CMP paint question

[Larry Hayward]

In 1939-40 the British Army had a preference for their vehicles (in UK & Northern Europe) to have a base coat of G3 Khaki. Am I right in thinking the early CMPs built in Canada and shipped to Britain (or delivered in Knock Down form) all used the same G3 base colour?

Circa 1941 when Britain ran short of the chemicals for green camo paint and changed to SCC.2 Brown base colour did Canada follow suit or did they not need to bother if there was no shortage of chemicals on their side of the Atlantic?

Or was there a Canadian base colour from the start that Britain just accepted in the same way as a vehicle from the States in US Army Olive Drab?

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Very good questions which come up regulary when people are restoring or modelling vehicles.

Here's what I wrote on my webpage http://www.mapleleafup.nl/cmpvehicles/paint.html many moons ago:

Bill Gregg's 'Blueprint for Victory' (p.118, 1981), gives an outline of paint applied by Canadian manufacturers:

"The following information was obtained from the AEDB Design Record:
The paint applied by the manufacturer was considered the basic colour on top of which the Army would apply the camouflage disruptive colour. Originally, all vehicles going to the European Theatre of war were painted KHAKI GREEN #3 and those going to the Middle East LIGHT STONE #61 (both British standard formulae). Later KHAKI GREEN #3 was changed to BROWN #2 and eventually, after the U.S. military presence in England had reached strength, to U.S. OLIVE DRAB."

Some early shipments to the Middle East were overpainted with camouflage disruptive pattern by the manufacturer, but this proved to be impractical for knock down shipments since original components rarely got back together on re-assembly."

Canvas came in sand, khaki and brown, depending on the colour of the truck

Equipment was not to be repainted until the equipment needed a complete overhaul.

Also make sure to read the publications by Mike Starmer on this subject, he is THE authority