I was going to wait until I had the whole troop/squadron done... but then decided that was stupid. I painted one of the Matildas yesterday and... I am relatively pleased with it...
"Auk" - this tank belongs to the commander of A Company, 69th Battalion, Royal Tank Regiment, 37th Army Tank Brigade.
I decided that these tanks should all be part of entirely fictional units. The Matilda IIs will be elements of A Company (specifically A Company Commander "Auk", 2 tanks from #2 Section "Adder" and "Anaconda", and two tanks from #3 Section "Antelope" and "Aardvark"), 69th Battalion, Royal Tank Regiment, 37th Army Tank Brigade.
Bolt Action allows platoons of five... I have five of these... I figured I'd field them all together. All five add up to 785 points, so.... I CAN do that in either a 1000 or 1250 point force! (Sure... there's not going to be much else in the 1000 point force but a VERY understrength Rifle Platoon...). Tank Troops, however, (or sections in earlier war Tank Regiments) were only made up of three tanks... so I decided that the "Platoon Commander" will actually be the Company Commander leading elements of two understrength Tank Sections.
I tried painting it in the Caunter pattern. I've seen it interpreted in a few different ways with different shades of colours... these colours probably aren't exactly historical... I've seen the Caunter camouflage scheme in tan, light green, and dark green.... desert yellow, light blue and slate... yellow, blue, and dark green.... I do know that pink and green were used for tanks at some point. I know that both LRDG and SAS trucks made use of pinks, greens, yellows/tans, and blues... so...
As they are fictional, no one can tell me the tanks of that brigade were not painted in this particular pattern of camouflage....
Also, I figure if there can be a movie and two entire seasons of a TV show about the adventures of a pink submarine in the South Pacific, I can have some fabulous tanks with pink, yellow, blue and green on them!
I'll probably finish up the rest of them over the next week... then I'll probably work on the Cruiser Mk.I (A9) tanks. Those are going to be part of 4th Battalion, Northamptonshire Yeomanry. The 4th Battalion, Northamptonshire Yeomanry DID actually exist... but it was a deception unit made up of wood and canvas... We'll pretend this one had real tanks and served in North Africa as part of the 38th Armoured Brigade in the 5th Armoured Division.
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Looks great! Alternate camouflages are much more interesting than yet another variant of OD. A whole until of them is going to be great practice for Noise Marines.
ReplyDeleteAlthough didn't British tanks have 1001 unit and other markings on tanks? All the bridge weights and such.
Ha-ha! Did not think about it being good practice for Noise Marines... But I suppose it is!
DeleteMost British (and commonwealth) vehicles had - front and back, when looking at them a coloured square with a white number in it as a unit designation and on the right a formation marker (Usually divisional, unless the unit was part of an independent brigade or part of a higher formation unit - corps, army, etc...). I was reading recently that these did not appear on Matildas in the desert? Perhaps because they were part of independent tank brigades?
I did put on a tank serial number T6969 - but I only did it on one side... I should probably do it on both. (there were a few other things I noticed I missed as I was editing photos... so it will be heading back to the workbench anyway...)
Yeah the little yellow circle with the bridge classification number... I have not seen any examples of those on tanks in North Africa - at least not in the early years?
cool and colourful Auk! :D
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteBeautiful work!
ReplyDeleteThanks Michal!
DeleteLovely looking tank and accompanying infantry.
ReplyDeleteAlan Tradgardland
Thanks Alan!
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