It’s always amusing to see publications with phrases like “Must be in the correct place and must be the correct width.”
One thing we know is that people are fallible. From our own Robin Gronovius:
Neatness depended on the crewmen painting. There were often soldiers being punished for misconduct and they would finish up any tank that wasn’t completed after duty hours.
The next day the crew applied markings with stencils and any tank names that were chosen. Touch ups were done if needed.
Unlike the factory painted schemes, no two tanks looked exactly alike.
There’s the book answer, and there’s what really happens.
This is by the book:
And we can get a warm fuzzy if we want by copying it exactly:
But we all know, by accounts from some of very service members, it wasn’t always by the book. No reason to doubt them.
I suppose if no one was supervising you could end up with said Picasso:
But back to the scheme I alluded to earlier. Looking at all of my M109A7 photos, indeed the scheme was supposed to be the same as on the M109A6:
Clearly someone misinterpreted the drawing. In any case the pattern went off the rails. So much for correct ratios of brown.
They even tried to shoehorn the same pattern onto all manner of vehicles by stretching the pattern horizontally or vertically:
Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.
Even our cousins coudn’t keep to a standard scheme, even though it was mandated in Berlin:
Yes, there is a difference.