WWII Armor Colors and Markings

Italy

by Bill Rutherford

Italian M13/40 in North Africa. 3= Vehicle Number. Two vertical white bars on block = 2nd platoon. Color of block and veh number = company. White XXI indicates 21st Btn.

Prewar Italian armor camouflage seems to have consisted of a base coat of red brown, with sprayed dark green overstriping referred to as splinter camouflage. By 1940, this had been discarded and vehicles were factory finished in a standard grey green. These were soon overpainted in sand brown in African service, and by 1941, were delivered from the factories in that color.

Italian armor markings were quite simple. Vehicles carried license plates at left rear and center front. These were white, outlined in black, with red and black registration numbers within. According to George Bradford (#1 in the bibliography), the main unit marking was a rectangular block, about eight by twelve inches (or so I estimate ... ) It was red, light blue, yellow, or green, for the first through fourth companies of a battalion, respectively. Battalion and regimental command company colors were black and white, respectively. The block contained a number of vertical white stripes equal to the platoon number within the company. The vehicle number within the platoon, about six inches tall and in black, white, or the company color, sometimes appeared above this block, Rarely, the battalion number appeared as a roman numeral below the block.

Painting Italian armor is straightforward. Most will appear in sand brown, with the odd grey green light tank thrown in for variety. License plates are a white rectangle (with a black outline in the larger scales ... ) with red (on the left) and black (on the right) squiggles within... Unit markings lend themselves to mass production, no matter what scale you game in. Get yourself some decal sheets in the appropriate company colors. Red, yellow, green, black, and white are readily available (see below for sources...) Light blue can be obtained by cannibalizing aircraft decals.

Cut strips of decal in the appropriate widths, then chop off pieces to give you rectangular blocks. Obviously, the widths of the strips and the lengths of the pieces you cut off will vary with your scale, but the principle's the same and it's easy! Stick these on your tanks, turret or hull sides. Paint thin vertical white stripes for platoon markings, and you've got fully marked Italian tanks! Vehicle numbers can be added or deleted as desired - in larger scales, use decal numbers; in smaller scales, simply paint little squiggles to represent the numbers,

More WWII Armor Colors and Markings Europe and North Africa

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