I understand that Achilles Tank Destroyers & Fireflies would have been repainted SCC 15 (British Olive Drab) during rearming, however would Sherman V’s been repainted from the US Olive Drab from manufacturing? I believe the standard OD would have been kept, I’m just wondering if anyone knows for sure, Joel.
Probably not. SCC15 was meant to allow patch-repainting of US OD kit that was modified (like Achilles 17pdrs), so anything that did not need “fixing” would just stay in OD until the next change of camo. It was about reducing the need for lots of paint supplies and labour - there was a war on!
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This is from an article by Michael Starmer but the info is repeated in many other sources. Policy with all of the paint schemes used by the British/Commonwealth forces during the war was to adopt the new scheme on new production vehicles and/or during major overhauls but not to repaint for the sake of compliance.
Also, old stocks of paint were to be exhausted first, even to the point of being incorporated into new schemes where necessary.
1944-45 – The final change in colour came in April 1944 when A.C.I. 533 authorised S.C.C.15 Olive Drab for use as the new basic colour, to remove the need to repaint U.S. supplied vehicles. S.C.C.15 Olive Drab was used to replace the old S.C.C.2 in M.T.P.46 patterns or on its own particularly after the abandonment of pattern painting with ACI 1100 of August 1944 except on vehicles still in S.C.C.2. S.C.C.15 Olive Drab was the first colour in this standard range to be formally named. It does not match U.S. Army Olive Drab No.9.
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