Wonderland models in Edinburgh are talking of moving. But the boy that owns it is getting on. Fair chance it closes shop, so here's hoping a purchase persuades them to keep going!

The heck kind of paint job is that? Blue and gold?

searches

Huh. Apparently that was a legit British North African camouflage scheme. Totally unaware of that.

https://www.quora.com/Was-the-Matilda-II-actually-painted-blue-during-WWII-If-so-why

Was the Matilda II actually painted blue during WWII? If so, why

sort of….

In the early part of the North African campaign British armour was painted a mix of sand, slate grey and what I’d call sky blue (I think the official spec was silver grey but as a modeller I do find that the same shade of paint from two different modelling companies can be quite different…. online forums are full of modellers arguing about RAL numbers and how modern samples compare to original paint revealed during restoration of real vehicles! )

Its both a disruptive pattern which breaks up the distinctive tank shape and well chosen for blending in with the horizon (parts of the western desert are perfectly flat). The slate grey would fade to a paler blue making the tank appear more blue than sand over time. The same scheme was applied to many other vehicles.

considers

I guess, now that I think about it...most of the movies I've seen about the North Africa Campaign were in black and white, so...no way to know. Huh. TIL.

Pity. Getting hard to find these in malaysia.

I have the same model waiting to be built and went down this rabbit hole. Part of the problem is that the British tank museum read some descriptions of people who operated in or around the tanks and they all said something like "duck egg blue" or "sky blue". So when it came to paint their preserved Matilda tank they painted it with a best-guess shade that people later argued wasn't correct, but because it was in a museum it must have been right and it's been replicated on models and depictions ever since.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2ZI04lF2L0

Hmm. I see what you mean. That's an awfully blue blue.

My mental image was always tan or green or something.

I have been trying to find physical shops and retailers that have plastic models for about a year now, with no luck. Maybe it's just not popular enough in my country anymore :( I remember doing some cool airplanes when I was little. ^^

Wonder why military hardware was such a common theme? 🤔