[WWI] Mark I Tank

[Douglas Anderson]

http://ww2drawings.jexiste.fr/Files/1-Vehicles/Allies/3-UK/07-Others/WWI-Tanks/Mark1(male).htm

--- On Fri, 11/28/08, J.R. Boye <hopeandmercy at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

From: J.R. Boye <hopeandmercy at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Re: [WWI] Mark I Tank
To: "World War I Modeling Mailing List" <wwi at wwi-models.org>
Date: Friday, November 28, 2008, 9:18 PM






Hi Dennis;
  There is now an Osprey book on the Mk I (New Vanguard 100). That has some color plates of camouflage.
   That photo list of surviving museum tanks that Doug Anderson sent has some interesting camo schemes also. I suspect many of those are painted to make them more interesting on display.

    The Fletcher book on the British Tanks 1915-19 states that a Royal Engineer named Solomon came up with the original camouflage scheme. Over a basic grey tank, he brushed on a patchwork pattern that looked like an "impressionist landscape". Each individual tank crew was instructed to copy his work, but there was naturally a lot of variation in interpretation.
     The colors are not specified, but they must have been pretty bright because they reportedly got toned down in France. Also, black outlines were added at that time.
     A photo of the original Solomon camo shows lots of small patches of paint in absolutely no pattern at all all over the entire machine. I would assume the bottoms didn't get painted and were still grey.
     Profiles of camouflage tanks and museum photos all vary widely in patterns. Since each tank was painted by its own crew this is to be expected. Colors are usually greens, browns, yellows and greys with some red-browns or pinks on some examples. Black outlines are not always complete, although some are and look like stained-glass windows.
     Camouflage on British tanks did not last long. Tanks all became muddy brown after some action, so camo was considered a waste of time and dropped immediately. After that the brownish khaki was the standard finish.
     I painted my Mk I using the instruction scheme because I liked it and it is as valid as anything else. I've never seen any two photos or profiles that were the same.
    Since my model represents a tank of 'C' Company, it sports the anti-grenade roof added by them (photos of it are posted). The "Dragonfly" name indicates a tank of 'D' Company because crews used the company letter as the first letter of the tank name. "D" Company crews didn't build roofs on their machines.

                       I hope this helps.
                                                                   J.R. Boye






From: Diego Fernetti <dfernet0 at rosario.gov.ar>
To: World War I Modeling Mailing List <wwi at wwi-models.org>
Sent: Friday, November 28, 2008 3:07:26 AM
Subject: Re: [WWI] Mark I Tank

Dennis!
> Thank you for the reference.  I just watched a WW1 news reel and it
> showed a Mark I with a disruptive color scheme that strikes my fancy.
> The Airfix instructions are pretty close to what I saw and read.

Somewhere in that Landships forum there's a discussion on disruptive
schemes. Yes, no one knows for sure, but consensus (if that's an excuse) say
that various brown, green, brick reds and black lines were used in
disruptive schemes, and that those were painted locally, not from factory,
so there goes some freedom in chosing colours and shapes.

> And, no, it did not take me 5 minutes to build.  It took two hours less
> the painting.  I'm slowing down in my old age.

It looks like you have too much time to spend!
D.




      
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