GHQ Models Forums

Sepp:
I don't have anything quite so precise for you this time, but give this a good look through-

http://www.maquetland.com/v2/index.php? ... ion&id=466

I think you may find some of the photos of help on the tarp question; and then there is all the info on french motor vehicles in the Wehrmacht...
Jim

Well Kiasutha, you have again shown your amazing google-fu! Where/how do you find these sites? Good stuff.

Sepp:

As with most nations, I think you will find that there are/were a variety of answers to you question on French truck tarps. I can't say from any extensive personal research, but from what I have seen in pictures over some years I believe that the French sought to match the tarp to the truck, including the camo patterning. But tarps do not have anywhere near the longevity of the vehicles themselves, so in any transport unit I have ever seen (in many armies) some of the vehicles have ad hoc replacement tarps. These are often mono colored.

Also tarps fade in the weather much more quickly than the paint jobs on the vehicles. So even if they start the same, wthin just a matter of a week or two they will be "almost" matched at best. And the tops will weather faster than the sides, and some vehicles will see more sun or more rain than others, and so will have faded into different shades.

So ... my approach is to try to paint a variety of subtle differences into the tarps of my trucks. Maybe 2 or 3 similar (but not identical) colors, and then a couple of different under-coats or differing levels of dry-brushing, to make subtle differences. These last techniques (differing under-coating and dry-brushing) can work as well on camo'd tarps as monotones.

[Added on edit...]


As an example, here is a picture of my French Citroen half-tracks. I chose to paint them in an interesting French camo pattern. I also camo'd the tarps. In some cases the patterns on the tarps is continuous with the camo on the vehicles (matched tarps to trucks), but in other cases is is not continuous, nor even continuous from the tarp on the cab to the tarp on the cargo bed (mis-matched tarps to trucks). Also I have tried to weather the tarps more heavily than the vehicles themselves, and to weather the large flat top surface more than the sides.

I did this weathering all with dry-brushing. If I were to do it again, I would also vary the under-coats on some of them, and maybe even put some tan in the base-coat of the camo pattern for one or two of the tarps. I managed to get some variety, but not as much as I would have liked.

Just ideas. Your mileage may vary. Try what you like, and let us know how it works out.

[bThanks guys . Off to work i go This will seperate my DLM from my DCR.
Alan ][/b]

Mk 1 wrote:Well Kiasutha, you have again shown your amazing google-fu! Where/how do you find these sites? Good stuff.

You are most gracious, Sahib. Who is this "Goo-Gul"? Some djinn, perhaps?

Truth is, I almost never use google.
I credit my ocasional success to Keltic mysticism, my sainted Grandmothers' Ouija board, and mostly pure dumb luck...
As always; lovely work on the frenchies Mark.
Ah well, Monday it's off to get the bifocals upgraded...
JimR.

kiasutha wrote: Who is this "Goo-Gul"? Some djinn, perhaps?

No, my friend, the real djinni of the micros are Ritter, Cama, and perhaps Warrior. The djinni of the battlefields are Mluther are Opscntr. The djinn of media is Gompel.

The goo-gul is but an oracle.

(I beg pardon of those worthy djinni that this poor bard has neglected to mention. I am not worthy.)

As always; lovely work on the frenchies Mark.

I always enjoy seeing everyone else's pictures, and so am inclined to post my own (perhaps too often? ).

But the pic I placed in the thread above was only marginally on-topic at best. Oddly, I don't seem to have many pics of my French trucks.

But I did find this one, from one of my game AARs:


While my Citroen HTs are done in camo, my Renault medium trucks are done in "French Khaki". I have painted the tarps in various randomly faided shades of the same, in keeping with my understanding that the French tended to match the tarp to the truck, but that such matches were short-lived in the field.