French Armour

[Terry37]

Fred,

If you enjoy painting colorful and wild camouflage, then the 30's French armor camouflage is for you. In 1937 an order was issued that involved 15 different colors, broken down in to three categories - sky, earth and shadow shades. The first included colors like bright light yellow, mauve, sky blue, light grass green and a very light gray, while the earth colors were more typical of what one thinks of for French armor, being soft brown, olive green, ocher, a middle shade of gray, etc. and the later and the shadow shades were of course the darker colors like deep purple, dark gray, dark brown, etc. and were supposed to be used more toward the bottom of the vehicle. The pattern was very random and flowed all over the vehicle and was almost always edged in black.

If I can make it work, here's a sample of the schemes I found on the net.



Some of these colorful schemes were seen in 1940, primarily being seen on the Somua D2, and some of the smaller tanks. Maybe a few of the Char C2's might have had it too.

For my Weird World War 2 Post-Apocalyptic armies I will be going with the 30's camo for the French and Germans, while I favor the mid-40's camo for the British - khaki drab and black. The beauty of Weird World War is you can do just about anything you want. The theme behind my Post-A armies is that the air has been destroyed due to misuse of chemical and other weapons as a last ditch effort so humans can no longer breath it and must wear some kind of respirator device, be it gas mask or sealed helmet. I put the year as 1946. For example my German flying saucer will be camouflaged in the gray, green and brown splinter scheme the Luftwaffe used in the SCW.

I hope the picture works and if not, I'll try to give a link to see some of these delightful schemes.

Terry

[Terry37]

OK, good. The picture worked so here's another example I found on the net, and it really gives an idea of the colors and patterns  that were used.



Terry

[fred.]

Thanks Terry. Those are certainly vibrant!  You can see where the 1940 ones came from.

I've already done a bunch of French 1940s stuff ( http://www.kerynne.com/games/French.html ) but could be tempted to add a few earlier tanks

[Terry37]

Fred, Love your French army, and you have really captured the French camo look! Well done!!!

I understand better your question and so as further help here is another item I found on the net which gives you the spectrum of colors used in the mid 30's by the French. They are broken down in to the three categories of sky, earth and shadow. But if you study enough pictures you will find they did not always adhere to this when applying the paint.



This is from the very excellent book "Pientures de Guerre - Un Siecle de camouflage de L'armee Francaise" I have this book and on  my PC these colors came through as a very near perfect match ot the book. I hope it works for you as well.

If I can be of any further help I am more than happy to do so.

Terry