Schneider CA1 : The first French tank
Decorations of the Schneider CA1
The camouflage of the French equipment of the First World War is complex because there was - originally - no scheme regulatory decoration. At most, the army having decided to coat all of its equipment in light gray (known as "artillery grey") instead of the previous olive shade, we could expect a certain inertia on the part of the authorities. ... We can therefore imagine that the CA1 came out of the factory gray and that a camouflage was then painted on top following the first directives. The first model presented is in 4-color camouflage (usually 3 to 5 colors per tank, not counting the black edging)
Always start by painting the lightest color first, then successively apply darker shades: here in order are applied the following shades: gray, sand, sea green, khaki and finally brown. The paintings are from color chart Tamiya, only the "water green" color is obtained by mixing. It is a common color (with variations) on French armored vehicles of the war of 14 like that of 39/45.
The device seen from the left front side: the extra thickness of the shielding is visible here. Note that my tanks do not have side machine guns: this is normal, because they were dismantled during transport by rail (one can imagine that they engaged the rail gauge). And, remember, my tanks are meant to be put on wagons!
After complete drying of all layers of paint (prefer the application with an airbrush so as not to impaste the model), the borders are made with a CD-Rom marker type pen. Different thicknesses of borders have existed.
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At this point (ideally, that's not what I did!) you have to take advantage of the shiny or satin shade of the model to add the different markings.
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After a thin layer of matte varnish, I proceeded to a light oil skate.
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Do not forget that this material was new! do not "force" on stains, paint chips!
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Other decoration resulting from profiles indicated on specialized works or even the excellent magazine GBM (War, Armored vehicles and equipment).
The base shade is artillery gray, which has been given a mix of yellow, brown and khaki hues. The borders are thicker here.
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