i am doing a NATO m-60 -a-1 tank and i noticed from the few pics that i have is that no serious weathering seems to be evident in the photos is it that nato forces see nothing for action so the crews have time to keep them clean ? a min. amt of dust , dirt , mud s/b all that is neede
if i am wrong let me know but it seems to me factory new / parade fresh would be the way to go
I might say that at the present time when there is no military action in that part of the globe, you maybe right about the tanks being rather clean. It may also depend on the weather, no rains means no mud. So your weathering may depend on what time of the year you see your build being in. But I have to agree that there is a minimum of dirtying seen on modern armor specially in the desert where the accumulated dust maybe shaken off by movement. The paint have also improved and the surface proparation of the tank prior to painting is very good (National Geographic, Mega Factories) that rust if there is will hardly affect the tank more than compared to WW2 armor.
The first thing you do to your vehicle when coming out of the field is to clean it, leaving almost no dirt, mud, dust etc (I remember one time coming out of the field in a heavy rain storm, first stop was the wash rack). When you depend on your wehicle for survival maintance is a priority. Also the newer paint doesn’t weather has fast as the older paint and not being in a combat zone lessons the wear and tear
Modern armor gets just as filthy as their WWII forebears. Especially in Europe. The mud there seems to have a consistency of concrete when dry and sticks like the most persistent clay you have ever come across. But peacetime armies keep their stuff clean when it is not out playing war. There is lots of time for that sort of thing in garrison.
this was my first unit in line for the wash rack knocking mud off our vehicles.
and our tracks in line going through the wash rack
And once we got back to the Battalion Motor Pool we would download the tracks and thoroughly clean out the interior.
Here is a forward base wash rack in the Bosnia- not quite so elaborate.
This Vulcan track was part of our task force in REFORGER 84, Operation Certain Fury. During most of the wargame we were restricted to operating only on paved roadways to minimize manuever damage. You can see how the front of this track has a light spattering of mud and that is only from operating on paved roads in central Germany.
I was stationed on M60A3TTS tanks in Germany in the 1980s. As stated, we took the tanks through the washrack EVERYTIME we returned from the field, even if it was just a regular alert where we drove to a local training area, ate morning chow and returned to the motor pool.
Tanks are mud magnets. If you didn’t wash them down, you’d be shoveling and sweeping up the dirt and mud from the motor pool concrete. It’s a heck of a lot easier using the washrack than it is pushing a broom on a surface as big as a Walmart parking lot.
As a tanker, that tank is your entire reason for existence. Contrary to the popular misconception that everyman was an infantryman, back then, they could get us new tanks much quicker than they could replace seasoned tankers.
We also repainted our tanks semi annually. It would be a 24 hour a day task until complete. First all the tanks were painted green. Then a few of the older guys, normally the platoon sergeants and motor sergeants chalked off the patterns on the tanks. No two ever really looked the same, they were working off of poor photocopies of bad photocopies of the pattern found in the manuals.
Then the brown was painted and then the black after that. The quality of the paint job depended on when it was being painted. A tank chalked off and painted during the day would look OK. a tank being painted by the night crew at 2 AM did not look OK. The night crew was often those soldiers who had run into trouble with their first sergeants or who were being punished and working extra duty.
Needless to say, they didn’t want to be painting at zero dark thirty and it wasn’t their tank they were painting, so their level of care was less than it would have been if the crew was doing it themselves.
some examples, Germany, Fort Hood and the Mojave Desert…
wrong?? How can one be wrong with weathering decisions…??[*-)]
LOOK…its your model. It’s your house. You love muddy, dirty tanks…go right ahead.
DO WHAT’S HAPPY FOR YOU…can we see some pics when you’re finished???
Mud, dust, & dirt are ok… Rust isn’t… Keep rust to a minimum, go crazy on the goo… Tanks, APCs, AFVs, & SP Howitzers go through the earth, rather than over it… It’s OK to muddy 'em up IF they’re in the field…
But as others have pointed out, the first stop after an FTX is the wash rack… Even if all you did was drive around on the tank trails for a couple hours… (Ever try to get concertina wire out of some roadwheels?)
I remember some days in August in Ft Hood where the dirt on the tank trails was so finely ground up that it was like flour and about 2 inches deep… Even a guy just walking along them raised a dust cloud… The vehicles were so dusty that they would be the same color as the trails in about 10 minutes… No paint was visible…
…not enough rust…
Can be field-applied very easily if required…