct. I believe he refers to them as serial numbers, but they are a two digit number (I normally think of a serial number as being fairly long???).

Can anyone help me here so I put the correct decal on the model?

Thanks in advance,

Terry

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Machinehead,

Perfect, and exactly the help I was needing. Thank you so much, all those little squares and numbers make sense now!

Terry

7th Armoured Division are slightly awkward in that the three armoured regiments and motor battalion of 22nd Armoured Brigade also displayed their own badge of a red stag's head, immediately above the serial number, as shown here:

Dom's Decals does these in 15mm.

However, the 7th Armoured Division were also pretty bad at keeping their vehicles painted according to regulations when in the field, so it's often the case that no markings are visible in photos. :)

Jemima, Oh, so to be accurate with a 7th Armored tank I should go with the red stag above the number type square? I ordered my 7th Armored decals from Dom, so will go back and order a pack of these too if that is what I should be doing. Or am I still OK to just have the red square with the white number? I already have the latter.

Thanks, and I'll be anxious to hear what you say.

Hi Terry,

It's a difficult subject. Immediately before they deployed to Normandy they were painted in 'regulation' style, like the model above, with the Desert Rat badge on one side and the stag's head badge on the other side, with the serial number immediately below.

Some units were also photographed landing on Gold Beach still in regulation markings.

However, some units and sub-units clearly painted out many markings upon arrival in Normandy. For example, the Cromwells of 4th County of London Yeomanry barely had any markings visible other than registration 'T' numbers, though some tanks retained their geometric squadron signs.

By contrast, the Royal Horse Artillery OP tanks and 1st Rifle Brigade halftracks accompanying them seem to have retained the full marking scheme.

Other regiments in the brigade seem to have kept their markings for longer and indeed seem to have a fresh re-paint some time after Normandy, as they seem to be far more prevalent in photos from Holland and Germany.

Here's a 1st Rifle Brigade Carrier pictured in the depths of the winter of 1944/45. You can see that the markings are badly weathered, but they are painted in full, with the stag's head badge above the '54' and the rat on the other side:

Thanks for the additional info Jemima. So it seems that to do any tank of the 7th in Europe late 1945 or so I need the stag head white on red number instead of just the with on red number.

Tank markings are not a strong suit for me so this has been very helpful and a real education!

Thanks again all,

Terry

Just ordered the combined stag head white on red numbers from Dom. Really glad I asked and thank you all again for the help! Especially learning about the combined stag head number!

Terry

No worries Terry! Sorry to cause extra expense… ;)

I should stress that the stag's head marking was only for the regiments of 22nd Armoured Brigade – 1 RTR, 5 RTR, 4 CLY and 1 RB (the Motor Bn).

The rest of the division (i.e. the 8th Hussars (armoured recce), the Infantry Brigade, Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers, etc) did not have the stag's head badge.

4 CLY were replaced late in the Normandy Campaign by the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards (5 RIDG or 'Skins'). 5 RIDG then became the 'senior' regiment, which bumped 1 RTR and 5 RTR down the seniority and necessitated a re-paint of the markings! This might explain why markings seem to be more prevalent in later photos from Holland and Germany!

To explain 'seniority':

The senior armoured regiment in the brigade had '51' on a red square and red geometric squadron signs.

The second-senior armoured regiment in the brigade had '52' on a red square and yellow squadron signs.

The junior armoured regiment had '53' on a red square and light blue squadron signs.

The Motor Battalion always had '54' on a red square and bright green squadron/company signs.

Seniority was worked out like this (most senior at the top):
1. Horse Guards
2. Dragoon Guards
3. Line Cavalry Regiments (Dragoons, Hussars and Lancers)
4. Regular RTR Regiments
5. Yeomanry (i.e. volunteer reserve) Cavalry Regiments
6. War Emergency RTR Regiments.
7. Numbered Royal Armoured Corps (RAC) Regiments (i.e. converted infantry battalions)
8. Indian Cavalry Regiments

Squadron signs were:

Regiment HQ – Diamond (all Stuarts and Crusader AA tanks were part of RHQ)
A Squadron – Triangle
B Squadron – Square
C Squadron – Circle
D Squadron – Solid vertical bar (not normally found in armoured regiments, but found in armoured car regiments).

The divisional Armoured Recce Regiment (which was 8th Hussars in 7th AD) had '45' on a green-over-blue square and had white squadron signs.

However, presumably the guards division just went by guards seniority?…would have caused problems if they were ever brigaded with other regts….seeing as they were both guards and converted infantry regts..

There were infantry brigades with Guards regiments mixed with other regiments. I've no idea how they sorted out how was senior to who though.

I used to spend a great deal of time sorting out the correct tactical insignia etc on vehicles (including the right serials for Corps assets etc), but tbh these days I rarely bother unless I'm doing a model of a specific vehicle. I just paint them all green and cover them in mud. I even painted out a lot of the insignia I'd already done as it offended me to use stand-ins.

Thankfully the Guards Armoured Regiments stayed in their own brigades… :)

The 1st Bn Grenadier Guards were a weird one. They became the 'junior' unit in 5th Guards Armoured Brigade by default, because they were the Motor Bn, even though they were theoretically the most senior.

Martin, Filth!

Yes, I cover the markings with filth, dust and other muck, so you can barely flippin see them anyway… ;)

No worries Jemima, as I truly want to do them right, and it is to be of an armored regiment, so the stag head version should be the right one.

The additional info just gets better and better. For now at least have no plans to do the Guards. So won't have to worry about their markings.

Again my sincere thanks!

Terry

On officially taken photos the markings were often expertly air brushed out by the censor, before publication in the newspapers, for security reasons – the photo of the carrier (above) with the hollow square might be one such.

Indeed, same with the shoulder-insignia. However, I think the Carrier is just extremely battered and dirty. You can 'sorta' see a rat and a stag on the markings. I think the square is a rare example of a low-vis squadron/company sign ('B' Company square with a darker central line added to tone down the bright green of the original marking).