SUDAN CAMOUFLAGE

Indroduction

The Sudan camouflage paint scheme was used by the vehicles of the 5th Indian Division. It was also used by the tanks of the 3rd and 5th Royal Tank Regiments (RTR) in early 1941 whilst they were part of the 2nd Armoured Division. At first the disruptive pattern for the Sudan camouflage was random but in November 1940 a fixed pattern was ordered for all vehicles. This section describes this pattern as applied to tanks of the 3rd and 5th RTR.

3rd and 5th Royal Tank Regiments

The 3rd and 5th RTR arrived in Egypt on New Year’s Day, 1941. Shortly after arrival, they were supposed to be going to Sudan and were painted accordingly. When the movement order to Sudan was cancelled in mid-January, the 5th RTR remained in Egypt whilst the 3rd RTR was sent to Greece. Photographs of tanks from these regiments show that both regiments were still painted in the Sudan scheme and were not repainted for either Greece or Egypt.

The 3rd RTR commander, Robert Crisp, in his 1960 autobiography on Greece “The Gods were neutral”, gives an unofficial account of the Sudan camouflage. Crisp begins on page 11 with:

“Their tanks, impressive-looking, near-obsolete cruisers known under their age-group designations of A9, A10, and A13, were in the vast base-workshops at Alex having their camouflage altered from the green and brown of paddocked England to an exotic shade of red and yellow. As plainly as a banner headline, it revealed to the crews who manned them that they were booked for the Sudan.”

Officially, the scheme for Sudan is described in General Order No. 297, which was issued on the 22nd November 1940 and repeated again in February 1940 as General Order 63. The first two paragraphs of General Order 297 are [Michael Starmer, 2001]:

1. 1.      Cases are occurring where vehicles are transferred from one Command to another and require repainting to meet the particular camouflage demands of the new Command. This is proving very wasteful in paint, the supply of which will not meet present demands.
2. 2.      In order to deal with the situation the following arrangements will be made in future:-
1. a.      All vehicles in the Middle East will be painted with a common basic colour. This will be LIGHT STONE (British Standard Colours 61).
2. b.      Up to two contrasting colours in addition to the basic colour may be selected by Commands to complete the camouflage scheme. When a vehicle is transferred from one Command to another the basic colour will NOT be changed, and it will be necessary only to over-paint with the two contrasting colours. For example, if a unit were transferred from Egypt to the Sudan it would be necessary to over-paint the two contrasting colours “silver grey” (British Standards Colours 28) and “slate” (British Standard Colours 40), in use in Egypt, with the light purple brown (British Standards Colours 49) and light stone in use in the Sudan.

Figure 1 “Bull-pup” of the 3rd RTR abandoned in Kozani, Greece.

Figure 2 A-13 Cruiser tank of the 5th RTR photographed by Leslie Potter in Libya, March 1941

An examination of photographs of the 3rd and 5th RTR (see Figures 1 and 2) reveals that General Order 297 was followed word for word. That is, tanks that were supposed to be going to Sudan, had the Caunter pattern altered in the following way: the areas marked for silver grey were replaced by light purple brown and the slate areas were replaced by light stone. The tanks were overall light stone so that the effect was a mostly straight edged pattern, similar to the Caunter scheme but with the colours reversed and with only a single disruptive colour (Figure 3).

Figure 3 A-10 Cruiser tank in the camouflage scheme for Sudan of light purple brown/light stone.

The colours in Figure 3 are for pictorial presentation only. Paint chips matched to the British Standard Colours can be found in Michael Starmer’s Caunter booklet. Light stone is a pale yellow colour whereas light purple brown is a dark brown colour, which shows a red tinge when viewed under bright light.

Incompletely Painted Tanks

Whilst the pattern of photographed tanks matches that specified for Sudan, the disruptive colour often appears to be very light (Figure 4). In some photographs it would seem that no disruptive paint at all has been applied.

Figure 4 A-10 cruiser tank abandoned in Greece.

In many cases the lightened disruptive colour is caused by dust and grime. Other possible causes include photographic development and film type.

It is also possible that some tanks were incompletely painted in the desert colours, with the light stone areas painted but without the light-purple brown, leaving the European undercoat showing through. This would have been caused by the cancellation in mid-January 1941 of the movement order to Sudan. Given that the European colour was light green as shown in Figure 5, this would make the disruptive colour, on the half-painted desert vehicles a light green colour and produce the correct contrast in Figure 4.

Figure 5 “Earn” photographed in England, July 1940 in an overall light green colour. Some tanks also had dark green patches added. [Australian War Memorial photo number 002751]

Evidence for a light green colour is given by Crisp who states that his tanks were re-painted for Greece. According to Crisp (page 24):

 “Meanwhile, down at Quassasin our A10s and A13s had been sprayed with broad, deceptive patterns of green, loaded on to long, flat trains and sent back to Alexandria through the teeming Delta. They were dispersed around the docks in small packets – an operation which must have supplied the numerous Axis agents in the locality with quite an easy way of earning their next installment.”

The official camouflage specified for Greece was a European colour scheme consisting of green with a brown disruptive pattern [6th Australian Division war diary, Australian War Memorial]. Since the 3rd RTR were not painted this way it is assumed that the broad green pattern that Crisp observed was due to incompletely painted tanks rather than re-painted tanks.

Further evidence supporting the incompletely painted argument, can be found in some photographs. The tank from 5th RTR shown in Figure 6 has light green visible in areas, in addition to the light-purple brown and light stone.

Figure 6 Light green paint on a tank from the 5th RTR, March 1941.

References

Major Robert Crisp, “The Gods were Neutral”, Ballentine Books, 1960.

Barrie Pitt, “The Crucible of War”, Jonathon Cape, 1980.

William E. Platz, “Desert Tracks”, Baron Publishing Company, 1978.

Michael Starmer, “The Caunter Scheme”, Privately produced, 2001.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank David Fletcher of the Tank Museum, Bovington for kindly allowing the reproduction of the low resolution scans of photographs from the museum’s archives. The photographs that appear in this article may be ordered from the Tank Museum.

A special thanks is also due to Barry Marriot for allowing access to his collection of photographs of commonwealth vehicles in Greece.