I stand to be corrected - Caunter scheme

[olicana]

Sometimes an argument provides a window.

The arguments over Caunter scheme are one such. What colours are right?

Frankly, I like the window but I don't like the scheme. I always find Caunter schemes difficult to translate from 2D images onto a 3D model. Even with front, back, plan and side views I find Caunter schemes daunting.

Many people, these days, believe the light blue-grey should be a light olive green. This might be correct, but I like the light slate blue.

I've just finished my 'pattern model' for my Matilda Mk2 (Operation Crusader). I realise that the slate light blue might be wrong but for aesthetics and a 'classic' look I just love it.

Here's a pic and links to more. Damn me to your hearts content. I refer you to the circular arguement

http://olicanalad.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/caunter-scheme-for-matilda-mk2.html

[carlos marighela]

Your toys, your choice. Masking tape or even stretched lengths of blue tack are handy tools when it comes to painting straight lines.

[Belisarius]

More power to your elbow, with the bleaching power of the sun, wind and sand who,s to say what colour is " correct ".

[MartinR]

All my vehicles in Caunter are light blue grey, it just looks right. The same as green WW1 tanks (which should be brown).

I blame Airfix.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

A difficult scheme very nicely painted.

No idea what scale it is.

[olicana]

thanks, 15mm

[Severian]

Very nicely done.

I've got some half-done Caunter vehicles on my painting table at the moment; I caved in to the apparent consensus and went for the light grey-green rather than light blue, but frankly the blue does look better: not just because it reminds me of the cover of my old copy of David Nash's Wargames....

And yes, as has been already said, your toys, your scheme, and anyone who disagrees can paint their own as they prefer. Also the desert sun &c gives historical cover for whatever colour you reckon works best. Presumably the light blue (which I gather was popularized by Bovington when they repainted their Matilda) must have been close to whatever the "actual" colour looked like after it had faded/weathered, and who knows how long this took. So crack on.

Always encouraging so see your excellent desert stuff: looking forward to more...

[Tony Barton]

At the risk of dampening all this creativity ,the proper colours have now been well researched by Mike Starmer of MAFVA, and to my mind do look really pretty good.
 The ground colour is Light Stone ( try Humbrol 103, add a little white), the middle colour Silver Grey ( I used DOA  mislabelled "Slate" , actually the Silver Grey. If you can't get it, Vallejo 70886 Green Grey is near, if a little too green)), the dark colour Slate which is despite its name not a blue grey,  but a dark grey-green (I use Vallejo Olive Grey 888).
The DOA colours are hard to get now , I gather, and when I got a selection of British colours they were very badly and wrongly labelled, though some of the actual colours were correct.

 I had my Caunter vehicles painted the old way , in approximations, but recently went to the trouble of getting Starmer's book with the color chips, and repainting my models.
One thing becomes apparent once you add a layer of dust ; the Slate goes bluish , hence perhaps the long-held belief that it was a blue shade....






Obviously there's room for more weathering, and you could make the whole effect much paler.
Have fun...

[Etranger]

Tony - White Ensign Models worked with Mike Starmer to produce accurate paint shades. They were OOP for a while but are now available from Sovereign Hobbies in the UK https://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk/collections/colourcoats-land

I obtained some from their Australian stockist only last month. They are enamel of course, which won't be to everyone's taste.

Lighting makes a difference to the colours too. I've seen two colour photos of the Bovington Matilda post repainting. In one, it's a bluish gray, and in the other, taken with brighter illumination and clearly light blue...

[Tony Barton]

Good to know those White Ensign paints are available again, I had a selection , but not the Caunter colours. They were nicely done, but very thin ,originally at least , for spraying I suppose.

Lighting is everything, and the way screens reproduce is maddening. I didn't check the pics above before Submitting, and they have come out looking far more blue that they are in reality !
 Oh Well !
But at least it's fun to try.

[Ahistorian]

This is very interesting, thank you! I have the Western Desert in the pipeline for next year, and a Battlemech force to paint up before then as test pieces in caunter.

[Captain Blood]

Looks great. I am very much of the 'your toys - paint them how you see fit' school.

I find it difficult to believe anyone can seriously contend there was absolute standardisation. If you look at WW2 photographs of AFV painted camouflage generally - admittedly colour images are rare - it's pretty clear that for the most part, camo schemes were slapped on by crews in the field. They do not look like the nice, neat, uniform paintshop sprayjobs beloved of many modellers.
Whilst official schemes and official colour references were no doubt handed down to units in the field, some improvisation would inevitably have taken place. Seems ludicrous to be prescriptive about it and say every vehicle was uniformly painted in precisely the correct colours. There must have been variation.

[Tony Barton]

Sure, there was some variation, and we know that the Germans in particular gave paint and spraying equipment to workshops to apply in the field ,after 1942, according to local conditions.
The first arrived vehicles with the DAK, which were dark grey, were locally splattered with mud to make them less obvious.
But in the case of the Western Desert Force, we know that all vehicle were painted at depots beck in the delta in Egypt : I used to know a man who worked in one such depot, at Abbasia barracks. The patterns and colours were specified for the various vehicles, and appllied fairly consistently, using paint actually manufactured to specification in Cairo.
Given the conditions out in the desert , painting any vehicle in the field would have been an ordeal anyway.
 Mike Starmer has done a lot of work on this topic, and it seems , at least in the case of the British , that there were rules, and that they were mostly followed. But what they looked like after a month or two ,and a couple of sandstorms, was another matter.

[Arlequín]

The patterns and colours were specified for the various vehicles, and appllied fairly consistently, using paint actually manufactured to specification in Cairo.

Just to emphasise Mr Barton's point here; each vehicle type apparently had a set 'scientific' Caunter template. So the design for all carriers for example, was the same and only varied in terms of the guys with the spray guns applying it. A bit like the variation you'd get taking the same design to several different tattooists.

I'm also guessing that re-painting was done only when a vehicle was scheduled for it as routine, or after repair, so there would be a period either end of the time frame where some vehicles were in the scheme and others were not, in the same unit. You could hardly take a whole unit out of the line for re-painting after all.

I find it difficult to believe anyone can seriously contend there was absolute standardisation.

This is the British Army, which painted rocks white to ensure uniformity.  

[Captain Blood]

Ah yes, the fabled whitewashed rocks... Did my basic training at Bassingbourn. They still had them there in the 1980s

The British army is indeed a fastidious organisation with manuals and regulations for every eventuality. I can quite believe there were a good proportion of vehicles painted in Cairo in the correct WD colours. But after that? In an actual war zone, in wartime, in a far flung corner of the Empire? Not to mention coatings of dust, and wear and tear from desert wind and sun, plus battle damage... To insist that all vehicles and AFVs in the field across a period of a year or more stayed painted in exactly the right pattern and in exactly the regulation shades doesn't seem too credible. I'm sure on paper there's a 'right answer' and no doubt the author concerned has done his homework. But don't think that entitles anyone to say to anyone else 'your take on it is categorically wrong'