I would think that the Umlautzeichen could be omitted for exactly the same reason: Any German speaker walking around a tank with a canister of MT-16P would realize that OL meant ÖL and not the old name for Saxony. Adding two dots freehand would also be trivial.
It would make perfect sense that German stencil sets would include Umlautzeichen (and Eszett, for that matter <*>); after all, most modelers are familiar with the atü tire pressure marking on WW II vehicles. However, I tried searching and it was difficult to find more than one stencil set that included Umlautzeichen, even when using “Schablonen für das deutsche Alphabet” as the search term. That obviously is not an issue for government or military procurement, but it is odd that it is not more common.
Searching for images of Buchstabschablonen (“letter stencils”) does produces some of clearly German stencils (because they include ß) with an Umlaut over the A and/or separate two dots that could be used as one. For example:
Though, of course, these particular ones seem more intended for tracing with a pencil than for spraying.
Part of the problem in searching for these is that you get a ton of hits of stencils intended for basic/generic Latin letters, or even English-language, despite trying to find ones meant for German.
Technically, the Umlaut symbol is the e. It was originally a tiny e written above the letter, and in several old German scripts the lowercase e was written as basically two short, vertical lines. Here, for example, in the very legible Sütterlin school handwriting:
Chances are you’ll only be able to find it by counting to the fifth letter on the top row In print, though, there were frequently no letters like that available, but there were ones with a diaeresis (¨) so those got used instead.
The Eszett shown here is how we were taught to write it in my late 1970s German classes, even when using block (Latin) lettering. In college a somewhat ornate uppercase B sufficed.
In the late 1990’s a Rechtschreibungsreforme was proposed in Germany, where:
-All Umlauts were to be substituted by the combination of the "umlaut"ed letter and “e”(A Umlaut= ae, U Umlaut= ue e.t.c.)
-Eszett was to be dropped and substituted by double S, with an additional change when there is a complex word, consisting of a word finishing with Eszett and second word, starting with S(like Stoßstange-bumper).The reform proposed omitting one of the 3 S in this case(instead of Stossstange- Stosstange).
The proposal was rejected, but it gave popularity to the Umlaut combination- it came as a handy solution during the Internet spread in the early 2000’s.
And another Bulgarian tank with stenciling on the rubber fender strips for the ZIP boxes hidden by them. Also, the 200l drums are stenciled on the ends with GORIVO, as is typical.
One can see that the white markings on the T-55 ARV were done with the traditional stencil ink (a thick paint) and brush, a stiff, short bristle type used for dabbing.
t’s great that you’re addressing this labeling issue here. This problem has been bothering me for many years. Back then, there were no labels included in the kits. I had many different labels made by Peddinghaus. Almost all of my models have labels. Unfortunately, no manufacturer has yet been found that produces these decals. Here are two pictures of a T-64 tank of the GSSD.
I was driven to make the Russian stencils by their absence in the Zvezda T-62. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get them until two years after I finished that model, but I have some others in the pile!
Can you tell me how many of each type are needed for a T-64, as in your photo? I can’t find a good answer in the technical manuals or books, but to me, it looks on early tanks
it is 7x TOPLIVO, 1x ZIP, 1x MASLO. Do those numbers seem to be correct to you? I’m thinking that to cover T-64s a set would need 7x TOPLIVO, 4x ZIP, and 1x MASLO.
It all depends on the T-64 variant you want to build. The number of markings depends on that. I’ll show you how I did it. The tracks have the same problem, so I’m showing both versions.
In print, though, there were frequently no letters like that available, but there were ones with a diaeresis (¨) so those got used instead.
