Over time I have collected more Roco Tiger II tanks than I can reasonably use in a single wargame. So I am always on the lookout for other uses for those vehicles. Sometimes a simple paint conversion can be enough to make a plain vehicle into something special.
This Roco Tiger II was in a collection of used vehicles I purchased about 20 years ago. There were two of them painted in similar gray, dark gray, black, with white edging camouflage schemes. It was sort of a winter camouflage or maybe something for a rocky area? I was never happy with it but it was too good just to strip off the paint and start over. And I already had a battalions worth of these beasts anyway.
So they languished in my collection until recently when I read an article about ambush camouflage. Now I am familiar with ambush camouflage, but it sparked an idea in my head. Ambush camouflage was similar to the scheme on this tank except the colors were usually dark green, tan, and dark brown. Over that they applied mottles of a contrasting color to make it appear like sunlight shining down through the trees.
So, I figured, why not paint this in ambush scheme, but in these same colors? All I had to do was paint the mottles. I have been using craft smart brand paints that are sold at Michael's. They are very inexpensive and work well for many projects. I just happened to have gray, dark gray and black in stock so I did not have buy anything to make this project happen. I used a toothpick to apply little dots of paint.
Here are both of the tanks after mottles have been applied and the details painted. I painted the bow machine gun and the muffler stacks. I think it looks pretty good. In the Post-World War Two Cold War the British Army Berlin Brigade painted their tanks in a series of squares and rectangles in white, blue/gray and brown colors as urban camouflage.
This scheme uses similar colors and probably could have been found in Berlin. Except of course, I made it up and probably no tanks actually carried this scheme. It also looks like an ambush camouflaged Tiger II that had its picture taken with black and white film, which is an interesting effect.
Buildings aflame, rubble in the streets, the war going poorly, but heavy tanks in special urban camouflage await the enemy. These are fifty year old model kits but in the right circumstance, with a good paint job they can make a nice model.
Mike Bunkermeister Creek