Am finishing up a Tamiya Cromwell for the Finescalle D-Day build. I’m going to be concentrating on netting and foliage - both new techniques for me - but certainly common in June 1944 on both sides of the line.
I just spent more money on dried arctic sage than a set of metal tracks.(Of course you can only use the tracks once.)So I would like to get the pigments and mud right. Normandy is fertile and gets a lot of water. I try to think of areas in Minnesota that fit that description and the soil is moist and usually very dark - a dark brown to almost black. All tanks in the field more than a few days are going to pick up dust in good quantity and at least some dense soil (a kind of moist mud maybe). Any advice on what colors or texture of soils one might find in Normandy?
Eric
Go to Youtube for color documentaries on the landings and the campaign. There are quite a few. I found a color film of the 303rd BG’s picking up their planes in MI in 1942, and flying them over to Molesworth so there is a ton of info on Youtube for almost anything.
As far as dust goes, I don’t believe that you would find much evidence of dust in the early phases of the D-Day landings as it was a stormy period and wet. The dust would be minimal.
Think you’re wrong. An area like Normandy where there’s a lot of moisture will soak up rain quickly and even dirt roads would have some kind of drainage. If you look at photos of the fighting around Caen in June there’s very little sign of mud - sort of clumpy soil though. Something like this:
Brits involved talked about the beautiful weather through most of the campaign (the storm front that almost wrecked Overlord was very unusual and the storm of June 19 which destroyed the Omaha Mulberry was a surprise.) So the problem facing the Brits by July was actually heat. Some of the infantry attacking during Goodwood were shot up while going through thigh high wheat - almost like 1914.
Because tanks normally travel on roads whenever possible they will almost always have other AFVs in front of them and are pelted with something almost continually. If there wasn’t dust there would have been either mud or clumps of damp earth. No such thing as a clean tank if it had been in the field for more than a few days - or maybe hours.
