Rust and damage

[jarndice]

Every time this subject comes up I relate tales of Army Corporals and Sgts screaming at Tank crews for allowing rust to form on their vehicles,
The Army looks upon rust as wilful damage and a waste of the taxpayers money and punishes men who are found guilty of allowing such neglect,
And the next member of the Forum laughs at me saying in wartime rust is going to be the norm on military equipment and to loosen up, Well some Armies and some military units might allow such slack behaviour but in the Army I served in in peace and conflict Rust was not accepted as normal.

[tomhugill]

Hi all,
As the subject suggests, I am curious about the rust. A lot of modelers when painting and weathering the models put rust on them, some times to the point of nausea... I have looked at plenty of Tanks, even the tanks that have in my opinion "rotted" outside for years and have yet to see a lot rust, with a few exceptions. I know the metallurgy involved in a lot of the tanks included Nickel which of course prevents rust, not that this was the goal.

Another thing is damage, when there is a scrape or worse (penetration) the damaged area is not going to be a rust color or which alot of folks like the dark brown color, though it looks cool I guess, its not accurate. Of the tanks I have seen (many to be sure) instead of dark brown, where there is scrapes the top layer is removed to reveal the primer underneath, or in extreme cases bare metal.

A good example of what I am speaking, don't drive your car for a few days in wet weather, look at the rotors --rusty, now in contrast look at the inner wheels of a panther tank, they are void of paint yet shiny, even after sitting for a while.

Now, I am not telling people how to model their tanks, I am just saying if your building an accurate model of a AFV in use and in war, its not going to have rust unless it sits outside and unused for about 75 years

Cheers!

At the end of the day people will build tanks to their taste, if they want highly accurate models they will probably do the leg work and research what is sensible and what is not.

Rust on welds is 100% wrong, you see tanks rusted to bits in scrap yards and the welds are bright and rust free.

Rust on armour plate, again probably not.

However on sheet metal skirts, brackets etc I think this is more reasonable depending on extent.

Shaun, a picture tells a thousand words...

As they say your mileage may vary and personal experience isnt universal!

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[Tiger6]

Having read a few unit war diaries, it would seem that the same was true in war time. The vehicles were either wrecked in the field after a short carreer, or they were withdrawn for refit once the parent unit rotated out of the front. I can recall reading the diary of one of the Kangaroo outfits of the 79th, which seemed to suggest they were repainting their vehicles nearly every other week...

In any event, senior Generals would often visit units away from the front to raise the moral of the troops, and you can be certain the officers and NCO's would not want them to see rusty vehicles littered around the place. Scruffy troops and vehicles are associated with lax discipline, and no officer or NCO who has any interest in remaining in that capacity is going to want to be caught commanding a shambles.

[dgsselkirk]

From my personal experience I agree, you don't see a lot of rust surfaces but we always had rust around bolts, worn edges, brackets, and assorted bits and bobs. I remember our brand spanking new Grizzlies which we actually picked up from the factory with 3KM on them and promptly took them to Northern Quebec and then on to Norway. After about 3 months the nice sheen was gone and the details above had begun to show rust. Places were trees and branches and assorted bushes had whacked corners, skirts, and mounting points enough to show the primer through would be under the realm of chipping and scrapes not rust. Oh, and they had lost that new car smell too...

[General Jumbo01]

It happens in other forms of modelling too, locomotives parked in sidings overnight develop thick rust over their entire surface! I'm not a fan of rust. I think that it maybe works if just a small spot or two are strategically placed but I've seen models that would have had to have been sitting in a salt solution for several years to have developed the finish some modeller go for.

Each to their own, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, etc etc. Just requires some self control

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[Max-U52]

Good to see so many that realize accuracy is more important than a cool rust technique! You're absolutely right that most guys go waaaay too far with the rust and battle damage. Most damage was quickly repaired, especially on Axis AFVs (being closer to home they had better facilities, where the Allies were basically "ON the Road" for the duration), so some of these tanks I've seen that claim historical accuracy and then go way overboard on damage and weathering make me cringe at such a waste of talent. When it comes to weathering, rust and battle damage, I've always said that LESS IS MORE!! Before I went bonkers and became an RC Tanker I was into modelling larger scale static aircraft (32nd and 24th, mostly), mostly fighters, and I liked to model them as they would appear about 15 minutes after landing after a sortie/mission. That gave a some leeway to play with techniques for stuff like fuel spills and powder stains around gun ports. But I think aircraft were even better maintained than armor, so corrosion wasn't seen at all.

[capt midnight]

I'm in agreement that less is more. Rust on thinner sheet metal and mufflers looks right, but having an entire vehicle covered is way overboard. If you look at static display tanks located outdoors you don't see very much rust, if any. And these are not maintained to the level that a functional vehicle would be.

Max is correct about the planes, as well. The F106's, F15's and B52's I was around showed no corrosion, at all. Slightly different colors of touch up paint was not unusual, as you would not repaint an entire aircraft just for some chipped paint. The missiles I worked on were treated the same way, touch up paint on the chipped areas, as needed.

Bill

[panzerschreck]

Call me lazy, indifferent, or more f ked up than a soup sandwich, but as my R/C models get run outside, they weather naturally

As long as they run, I sleep well in my bunker