The one thing that sets World War Two and modern war games apart from the other popular periods (Napoleonics, Ancients, Clvil War) is the equipment. Other periods have the occasional chariot or cannon hanging about, but the primary presence on the battlefield is the troops in all their finery. In World War Two and after, It's the machinery of war: guns, trucks, and especially the tanks and armored vehicles. So why is it that the tanks are so often so poorly painted? This is not a rhetorical question. I've just been going over my recollections of COLD WARS 98, HlSTORICON 97 and 98, and in both micro armor and 15mm, the number of games that included well-painted armor was a definite minority. Gamers who would never think of putting a poorly-painted cuirassier or rifleman on the field seem content to spray a coat of dark gray, green, or olive on a well-cast tank and call it a day. Since the twentieth century troops and materials are so easy to paint well compared to, say, an eighteenth century Guard Carabinier Officer in all his foppery, there is no excuse for this: you might just as well be playing with cardboard counters. There are three basic problems with the maJority of tank models on the gaming tables. First, they are much too dark. Second, they are missing essential markings that the real vehicles needed to be effective, and third, they are missing the effects of weathering and use. In this article I'm going to go over some really easy techniques for correcting two of these, and give you some sources for resources to correct the third. Here we go... Sunlight Weather and sunlight lighten colors. Thls is a basic fact that has to govern everything we paint in miniature. Even black doesn't really look black in strong sunlight, but we'll still use it for contrast. Ail other colors, though, should be painted much lighter than they really are to get a realistic effect. The reason is that any light indoors is much weaker than sunlight. Even a day with full overcast (solid clouds) has as much light outside as a room with one 100 watt bulb for every square yard! That means, on the average, your wargaming room has about 1/10 to 1/20 the light on the model as the -real world- sheds on the real tank (and in the Distelfink Room at HiSTORICON/COLD WARS, the tables have about 1/100 as much, but that's another problem...) So even if you have a bottle of -Panzer Dark Yellow- formulated to Official Wehrmacht standards, it will be too dark on the model tank without some modification. Mud The other basic effect of weather is that tanks and vehicles collect mud and dustllke you wouldn't believe. As a junior tanker at Fort Hood in the mid-1960s, I can remember spending a lot of time with a high-pressure hose trying to knock mud in chunks off the running gear of the tanks: if you modeled that stuff realistically, ail that beautifully-cast detail below the upper track on your model would be obscured by gobs of brown goo. Everything above the uppertrack, in anything other than snowy weather, is covered at all times with a film of dust - which also served to blur and lighten the painted colors. Finally, people walk on tnks and armored vehicles, getting in and out or doing maintenance. This wears the paint off down to bare metal in places, on any vehicle not fresh out of the factory. Painting Basics Now to basics of painting tanks. There are two types of color schemes to worry about: the simple one-color acheme typical of most armor, and the multi-color camouflage schemes of varying complexity of which the German 1943-45 schemes are the most sophlstlcated and generally applied. We'll go from the simple to the complex. Apply a basic color lighter than the "real" paint on the prototype vehicle. Here is what I've used for examples: Nationality Prototype Real Color Model Base Coat Soviet 1941-45 Dark Green Light Gray-Green(PollyScale 34226) German 1939-43 Dark Gray Medium Gray German 1943-45 Dark Yellow Light Tan (PollyScale 33695) American 1940-45 Olive Brown Armory KV-1 Green (GS-235) I apply this over a basic gray or white primer, covering everything but the tracks. The tracks themselves are painted either a rust red (red-brown) if they are steel tracks (German, Soviets) or black and red for tracks with rubber blocks (American - remember that the US half tracks had all-rubber track surfaces, and should be solid black as a base color). Now over this base coat use an ink wash to provide contrast. I use Rowney's Acrylic Inks, but any of the acrylic inks or "brilliant watercolors- will work. Thin all the inks with about equal parts water to ink. Over the Soviet green or US base coats I use Sepia ink, a dark black-brown shade. Over the German yellow mix olive green ink with sepia to get a muddy-green wash. Over the German gray use black acrylic ink well-thinned. Over the acrylic, using a brush frequently cleaned with clear water, apply a coat of clear net acrylic with a few drops of black added to heighten the shadows. This will 'fix' the ink and thin it off the high points and large net surfaces. The result should be a high-contrast vehicle with most of the detail picked out. But we aren't done yet. Take a dry brush with Steel or Aluminum metallic paint, and hit the places where wear and tear normally remove the paint. On the tracks, for instance, any raised surface will be worn shiny by contact with other metal or the stony ground. End connectors (the edges of the tracks) will be paintless within minutes after the tank moves. Fenders, handrails, and around hatches will all have shiny places where crew have stepped repeatedly. This starts to give the tank that "lived in. look. For a special effect, you can put larger "splotches" where the paint has naked away on a real -veteran- vehicle, but this is easily overdone. It's always better to be too subtle at flrst - you can always go back and add more later. Floquil, bless their little hearts, have a set of weathering colors, originally intended for the model railroad market. They come in colors with names like Dust, Mud, Earth, etc.. and in the model railroad shops are sold in nice large bottles. The best thing about them is that they are semi-transparent, no matter how many coats you apply. I use Earth (414311) as a light "general" color applied with an almost-dry large net brush over the entire upper part of the vehicle, with a darker shade like Dirt (414308) over the tracks and running gear - representing the heavier accumulation of solids that cling to those surfaces. Then, for the final touch to the basic paint job, take a very light tan color on a net dry brush and "highlight" the edges, corners, rivets, and other detail. This takes a bit of practice not to over or under-do it, but is worth it to "pop out" the detail. This will give you a basic, weathered field vehicle. There are two "special effects" you can add very easily. Using acrylic modeling paste, you can coat the running gear with a layer of "mud. (paint it with a dark earth color and then dry brush with a ilghter "dust" or tan color) just about as thick es you ilke. If you look at some of the photographs of armor in Russia in the spring and fall, you'll see that you cannot realistically put too much mud on a vehicle! Just remember that this also obscures detail on the casting, so less is usually more. However, the final effect of a mud-crusted veteran tank can be very impressive when contrasted to the spanking clean models you usually see on the table. Finally, the most common physical damage to a tank is bent, twisted, or missing fenders over the tracks. This is because tank drivers tend to run into things, like trees, houses, and such, while they are finding hiding places on the battlefield, and invariably the first thing to hit the oyect is one of the fenders. A pair of pliers can twist most of the cast fenders into a good imitation of a bent fender, or you can just cut part of the fender away with a knife. In that case, remember that the tracks wlil throw mud up onto the upper hull - the sort of thing the fenders are there to prevent normally. Late War German Camoflage That takes care of the basic paint/weathering job on the simple one-color vehicles. For the German late-war camouflage, one or two extra steps are required. For most of the war the camouflage was applied by spraying on one or two extra colors over the dark Panzer Yellow: Panzer Dark Olive (Green) and Panzer Red-Brown, both of which are available in acrylic from PollyScale, Armory, and others. Starting at the very end of 1944 the "ambush" pattern used larger random patterns of the green and brown with lighter "dots" over them. The easiest way to represent spray painting is with an air brush. However, to "throttle down. an air brush to provide a 1/16 inch wide line, which is what you need to accurately re- produce the camouflage patterns in lSmm or micro armor, takes a lot of practice. Basically, if you haven't used an air brush before, you are looking at taking up a new hobby for a few months while you master the tool. If, like me, you are also startlingly inept with mechanical tools, it might take a whole lot longer! A cheap and fast alternative is to take an old No 1 or No 2 brush and cut the bristles off about 1/8 inch above the ferrule. This should give you a short, stiff stippling. brush. Dip this in the camouflage color, wipe about half the paint off. and apply it vertically to the tank as if you were trying to make a random set of large connected dots. The spinying of the bristles partially fllled with paint will give you a fuzzy edge to the color, which in 15mm or 20mm is a very close approximatton of a spray job. After you dry brush the -dust- over it, the spray effect is even better - and it's a lot faster and easier than mastering an air brush! I stipple the camouflage pattern over the basic yellow/tan before I ink wash with the sepia/olive mix, then weather as above. For the "ambush" pattern late in the war (and remember, this was only adopted in 1944: as impressive as it looks, it is not appropriate for Normandy, Italy, or almost any Eastern Front scenario before 1945) I paint larger patterns of red-brown and dark green, stipple the edges, and then, using a flne (No. 0 or 00) brush half-loaded with light tan, put 'dots' over all the camouflage pattern before ink washing. Markings Well, that will give you some basically weathered and camouflaged tanks for the table top, but they will still be missing some very important elements: markings. National insignia is not really that important on a vehicle, because most tankers recognize an enemy tank by silhouette or outline rather than looking for a star or cross. But, if you are trying to give orders to another tank by radio, it helps if you can tell at a glance which tank you are talking to. So large visible numbers or similar individual identification is a tactical necessity In units entirely equipped with radios. That is why German tanks virtually all have turret numbers after 1940, and Soviet tanks start to get them after 1943. By design they have to be visible, so a tank without them on the table is no more correct than a battalion of Old Guard without bearskins: you can make an excuse for it, but it just don't look right. Luckily, there are a number of sets of decals available for lettering vehicles in 1/285, 15mm, and 20mm scales. Incidentally, I am assuming you know how to apply decals - the plastic modeling magazines are full of articles. for one thing. Properly applied, with one of the 'setting' solutions applied and dull-coated, decals are indistinguishable from hand-lettering except that they are a lot neater and easier. Both Old Glory and Quality Castings make decal sets for German, Soviet. and US natlonal Insignia and turret numbers in 15mm. For those (like me) modeling Soviet tanks after 1943, their vehicles used a type of serifed numbers that are very hard to reproduce by hand and are not available as decals from the model tank manufacturers. However, the style is almost Identlcal to "Railroad Gothic", and Champion Decals makes number sets in white, yellow,and red in that style for the model railroad market in sizes from 1/8 to 1/4 inch high: perfect for both 15mm and 20mm. In 20mm, check out Microscale Decals 13-1 to 13-19 series sets of 1/72 and 1/76 decal sheets (see list of sources at the end of this article) which include individual German unit insignia, British, Polish, Soviet, early and late war US, and even Luftwaffe vehlcle markings. Once you have your vehicles palnted and marked, you can give them a final protective spray and throw them into battle. If you are really serious about your models, though, there are a few more things you can add. Additional Details Radio antennas, at least the straightforward 'whip' type, can be easily added using any of several materials. I have seen very realistic aerials from 1" paint brush bristles, human hair, and guitar strings (the 1st and 2nd, non-wound metal strings, very fine wire and flexible enough to recover from a lot of bending). Tank crews live in their vehicles, and they tend to collect and carry a lot of "stuff" on them. You can make all kinds and sizes of boxes from blocks of wood (or buy castings of them in various sizes from the model railroad shops), wooden crates for ammunition, and brown cardboard boxes full of (US) rations with the quartermaster black crescent on them. Uslng the thin foil from a wine bottle or tissue paper soaked in white glue you can 'roil' cloth bundles, tarpaulins, or duffel bags to stash on the back deck. Air Recognition panels on the vehicle depend on the time of the war: early in the war German vehicles frequently sported the Nazi red-black-white flag, while the western Allles used bright orange panels in northwestern Europe in 1944-45. Soviet vehicles would paint usually in white, a geometric sign on the top of vehicles. These would vary, usually being applied new just before each major operation. The simplest I've seen Is a white band a foot or so wide across the turret top, but crosses, stars, triangles, or white bands around the top of the turret were also used. Good tank commanders have to stick their heads out to see the battlefleld, so you really should have a few, if not most, of your tanks with at least one open hatch and a crew figure popping up. The figures are available in both 15mm and 20mm, so this Is an easy modification to make. When tanks are cooperating with the infantry an infantryman or commander would also frequently be riding on or behind the turret, since telephones to connect the tank with the outside world were not available even to the western allies until almost the end of the war. Thus, a figure or two riding on the back of a tank or gun is not amiss, even if you are not modellng Soviet "tank riders"! All of the earlier marks of German battle tanks (Pz III and Pz IV, also had hatches on the sides of the turrets. There are numerous photographs of crewmen leaving those hatches open for ventilation while engaging in long-range gunnery duels or approach marches. This is a major piece of metal-work, but cutting the hatch apart and gluing it open with a crewman sitting half-out of the turret would be a real conversation piece. The ultlrnate "spiffy" for your tanks, though, is one suggested to me by a builder of the large plastic kits. For tanks with outside handrails, like the late-war Sovlet T-34s and JS-IIs, file or grind off the cast-on handrails, drill holes and replace them with wire. This requires drilling 10 - 14 holes and bendlug 5 - 7 pieces of wire per tank, but the result is very neat indeed. In 15mm or 20mm, for the final touch, you can saw the boots off a figure, flatten them in a vise or the jaws of pliers, and hang them from the handrails. This is a detail taken from a photograph of a Soviet tank during the war, and illustrates my final point. There is a mass of still photographic and video material of the modern and world war two vehicles, all of which can provide ideas for the miniature tanker. We don't have to try to produce super detailed model contest vehicles for our battles, but making them look more like the real thing in miniature, and occasionally highlighting a vehicle with a special touch such as those I've mentioned, adds that extra dimension to our gaming that is the main reason we push miniatures and not joysticks or cardboard. Sources for Matertals: Champion Decal Company PO Box 11 78R Minot, ND 58702 Quality Castings PO Box 11714 Alexandria, VA 22312 www.tomco.net/~qualcast Old Glory Corp Box 20 Calumet, PA 15621 Microscale Industries, Inc PO Box 11950 Costa Mesa, CA 92627 www.microscale.com Back to MWAN #96 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1998 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com