No.2 Camouflage Brown

[fv1609]

Is anyone familiar with No.2 Camouflage Brown?

 

I know that it was around in 1947 & used by the British Army. It is not a BSC, I had guessed it might be a forerunner of Service Brown which I think is what is used on ammo boxes.

 

But that is quite a dark brown. When I did a google on it I got hits mainly about painting planes. I noted RCAF at one stage used Camouflage Special Brown No.2 but is that the same? It must have been fairly light as it had to have patches of dark brown on it.

 

Incidentally I see that disruptive camo painting was abandoned in 1944, probably because it was such a labour intensive exercise there was not enough time to do it.

 

Ah why am I asking? Those black jerrycans for water that should be painted black with white lettering. In 1947 the can should be brown not black, I can't recall having ever seen a restored vehicle of that era having a brown can though.

[Richard Farrant]

Is anyone familiar with No.2 Camouflage Brown?

 

I know that it was around in 1947 & used by the British Army. It is not a BSC, I had guessed it might be a forerunner of Service Brown which I think is what is used on ammo boxes.

 

But that is quite a dark brown. When I did a google on it I got hits mainly about painting planes. I noted RCAF at one stage used Camouflage Special Brown No.2 but is that the same? It must have been fairly light as it had to have patches of dark brown on it.

 

 

 

Clive,

 

This one has come up before on the MLU Forum. I think the nearest to it is probably Dark Earth, the BS number of which escapes me, but I do have it on a tin in the workshop.

 

To quote from the book "British Tank Markings & Names" by B T White, " during 1941 a khaki-brown shade similar to BD uniform, was again used for tanks". "in Nov 1941 the War Office authorised its use as an alternative to Khaki Green No3. The khaki brown mentioned was known as Standard Camouflage Colour No2 and was included in BS987C published in Sept 1942". It goes on and on...... Somewhere on the web, I have found a site connected with modelmakers, that shows the BS colour charts and from this I concluded that Dark Earth, which is not that dark, more like the colour of a cup of tea, to be as near as I could get.

 

Richard

[fv1609]

Richard

 

Dark Earth is BSC 450 but this was only introduced into BS 381C in 1964, it became renumbered as BSC 350 in 1988. & then deleted in 1996. I do find it difficult to work out what was what. I remember David Fletcher telling me that BT White as a boy during WW2 used to go off & draw colour pictures of the vehicles as soon as he had seen them go by.

 

I have a 1941 book 26/GS Publications/644 "Painting of Mechanical Transport", it talks of just three colours for UK & N.Europe, Khaki Green No.3 or Standard Camouflage Colour No.2 the disruptive dark bits should be in Standard Camouflage Colour No.1A. Not very helpful for us bods years later trying to work out colours.

 

Do you think Standard Camouflage Colour No.2 is the same as No.2 Camouflage Brown?

 

Yes on line charts can help a bit if you can fix your mind on a colour you know & then try & compensate for the colour you are checking on. For instance on http://www.indfinspec.demon.co.uk/bs_381c_colour_chart.htm

DBG looks almost black, well on my monitor.

 

I have put my query on a US AFV site, which is mainly modellers as far as I can see. They probably take colours more fanatically than we do. But I am just waiting for a reply along the lines use Humbrol 123 etc, which won't mean a lot to me.

[Richard Farrant]

Do you think Standard Camouflage Colour No.2 is the same as No.2 Camouflage Brown?

 

Clive,

 

I will have a search for the site I found before with colour chart.

 

Richard

[Richard Farrant]

Do you think Standard Camouflage Colour No.2 is the same as No.2 Camouflage Brown?

 

Clive,

 

In answer to your quote above....Yes.

 

The paint was listed in Vocab as Cat. No.HA5715 Brown SCC No2

 

Take a look at these two links, the second one refers to Canadian vehicles but all the Cat. No. and Regulations are of British origin.

 

http://www.matadormodels.co.uk/tank_museum/xcamo_ww2uk.htm

 

http://milifax2003.tripod.com/Cdn_Patterns_1.html

 

It seem that No2 is not exactly the same as Dk Earth according to the first link, but after a lot of searching, the client and I had to make a decision and it did not look too bad at all.

 

Richard

[fv1609]

Richard

 

Yes thats very interesting. I need to savour the detail of those a bit more. Unfortunately I don't have any VAOS that are wartime, other than a NZ Guide to Stores Accounting, & yes they must be quite civilised over there as their VAOS is a close copy of ours it seems.

 

I was a bit suspicious of the Vocab No, I'm so used to Paints, Dopes & Varnishes being in VAOS H1, but H1 used to be split into a & b sections. So I am not clear what happened in the wartime. I know quite a lot of VAOS for Tents are JA but in postwar they were J or J1. Ah & then COSA came along.

 

In addition to the Equipment Regulations of 1947, I also have a 1955 version & that still requires the water jerrycans to be this brown. When it changed I don't know but in the 1961 edition it is black.

 

Ah and another puzzler the colour is "Black CS.2000" Now what sort of black is that? I have googled for it but unfortunatelyCS2000 is a very popular name for all sorts of equipment nothing to do with paint. You even get DEFRA pages on the Countryside Survey 2000 coming up!

 

I like the tricolour.

[Richard Farrant]

I like the tricolour.

 

Clive

 

My ex-employers colours, as if you did not know !

 

Re. HA prefix for the paint, I am certain this is the same as British during 40's, seem to remember seeing it before somewhere. H1, etc, came later.

 

Richard

[woa2]

I have a colour sample called No2 Medium Brown, which is what I have painted my Ford WOA2 in, as it is the same colour as it was painted in 1943/44. The paint was made by Trimite, but they don't seem to deal with the general public any more. The colour called Dark Earth is actually called No4 Light Brown. I hope this is of some help.

[fv1609]

woa2

Thank you for that info. I had the question on a AFV modelling site as well. There were 68 views & got 1 reply:

 

"Well, SCC2 Brown or Service Colour was a standard Commonwealth colour and used on all military vehicles from late 1942 through early 1944 when it was nominally replaced by SCC15 Olive Drab.

 

Generally described as "fresh sh*t brown", SCC2 was reasonably dark although SCC1A, Dark Brwon, was darker still, like a very dark chocolate. While a lot of materiel remained in SCC2 even after the war, new equipment was generally painted SCC15 OD after early 1944. Ammo boxed remained in the updated equivalent of SCC2."

[russell sprout]

Thought i'd hit on just the subject i needed when i started reading the thread on Brown camo paint, but i'm still just as clueless.... I've just started restoring a WW2 Royal Enfield flying flea, and after carefully removing several layers of paint i have come across the original brown (bit darker than a cup of tea with a smooth semi gloss finish). Does anybody know what the modern day equivalent is in the U.K for British Army WW2 dark brown????? :idea:

 

Thanks,

[Richard Farrant]

I've just started restoring a WW2 Royal Enfield flying flea, and after carefully removing several layers of paint i have come across the original brown (bit darker than a cup of tea with a smooth semi gloss finish).

 

Russell,

 

Some years ago while at the Stourpaine steam rally with my BSA WM20, a old gentleman asked if I was interested in a pair of WD pannier frames. He brought them along the next day and they were in the brown colour. It seems he bought an ex-WD Royal Enfield in 1946, took the frames off and hung them in his shed. I unfortunately sold them some years back and did not think to get the colour checked out. I am older and wiser now, of course.

 

So it appears that Enfields were that colour.

[ashley]

Hi all,

i have a early 1945 GPW, which is painted a earth matt.

 

I have the registration book (the buff colured type) which the colour of the vehicle as Kahki on the date of its registration 30/10/1959.

 

Now is it the general opinion that this would have been the military colour it served /was stored in rather than the normal Bronze green of the post war years ???

 

Ashley