WWII SOVIET TANK COLORS

The green you recognize at first glance

Soviet armored equipment is connected in memory with a single tone — the dark olive green that was listed in the acceptance regulations under the designation 4BO. It was used from the end of the 1930s and survived the whole war, because it was cheap, it held well and in European terrain it worked for most of the year. The uniformity was not complete, though: for the summers of 1942 and 1943 two-tone and three-tone patterns appear, supplemented with a dark brown and a sand, and in winter a lime white was applied over them, which rain and thaw then gradually washed away.

A breakdown of the contents

In the box there are six separate bottles of acrylic paint for modelers. Besides the mentioned four tones of camouflage, the protective green used in the 1920s and 1930s is included, that is a shade for prewar equipment and for the early years, and a white meant for imitating the winter overcoat. The shades are water-thinnable and dry matte, so washes and pigments follow on from them without trouble.

A procedure that has proved itself

The best results come from working in layers. The green is sprayed onto the base, the camouflage patches are added with thinned paint from a short distance and the winter overcoat is applied last, so that it can be partly wiped off or etched away and reveal the green beneath it. It is precisely the imperfection of the winter coat that is the most telling thing on Soviet vehicles — in field photographs from 1942 the white is wiped off on the edges, around the hatches and everywhere the crew walked on the vehicle.