British North African Caunter scheme

[dougeagle]

Just wondering at how often their 3 tone paint scheme was applied to their tanks and other equipment. Was the greyish, bluish and sand color schemes on early '41 tanks only or just on some and not all?

[Rutgervanm]

I'm afraid I won't be much help, but having spent a lot of time on the team for the preparations of a huge 20mm Operation Battleaxe game (the Big Game 2008, we're talking eight full divisions for Rapid Fire! here) I picked up a few bits of ino.

First of all, there is absolutely no blue involved in the Caunter scheme. I don't know how it ever developed, but supposedly it's a myth. The colours are dark gray, light gray and stone. Of course the light gray could in some cases be pushing blue, but the the bright blue that you sometimes see is wrong and inaccurate.

Second of all, I don't think it was applied to any and all equipment. From the photographic evidence I have seen, I would say that with armour and armoured cars only whole units were Cauntered while softskins could be more mixed. Though with reinforcements or joining scrap units together you're always going to have a mix I would say.

[Peter_Fitz]

If you google "Mike Starmer" you should be able to find out what you need. He's the great Caunter Guru, and has published a bunch of books about camouflage and markings for early-war British and Commonwealth AFVs and softskins.

[dougeagle]

Thanks, I appreciate it.