"question to tankers" Topic
14 Posts
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repaint | 25 Sep 2016 6:01 p.m. PST |
Hello, There are some very nicely painted models out there however when it comes to "chipping" and "weathering" I cannot help but think it is slightly over the top. Tanks look like they haven't been under maintenance for a few years. This is especially the case for WWII painted models. In your (real life) experience, do tanks tend to age so much as to lose paint, become rusty? Considering that most tanks had a life span of 4 to 6 months during WWII (educated guess) and anyway would go under maintenance and refit during prolonged breaks before the next offensive, how much chipping, weathering and rust would a tank accumulate? Based on what you saw during your service and what you can extrapolate for WWII pieces. feedback and insight would be helpful thank you |
Tgunner | 25 Sep 2016 6:46 p.m. PST |
Problem is that most tanks that I saw were several years old. That's pretty ancient by WWII standards! Many of those tanks were pretty worn down, paint wise. Clean as could be, but the paint was fading. In WWII I would imagine, especially with the US, that the tanks had great paint jobs! As you pointed out, they were just months off the assembly line. So I could see some chipping and I can really see them being really dirty… not too many wash racks in Europe I would imagine! But as for paint being worn down? I really doubt it. |
Saber6 | 25 Sep 2016 7:21 p.m. PST |
Not a lot of rust, but grime, scrapes and stains |
Rrobbyrobot | 25 Sep 2016 7:37 p.m. PST |
Even when I was in a very active unit, 2nd Cavalry on the Iron Curtain, our tank's paint seemed pretty tough. I don't remember seeing many bare spots. The greatest accumulation of rust was shown by the tracks. At one point I did some training with a National Guard unit in Washington State. They had M48s that were nearly as old as I was. I'm not going to say they were in show room condition. And they may have been repainted on one or more occasions. But they were no rust buckets, either. The only really rusty tanks I've seen were down range as hard targets. |
javelin98 | 25 Sep 2016 7:42 p.m. PST |
Modern US and NATO tanks are kept well-painted, because the paint is a special kind called CARC (Chemical agent resistant coating) that helps keep persistent chemical agents like phosgene, mustard, and VX from sticking to the vehicle. It was actually a deadline deficiency for a vehicle to have exposed bare metal, if I recall correctly, meaning the vehicle couldn't be deployed until it was fixed. CARC paint was incredibly carcinogenic, too, so we weren't allowed to touch up our own vehicles. They all had to go over to depot maintenance and be painted in special booths or something. |
Garand | 25 Sep 2016 7:44 p.m. PST |
I'm a model builder, and I suspect the chipping trend is one brought over from that hobby. I whole-heartedly agree that the chipping meme has gotten out of hand IMHO, especially in the modelling community. I haven't seen tanks that damaged in either real life or in photos. Often with these hobbies, if it looks "right" than it is "right," whether it is actually right in real life or not… Damon. |
jowady | 25 Sep 2016 7:46 p.m. PST |
My Dad was in WW2 and used to comment a lot on models of WW2 equipment. He said that you rarely saw rust on tracks because they were in constant use. What you did see was a lot of mud. |
Weasel | 25 Sep 2016 8:54 p.m. PST |
I suppose a chemistry guy might be able to compare the time for rust to strike and the average survival time of a tank and determine what would be expected :) |
marcus arilius | 25 Sep 2016 11:15 p.m. PST |
Dust and mud, after a few days in the field. track end connecters have rust on them. |
Vostok17 | 26 Sep 2016 1:43 a.m. PST |
Hello, repaint! I am because of poor health in the army for a short time, and has already managed to forget a lot, so my experience is somewhat limited. But what about you can say about it: Scenic faded and rusted tanks – a tank from storage base of techniques. As a rule, they are there in the open air, and from the outside looks very picturesque. To look like, the tank is necessary to stand for 6-8 years in the open air (add snow, rain and sun). Tracks rust faster – there may be enough and one year. Those tanks are operating in detachments must be well painted, or tankers, figuratively speaking, tear off the head. This is due not only to the army love ordering all that is possible and impossible, but in order that the correct paint reduces the visibility of the tank (in termal imager or night vision – I do not remember exactly, but it certainly reduces the visibility). Even the old T-64 (probably one of the last operating in Russia), where I learned to drive, was well painted. |
repaint | 26 Sep 2016 2:12 a.m. PST |
thanks all for all the feedback. It is pretty much what I suspected. Rust and chipping are simply overdone however "good" it looks. |
Martin Rapier | 26 Sep 2016 3:04 a.m. PST |
As above, the main thing is that vehicles in action are filthy, especially tanks. You may as well paint the entire thing mud coloured with a layer of dust. These days for tracked vehicles I just paint virtually everything beneath turret/upper hull level mud colour, including the tracks. |
LostPict | 26 Sep 2016 7:31 a.m. PST |
It depends a lot on the environment. I recently worked with USN and USMC CARC coating programs at the depot and field maintenance levels for tactical ground and amphib vehicles (think Marine Armor, Humvees, trucks, etc. and SEABEE construction equipment and amphib stuff). For the US and Europe theaters, corrosion is not a big issue (i.e., easy to keep vehicles in good shape if we have the maintenance funds for painting); however, if you look at our vehicles in the Pacific the further west you go the harder it gets. This reflects both the logistics of how do you get to the vehicles and progressively worse environmental considerations (salt spray, heat, and humidity). So if you looked at a random vehicle near San Diego, Hawaii, Guam, and Okinawa they exhibit more and more surface rust. So if I was painting vehicles for the Pacific theater (WWII, Vietnam, or future tropical conflict), I would make them rusty and then a good slathering with mud. My experience in the Iraq was the paint fades, and vehicles had small paint chips, dings, and gouges; and the glass scratches and crazes, but corrosion was pretty non-existent for the tactical vehicles. During my tour, our vehicles pretty much looked the same the day I left. Not much different than a pickup truck would look in the states after a few years at the beach, with lots of dust during the dry months and lots of mud during the rainy season. On the topic of paint fading, you will also see desert tan and haze gray color shift to lighter tones, greener tones, yellower tones, or even pinker tones if it is allowed to sit in the UV for too long or it was incorrectly applied or fabricated. |
Legion 4 | 26 Sep 2016 12:10 p.m. PST |
As some noted, in the about the passed 50 years or so, unless something rammed an AFV or it ran into a brick wall, etc., … Most AFVs would get dirty, muddy, dust covered, maybe faded a bit, etc., … but otherwise the paint didn't chip much if at all. |
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