Renault FT and TSF – External Paint Treatment – Part 2 - Inside Track | Renault TSF Tank Kent

Ongoing study of the various Renault FTs in wartime images and survivors in collections provided us with a possible answer to the question whether Renault stripped down the vehicles on the assembly line to be able to apply a clear and tidy application of the base layer and subsequent layers of the constituent colours of the camouflage range. This is highly unlikely and study of the Tank Museum’s example provides us with a potentially misleading insight into how subsequent paint colours were applied. Misleading because this example was one of those ordered by Winston Churchill for Britain in 1917. The layers of paint applied to the Tank Museum Renault FT show a two obvious series of light grey above the green black more akin to the Royal Navy at the time than our conventional understanding of how a tank was painted – but this was a landship….. Was there a microscopic dust layer between the first light grey applied to the green black of the Renault assembly line? In other words, was the first light grey layer applied by the French at the request of Britain or was the grey applied here in Britain perhaps under instruction from the French. An answer would be very interesting and unlikely to be forthcoming. Study of the paint treatment of the components has proved interesting as the light grey has been carefully applied but importantly over the green black only in the visible areas. Where access was not possible for the paint crew the parts were not stripped but carefully navigated around, in place, for paint treatment. The Tank Museum FT provides an interesting insight into how the camouflage café au lait layer was applied – for grey read café au lait. Other survivors provide extra insight into this question although most are either rusty or have been extensively repainted since WW1.

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