MARKINGS

John. I'm no Sherman expert, but I imagine that the stars were not hand painted, would be too hard to do. Lettering, such as names of girls and whatnot, undoubtedly were hand painted. Our forum Sherman expert should be along to help out. As for Mutts, I also doubt any of it was hand painted. Good luck.

Thanks,Tigerman.I just wasn't sure.Of course, these are b/w photos and the camera could only do so much.The numbers on the one side looked a tad off and a star on the hood of a jeep on it's side was probably off because of damage.Did any markings ever fade away or got rubbed out? John Swann

I know the crews used to try to cover the Star on the Sherman with mud, et al. It made a juicy targeting point for the panzer optics.

Man, I never thought of that. Cover the "bullseye" sand you last longer. Without the white star they could not be hit. Well, not as easy anyway. Thanks for the info. JSwann

Here is some info on U.S. marking application on vehicles:
http://www.armyradio.com/arsc/customer/pages.php?pageurl=/publish/Technical_Bulletin_746-93-1/Section2.htm#Description of Markings.

Neat site,Boybuddho!It even tells me what colors are used.This is going to help alot. Thanks so much for the info.

john

You need to remember that the info in that tech bulletin may not match the TB (or TO) that was in place when the Sherman was built/painted/marked - it is dated almost 25 years after the second world war. And in some cases even back then other colors (greys and yellows come to mind) were substituted by crews in the interest of self survival.