Buildup for Invasion

[Harlan (Deceased)]

The crew of this half track is somewhere in England waiting their turn to sail for Normandy. The special red color paint under the star on the hood is a special paint that changes color when exposed to chemicals weapons. Exposure to heat and light would slowly turn it so a reddish brown color. The tubing seen on the right side of the vehicle supplies air to the carburetor which helps waterproof the engine in the upcoming beach landing. Barely visible on the 50 caliber ammo belt is a mixture of red and black tips of tracer and armor piercing rounds. The man on the hood reading a French language guide wears leggings that have obviously been cut down to a shorter size. This was commonly done by combat troops, as it made the legging quicker to get on and off.

Information

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[LimeyCarbineLover]

Yep Harlan is right standard Gas Vesciant Paint......which is more ochre in colour than red the old picture quality makes it more redder than it actually was.......nice picture that...

Regards

Lloyd

[gwozdz]

What were the red tip indicative of? Black is AP, right?
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[browningautorifle]

Red is tracer, black or silver armour peircing blue incendiary...combinations of colours mean combinations of components.

[emmagee1917]

True , but silver is for the combination of AP and INC. , very good for planes. Note the wooden log in the hood gap , wasn't that to aid in cooling ?
Chris

[Garandrew]

Is this that same star..was it painted red inside?

[emmagee1917]

As far as the OP pic , yes , same type but they filled in the gaps in the ring caused by the stencil . There was a pre-war version of this that had a red disc in the center of the star....deleated early as it triggered a lot of rising sun misidentifications.

[JimF4M1s (Deceased)]

This is a buddy on my boat in Viet Nam 1968. Alumnum/Silver (Armor piercing + Incendiary), we also used blue (Incendiary only).

Jim

[browningautorifle]

The page from the ammuniton detail is what he needed.

[emmagee1917]

I have not run across the silver ( or aluminum ) with blue for API that I recall. Is it very early or very late production ?
Chris