S.C.C. 2

1:100 scale Churchill 3" Gun Carrier (3d printed)

In 1941-42, the British army adopted the Standard Camouflage Colours (S.C.C.s) to come into use alongside, and eventually supplant the older greens and Dark Tarmac that had previously been used.

The base colour was changed from Khaki Green No.3 to S.C.C. 2 (brown), with disruptive patterning in S.C.C. 1a (dark brown) or S.C.C. 14 (black) over it, initially in the old striped pattern, and later in the "Foliage" and unofficial "Mickey Mouse" patterns. This change was, in part at least, due to a severe shortage of chromium oxide green pigment needed to produce strong green colours.

This Vallejo ModelAir shade, VMA 71.038 Camouflage Medium Brown was recommended to me as a decent match for S.C.C. 2, and I do like the look of it a lot better than the reddish milk-chocolate shades I've seen before. I don't have any direct experience of S.C.C. 2 (or any of the S.C.C. colours, really) so I'm going entirely with my gut feeling.

Painting Caunter with Vallejo colours

The British early desert war Caunter pattern is an attractive one on the wargames table, but it is truly a pain in the arse to paint. All of the borders between the colours have to be dead straight, or else it looks like pants.

I've tried masking and spraying it, but on these little rivet-covered models that is extremely troublesome, and the easiest method I've found is just to use a long-haired lettering brush to outline the areas of colour, and then to just colour them in with a regular #1 round brush.

There is, apparently, a very good Caunter set of acrylics available from a manufacturer whose name escapes me right now, but I don't have access to those.

NOTE: Vallejo also now produces a Caunter set of ModelAir paints, which I'm trying to get my hands on

The paints I do have access to are Vallejo. My local model shop keeps good stocks of them, and I can generally be confident of getting the colours I want. In truth, the ready availability of Vallejo paints has made me pretty lazy about mixing up my own colours.

The model shown above, a PSC 1:100 (15mm) A9 cruiser, is painted in a combination of the two colour sets I've laid out here in my modelling notebook.

The base colour (Portland Stone) is VMC 847 Dark Sand,  which is a little too dark on its own, so I've highlighted and panel-toned it with VGC 034 Bone White.

NOTE: Vallejo now produces more accurate ModelAir mixes for Portland Stone (71.288) and Light Stone (71.143).

The middle tone (Silver Grey) is VMC 844 Stone Grey. VMC 886 Grey Green is OK, but it looks a bit too dark to my eye on its own. I've tried painting it in 886 and then lightening it with 844, but there didn't seem to be much, if any benefit over going straight to 844. In fact, the best colour I've come up with so far is a 50/50 mix of 886 and 844.

The darkest tone (Slate Grey) is VMC 830 German Field Grey. If you want a faded effect on a well-used vehicle, a 50/50 mix of 830 and 886 works well.

The keen-eyed amongst you will have noticed that there is not a blue paint to be seen anywhere. The idea that Caunter included a blue seems to have been propagated from a an erroneous scheme devised in the 1960s — apparently the Silver Grey could fade to what appeared to be a bluish shade in certain lights, but it certainly didn't start out that way.

Plane Tree Camo in 15mm — first attempt

The PaK 36 models I've been basing come with crew dressed in camo smocks. That means that for my chosen period (roughly 1930-41) my only painting options for them are as SS.

Unlike many WWII wargamers, I have a strong aversion to fielding any SS forces except as part of an historical recreation battle. They were a Bad Lot, and I really don't like the idea of commanding a bunch of war criminals, even in make-believe.

Be that as it may, I have these guys to paint, which means I have to plunge into the tricky world of WWII German camouflage uniform. I cannot say I've found it easy at all.

Platanenmuster

The smock in the image to the left is the one I want to emulate. It's the Plane Tree pattern (Platanenmuster) which was in use from before the war up until 1944.

There's not a lot of room on a 15mm figure, so some compromises will have to be made. What I've found is that while pale spots on the dark patches do show up, dark spots on light patches are pretty pointless. Also, the light green spots need to be added after any shading wash, or else they fade into the general mess and you lose the distinctive spottiness of the camouflage pattern.

I've seen much better examples of these camo patterns in 15mm, but try as I might I don't seem to be able to match that standard.

Later...

Here's my next stage of experimentation. On the left, before spots; on the right, after spots.

The addition of spots certainly makes it look more like what I'm going for, though I think I should probably go for fewer, less evenly-spaced spots.