Chieftain mk11 Takom

The Brits used brushes a lot to camo their tanks … it seems. And YES … they did a thorough job even with the “rear ends” and “insides” as a generell guide line.
The TANKOGRAD & KAGERO (R. Griffin) “Chieftain” magazine/book are both a very valuable source for inspiring camo patterns and much more.

Cheers
Christopher

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When we had a refurb or new tank delivered they would of been repainted once they left the base workshop with a softer edge.
Definitely for my Regt, any painting done afterwards would of been by hand and it would have a hard edge. There was no real uniform painting pattern, some may of been similar in appearance but that would be about it.
If it was out of sight it would be out of mind … So no, the rear of the boxes etc wouldn’t be painted… A trooper in an armoured squadron soon learns how to manage his time effectively and reduce his workload :grin:

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Thank you both for the answers. I’ll have a look at the Kagero book and I’ll probably paint the camo the lazy way or the trooper way according to Johnny. :laughing:

Olivier

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Sharp very clean build. :+1: :+1:

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Great build Olivier, can’t wait to see the beast painted up

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Pictures will follow soon, I hope. :slightly_smiling_face:

Which color was the thermal sleeve?

Would these crew figures suit the mk11?

Of course they need to be repainted.

Olivier

Olivier, if I remember… If lol … Chieftain was withdrawn by mid 90s… So generally uniform would of been DPM, as Mk11s were not deployed operationally. OPFOR crews may of used Desert cam uniforms, but for UK and BAOR it would be DPM as a general rule.

Thermal sleeve colour is always open for disagreement. A fitted brand new one would be in the range of say Tamiya xf51 khaki drab for the majority of it and the lower thermal panels would be anything from khaki to flat earth to deck tan to buff…
And of you look online, you see how the colours vary by a massive amount.

This image is for ref only.

image
You can see this one is faded and it’s very light all over. And others are even lighter… I can try and find the link to @iwatajim and his Mk10 which was nicely done and that may help as well.

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Hi Johnny
The lower portion of the sleeve, that was thermal protection from the engine when traversed to the rear, colour wise was that about counter shading, somewhat like on the Firefly. or just happy coincidence?

Mal

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Truthful answer Mal is I don’t know regarding the colour variations between them. It was just as they came and we didn’t really worry about the how’s or why’s back then.
The lower panels were a totally different material compared to the actual thermal sleeve. They were always a different colour and their basic function was to protect the main sleeve for the when the barrel was over the engine decks for any prolonged periods with the engines running.

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On my Chieftain build I used Vallejo 71.044 Light Grey Green lightened with white in an attempt to make it look faded. This is the only pic I have showing the thermal sleeve and it doesn’t look that light but the overall tone is completely different to the Nato green on the rest of the wagon.
SAM_0952

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Beginning of the painting. The base green is XF-67 and the black is XF-1. Highlights have been made with some XF-57 added to the green base and with some XF-85 on the black. Still need to highlight with a brush the various details.
The pattern is the one given by the instructions.
The thermal sleeve will be painted khaki. For the lower part I still need to guess a good match in my Tamiya shades.

Olivier

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That’s looks good Max… I sort of miss Chieftain… It was just a big dirty lumbering leviathan… But it could hold its own… How did you do the smoke grenade covers ?

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That’s a great start Olivier, and a nice scheme. Max’s colour on the thermal sleeve looks really good as well though, but like he said … They faded colour pretty fast so whatever option you go with, it needs to be a fair few lighter shades that the NATO green. Would be good if Max knows what the colour was he used on the bottom light panels :+1:

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Yeah, you knew anything hit with that gun was dying. The colour I used on the underside of the thermal sleeve was a colour by Miniature Paints who are now OOP I think. It was called something like dead flesh, a sort of off white. I know Vallejo do a game colour called dead flesh which is more greenish, but to tell the truth I saw that many different variations on thermal sleeve colour and typically it was extremely grimy that you could use any off white colour as it will change during weathering.

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So a faded green for the thermal sleeve and any off white for the lower part would do the trick. Sorry to have one more question, which color would be the straps?
I have seen pictures where the protection of the MRS is black with the gun muzzle still green. Was it standard?
I intend to paint the extinguishers a bit darker than the NATO green.

Olivier

You can never ask enough questions Olivier :+1:

Ref picture only.

When they were new, the straps were pretty much the same colour as the sleeve. By what I recall they tended to keep their colour better over time while the sleeve faded. Like the sleeve they would of been a green tone a few shades lighter than the vehicle green.

The MRS shroud was black along with the muzzle… a green one may be a trick of the light or an over zealous crew member…but the norm would be black.

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What Johnny said, barrels were painted black with Suncorite which is a heat and corrosion resistant paint. It was used a lot on small arms also but apparently is wildly carcinogenic and under strict controls. Last time I used it was on Scimitar barrels.
I painted my BCF extinguishers deep bronze green and then hand painted the white lettering and border. Here’s the real deal, as you can see they are also semi gloss.
British-Army-BCF-Fire-Extinguisher-Charged

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Thanks Johnny

What, something other than asbestos?



Mal

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Hi Olivier
Like what you’re doing overall, are you going to add the Stillbrew casting marks - you only need to show the A, D & E panel marks, the B is hidden behind the left MBSGD.
Some really good info being supplied here.

Mal

Sorry Mal I didn’t explain that fully. I meant just a different material to the main sleeve canvas. I would imagine the lower panel was a form of heat resistant/reflective material (a safe form of treated asbestos ?) And just grafted onto the sleeve in that position to protect the sleeve from engine heat. And after a prolonged period of running, those decks got bloody hot !

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