"What color was late war French artillery?" Topic

As stated in the title, what was the color of French artillery late WWI?

Muddy.

Jim

What a witty answer! Ha Ha Ha!

The Schneider 155mm at Duxford looks like it was re-painted in Deep Bronze Green.

The M1897 75mm at Saumur is a grey-green colour, like a darker shade of Field Grey.

PS The only gun I've seen that had camouflage pattern paintwork was a model done in 1914, in the MdlA, but I've only seen (and photographed) a few artefacts, so some may have been, Flashie.

by the end of the war, there was a terrible shortage of just about everything. That included paint. I can't speak to the French, but it was so bad that the US Army had a regulation that Nothing would be painted in camouflage patterns. Not from a performance stand point, but from a paint savings reason.

I didn't know about the paint issue, jgawne, but that makes sense. As the bulk, if not all, the US artillery came from French and British stocks then the paint shortage would have affected them as well.

My photos of the M1897 show the paint as being a little bit darker than the photo above, but I wasn't using a flash and the gun (in 2019) was between the Schneider CA 1 and the St Chamond, without a window nearby. So the above photo is probably a truer rendition of the colour.

The same for the Duxford 155mm- dim lighting and no flash means dark photos without the detail of the one above. I haven't played with the gamma, balance or contrast as I want to keep the photos I took "as is".

Here are two examples of field guns painted up with camo patterns used in the late war period:

This is a Schneider SPG, which did not see actual service but is painted up in one of the patterns used for heavy and super-heavy artillery:

Robert