2ème DB – Vehicles

Back this time with the other half of the army! The 2ème DB being an armoured division, it couldn’t go without some transports and armour support! I tried where possible to base these on real vehicles, although limitations in reference photos and the model kits meant I had to get a little creative in some places. I also had limited suitable decals for the division so did a lot of the marking painting by hand which was an interesting challenge! It looks a little rough in places but I just tell myself a lot of the originals were hand painted too so let’s say it’s appropriate! The divisional insigna is from decals by Company B, which I was glad to find as I was not looking forward to having to paint those by hand! The other decals are from the kits themselves.

My goal was to represent elements from the 9th company of the RMT (Régiment de Marche du Tchad), known as “La Nueve” due to the large proportion of spanish revolutionaries in it. The half-tracks are painted as elements of the 9th company and the M8 as part of the support company of the 3rd battalion (that the 9th is part of). The M10 tank destroyer is painted as the Siroco, part of the RBFM (Régiment Blindé de Fusillers Marins), a tank destroyer regiment crewed by gunners from the french navy.

Half-Tracks

The half-tracks of La Nueve were generally named after important events of the Spanish civil war, and the names you see above all appeared on half-tracks of the company. I read that the soldiers of the company were allowed to paint the spanish republican flag on their half tracks, and interpreted that as a replacement for the French flag usually found on the half-track doors, but I have no idea if that’s correct and if they were all consistent or not. After painting these I found a photo in one of my reference books that had the flag on the side of the bonnet instead of the door, so that may have been more correct, but I quite like the look of them on the doors so wasn’t too worried! These models are by Warlord Games/Italeri.

M8 HMC

“Porthos” I had no reference images of, but I had some from others of the division so took a gamble on what it might have looked like! Porthos, and as you might expect Aramis and Athos made up the M8s of the 3rd Battalion of the RMT and therefore presumably would have supported La Nueve.

The model is a resin and metal kit by Warlord Games.

M10 Tank Destroyer

Siroco is probably one of the more famous vehicles of the divisions, famous enough that this Rubicon Models kit came with decals for it! I still used the Company B emblem to keep everything unified, and still had to paint the tactical markings (the yellow Y over blue background) by hand as there were no decals for that in the kit.

The kit did not come with crew member models, so I took a spare Warlord Games US soldier model I had and built him to fit in the turret. Presumably the rest of the crew are down below for some reason! You’ll notice this crewman’s helmet has crossed red anchors instead of the yellow anchor present on all the others. This is the emblem of the RBFM.

Painting-wise, all these vehicles were done in the same manner:

1. Undercoat with Vallejo US Olive Drab primer
2. Basecoat non-green areas (stowage, crew etc.)
3. Paint on non-decal markings
4. Gloss Varnish
5. Decals
6. Gloss varnish
7. Oil wash all over with Abteiling 502 Dark Mud
8. Dot Abteilung 502 Copper Oxide Blue in random places
9. Wipe all that in a downwards manner with a brush wet in solvent to achieve the streaking effect
10. Apply thinned down Abteilung 502 Starship Filth in random-ish spots around vents and fuel caps
11. AK Wet Mud all over the tracks area
12. Matte Varnish all over

I thoroughly enjoyed painting these models, the Free French markings are quite cool looking and considering at the end of the day these are otherwise just plain green tanks make them stand out quite a bit from “regular” US or British versions of the same vehicles.

Anyway that concludes my foray into the 2ème DB for now! Not to say that I won’t be going back to them, there are many more vehicles of theirs I’d like to do up at some time in the future!