You may have noticed that Soviet tanks often had stencil markings on the fender fuel and oil tanks and spare parts and instruments boxes:
These were primarily on T-54, T-55, and T-62 base vehicles. Does anyone have examples of these or similar markings on German, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Bulgaria, or Rumanian tanks? Obviously one could simply translate the Russian terms into other languages but my gut feeling is that the satellite countries may have used different terms than the literal translations of the Russian markings.
The photo is from a museum in Poznań and I posted it just for the purpose of showing that the second can from the front is the oil tank (“OLEJ”).
On the Russian tanks the boxes on the other side are stencilled ЗИП (запас и прибор - russian for “spare and tool”). Unfortunately I don’t have the Polish translation for that. Ribs on these boxes often made stencilling on them impractical.
You are right that often specific jargon used in the military might make a simple translation lead you in the wrong direction as to the correct phrasing of these inscriptions.
Bulgarian T-55, T-62 and T-72 had these inscriptions in Bulgarian language.
The only difference to the Russian language inscription was “Гориво” for Fuel(“ЗИП” and “Масло” have the same letter content in both languages).
There were cases, when:
-instead of Fuel the fuel type abbreviation was written or
-instead of Oil the oil type abbreviation was used.
I cannot recall the right abbreviations ATM, but I have vynil mask for them home and will post the abbreviations later today.
The Soviet markings look to be 40-50mm tall abut the Czech and Polish letters seem to be smaller, perhaps 35-40mm. Also, the Soviets used both stencils and filled lettering; any thoughts about other countries?
The markings are almost always white, but I’ve seen black in one case. Another exception was on some T-64s in Germany in 1992 where black stencils, I’m guessing 20 to 25mm tall, were used.
I have seen the fuel and oil symbols used on DDR NVA T-34 cylindrical tanks - DK for Diesel Kraftstoff - and on a Polish tank in the 1990s, “SUPEROIL ***”, (not fully readable) on the small tank above the exhaust port. The Soviets sometimes put the fuel symbol on the ends of the 200l barrels. (DTZ that I saw,but I suppose that DA, DL, DT, and DZ would also be possible.)
If anyone has more photos of these markings, particularly on in-service vehicles that would show the lettering styles, I would appreciate it.
I have no pictures of Bulgarian T-72 with stenciling, but a colleague of mine, who served as a TC on a T-72 30 years ago still remembers the “ЗИП” inscription on the big box at turret’s rear.
Fuel type abbreviation, used sometimes instead of “Гориво” was
“ДСЗ-30” (DSZ-30/ Special Winter Diesel -30 Grad Celsius).
While “МТ16П” was used often instead of “Масло”(Oil)- MT16P is an universal type of lubricating oil.
Now I get why you also wanted them in black I could only remember seeing these markings in white (but then, I’m not overly knowledgeable on Soviet/Russian tanks and their markings).
Is decal #7 “DZIALOWY” or “DZIAŁOWY”, indicating that the gun tools are in that bin? And is it correct that Poland just uses “ZIP” for the tool bins, the Romanized “ЗИП”? Is there an equivalent Polish term for Z. I. P.?
I had originally considered including MT-16P in the set I was making up for Soviet tanks but I could not find any evidence that it was used on vehicles. Good to know!
Kurt,
yeah, I suppose that would be it - “DZIAŁOWY” would purport to the gun, although no normal person would use this word like that. Interestingly here’s a link that gives you an idea about what’s inside thet chest:
Likewise if you are not a tanker or a modelller who talked to a tanker (like me), you wouldn’t have an idea what a ZIP is. Although it could be said “zapas i przybór” which is correct Polish - it’s just only tankers say it like this… Here’s where your original remark about translation shows its full potential!
Are you saying that the Miniart marking are incorrect to place this at the rear of the left-center ZIP box?
I built the Zvezda T-62 a couple of years ago and was disappointed that decal sheet had only a single fuel tank stencil. I have some other Soviet AFV kits to build and decided that I would have to make my own decals. Thanks to the fantastic efforts of Jakko Westerbeke I was able to make such a set and get it printed by Decalomaniacs here in the US.
I am also planning on some Warsaw Pact builds and figured that markings in the native languages would be useful, too. (Jakko is probably already sensing that something bad is coming his way . . .)
I would assume ÖL — no native German speaker would confuse the two spellings, and I expect German-made stencils to include Umlauts. Or, as H.P. shows, they would almost certainly add an E if no Umlaut is available (since this is what the Umlaut diacritic represents: an e after the vowel that migrated to above the letter in writing).
I did restrain myself earlier from asking if this question meant you wanted more decals made, yes But with a bit of luck, at least I won’t have to design a font first for these …
No, I’m not saying that. Like you can see in the link I posted I meant that this box has tools and probably spare parts connected to the gun, like the gun cleaning rod and the bore brush.
That decal sheet looks cool, and if you’d like to tackle a Polish T-55 you could make a cool winter scene from 1982, when we had tanks on the streets and martial law declared.
I could only remember seeing these markings in white (but then, I’m not overly knowledgeable on Soviet/Russian tanks and their markings).
