I was reading an interesting post on here about Shermans being shipped to Europe and prepped for assignment. It mentioned how the black sealer/protection paint was removed and the vehicles given some paint to cover those areas.

It occurred to me that in those sorts of conditions careful, exacting painting of the road wheels was probably not a high priority. And the more I thought about it, like the Brits receiving tanks in North Africa and having to paint them among the myriad other preparatory things they had to do, or the Germans repainting their vehicles in the field to match local conditions, I can't for the life of me see why they would spend even a moment worried about not getting paint on the rubber. It just seems like it's one of those "there's a war on" things.

I also imagine that rubber being what it is, the paint doesn't necessarily adhere that well and after a period of time the paint just flakes off leaving the classic clean tire look. I mean I'm sure the rubber flexes a bit, the oils in the rubber, abrasion. I've seen display 1:1 tanks with clearly over sprayed tires and I recently saw a picture where the entire tire was coated with paint!

I can't recall seeing any in service pictures like that, but I don't know how carefully I've looked either. That suggests that it comes off fairly quick. Like I said in the urgency and expediency of returning a vehicle to combat I can't imagine that it's that important.

Of course that also suggests over spray on the tracks that is also quickly rubbed off.

I think we mostly assume "that's how it's supposed to be" and if a judge saw it he would mark off points for it.

Any thoughts? Any former tankers on here can shed some light on more modern practices at least? Is it a reasonably good surmise? Would it come off so quickly that it is not significant to model? Maybe the road wheels were brush painted? Still...

Frank

I think if we built models to exactly replicate their "real life" counterparts, we would have a pretty boring hobby. Think about it. When was the last time you saw any vehicle that was "chipped" to the point that it looked like it had a bad case of acne?

In my old Cav unit we had many vehicles with some paint overspray on the rubber roadwheels, particularly the support rollers on the M-48A5's and then the M-60's we recieved. Mostly it wore off. I never saw any paint overspray on the softskins we operated.

Frank Blanton

I have the same hang up with brush applied markings. Even though it may be correct to show brush painted field applied markings, I would probably never attempt in scale. There are probably few modelers that could pull it off effectively, I'm not one of them. The T-34 tanks of late war come to mind also with those large brush applied white bands on the turrets. Not in my modeling cabinet.

Ryan

but due to the flexible nature of the rubber and normal wear of over sprayed surfaces, it's not there long, but could be if it was painted on areas like rubber mudflaps and the like.

This is a newly rebuilt M88A1 that traveled from Alabama to Massachusetts. It got to us on a flatbed semi, but I don't know if it was railed any portion of its journey. It still has some overspray on the road wheels.


RobG

Rob,
Looks like they forgot to clean up the mold seams and added in some fresh rust on the inner faces of the wheels. (___)

Jim Guld

It was delivered to us in the dead of winter and we had to drive it from one side of the post where the ramps were to our location. Salt spray galore, very unrealistic weathering job.


RobG

has to put up with a finish that would get you kicked out of any modelling club!