Early WW2 French Army paint set

French tanks and their prewar camouflage schemes

Between the wars French armored vehicles had the most elaborate system of camouflage regulations in Europe. The provisional instruction of March 1937 divided the shades into three families: sky, earth and shadow. Combinations of them created multicolored patterns that today look almost like modern art, and this box holds them complete.

The oldest item is the olive green, the standard finish of vehicles from 1918 to the start of the 1930s and later the base of some camouflage schemes. The youngest, on the other hand, is the gray-green, which appeared in August 1938 and together with umber made up the last prewar pattern.

• The olive green of vehicles from 1918
• Two sky shades of the regulation of March 1937
• An ocher yellow and a beige from the family of earth shades
• A dark green as a shadow tone
• Umber running through the patterns from 1917
• The gray-green of the last prewar pattern

The data tie the individual shades to particular machines, so it is possible to build with a purpose. The sky tones belonged on the types D2, R35, S35, FCM 36 and AMR 35, and on the H35 and H39 respectively; the earth shades appeared earlier on the Renault FT and on the heavy types B1 bis, D1 and FCM 2C.

Chemically this is a solvent-based lacquer range. It is thinned with the lacquer thinner of the same maker, not with water, and the reward is a very thin and durable film. That comes in useful exactly with multicolored patterns, where masking is done several times in a row and with a softer paint every further coat would risk peeling off.