Info needed: correct colours for WWII Aust vehicles

[Andrew Foulkes]

Originally Posted by Tony Wheeler

This is something we can view in real life. Pics below show 1949 KG3 paint chip confirmed against 42 KG3 paintwork, which as you can see varies so much in daylight as to generate 3-tone scheme from the one colour! Notice how the 49 paint chip follows it faithfully, which may not be possible with modern pigments.

Tony

Thank you for the detailed information that you and all the others have posted on this thread which I have followed very closely. In parallel I have been looking at the colours and markings of the BEF in 1939/40. Although your focus has been on Australia, you have revealed further background on the earlier British Army paint and the access to Australian archive material that you have facilitated has been tremendous.

In particular, as you know, there is an original postage stamp-sized paint chip for Khaki Green No 3 dated 5 May 1940 in a file at the National Archives of Australia (barcode 440398). While I understand all the caveats about such samples, it looks likely to be a useful official example of the early war British colour. In fact it seems to be the only official one anywhere! Unfortunately, being in the UK, I can't access it in person and the current scan in the archives is not really much use. Indeed no scan of such a chip could really provide much information about colour.

I would be very interested to know from those who have seen the 5 May 1940 chip at the National Archives whether it is a close match to other samples.

One possible good match seems to be the paint that Bob Moseley had made up by Protec. I noted that Gina Vampire said at one point that the 5 May 1940 chip colour was close to that paint.

Another possible match would be the example of Khaki Green - J at the Australian War Memorial (AWM REL 16/500), although that seems unlikely. Presumably this is a post-September 1942 darkened version of that colour.

Another possible match is your chip of 1949 'Khaki Green Matt Synthetic Resin Based Enamel K4/10394'. I see you have compared it with '1942 Khaki Green' on a vehicle and that it is a good match. The pictures in different lighting conditions give a very vivid representation of the chameleon-like qualities of this paint. How would your 1949 chip compare with the 5 May 1940 chip in the archives?

Andrew