Thank you for your cleanup :)
Btw figured id ask some people here, anyone have some images of the different camos that the Niki was shown in? I keep finding multiple versions of winter esq camos and and slowly putting together a suggestion for Finnish winter camos so that we don’t have to use only the Swedish ones on our Finnish tanks.
The main camo I’ve seen for the Niki is a solid soviet green with white paint over the top, figured some camos were rushed if the vehicle needed to be pushed into combat as some photos have large sections missing paint.
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I hope this makes up for our argument.
Though I don’t think it will be very helpful since you’ve probably already seen it before, in which case I’m sorry for not being helpful as well.
They planned (or wished to) increase the armour - that’s all I said
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Unfortunately there isn’t a lot of images of other types of camo, that I could find, unfortunately, there just aren’t a lot of images of different camos for it, and the one that comes close to what I think you are looking for is on a model kit so it probably isn’t realistic.
I also found this, but they are gray-scale unfortunately
I’m sorry I couldn’t be more useful.
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Water under the bridge.
Nah, my only real problem is finding actual photos of them. Theres a lot of books i own with a lot of tanks but i do often find some very interesting camos designs via photos that just aren’t listed as many vehicles got unique camos for that specific vehicle.
Like this T26 has a pretty rushed camo job but its fairly unique, ill have to find the one i was thinking of as the crew basically only covered the front of the vehicle and through branches and such over the non white painted areas. I enjoy seeing unique paints because it allows for the vehicle to be all the more unique if added with it.
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There is a colored photo of a Finnish T50 sporting a bright orange and grey camo but i literally can’t find it. I think its one of their fall camos since the L-62 Anti II irl has a few photos with it. I had never seen another finnish vehicle with that camo aside from the anti so im not sure if it was historical to have that camo or painted for a museum.
Just whitewash/white paint slapped on relatively randomly - I’d think it’s a common sort of winter camo anywhere there is snow and pots of white paint!
If there’s enough paint you’ll get a solid colour, if there isn’t you get this sort of thing.
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You mean like this?
This is the closest match I could find, but it’s not grey so I know it’s the wrong one, I’ll try to keep looking
Also, congrats on getting the 69th comment, nice.
Yeah, ive seen it repeated a lot and a few tank crew journals even talk about only having enough paint for a single panel and needing to make do and apply it before moving. For the most part of the war the fins were essentially surviving on whatever scraps they had as the tanks were constantly needed in different positions. Not too surprising that crews did almost anything they could to blend in considering the Fins had T-26’s fighting vehicle they reasonable weren’t made to fight considering stuff like the T-26 and T-50 were Infantry support vehicles.
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Yeah thats the camo, again i dont know if it was painted because it looked good for a museum or what, theres only one surviving Niki in Finland so i guess id need to see if the Museum ever painted it again. The bottom camo isn’t correct but its a nice find. Could be a camo similar to the grey one you posted above but the colors to me seem like they should be darker but who knows. A lot of detailed camos weren’t recorded and are lost to time unfortunately.
Guess the next time I’m in Finland ill need to visit some museums and ask around. Unfortunately it will be a while since i already went to Finland 2 months ago. Would be nice to get some angles of the surviving Niki at the Parola Museum.
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You could try emailing the museum directly and asking them, I planned to do it myself since I was wondering for quite a while (like, around a year until today) which nation actually made the extra armour since I swear to God that half of them say Finland added it, the other half day the USSR added it and wikipedia for some reason says both are true, so getting info from the people who actually have the documents and records seems like the reasonable thing to do for finding out about the paint jobs, I hope at least.
The main documents specifically note Finland as the Finnish pushed the tank outside of its original role as an Infantry support vehicle. They gave it armor so it could be used against other tanks. The bolted armor is actually a fairly common thing with Finland given what they did with the remains of the BT’s in a lot of cases. Additionally no Soviet T-50 exist in images as far as im aware. Its also not a new thing for Finland to push vehicles outside of their intended roles as they needed everything they during the war.
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No soviet T-50 images exist? I think you might wanna rephrase that since the only other one (without the extra armour obviously) is in Russia right now.
Was referring specifically with Armor. The T-50 is a Soviet vehicle but ive never seen proof such as photos of a Soviet use T-50 with the armor as seen in the Niki. My bad on the wording.
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A bit off topic but didn’t Finland also add additional armor to some captured T-28s? Although I’m not sure if they were redesignated as T-28Es or if this simply referred to the one Soviet uparmored model they captured.
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Yes Finland captured a few T-28’s and added similar bolted armor like that of the Niki. The Soviet model with add on armor is a bit different but im trying to remember if photos of them side by side exist. It may just have been the T-28’s prior to be modified for Finnish use. Even the KV-1B underwent changes to allow for faster repairs and allowing for additional armor and storage. Though we actually have the image of the KV-1E prior to it being captured and restored by the Fins.
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They did capture at least 1 T-28E, but I haven’t seen anything about hem uparmouring earlier versions that were captured.
Well, I do believe the T-28 at Parola is one of the Finnish uparmored models, or at the very least recieved some additional plates on the turret
And pictures of the upgrade in general seem to be uncommon
I am interested in the KV-1B modifications though, I had been under the impression that the Finns didn’t make any changes to the armor scheme?
I don’t believe the armor added would be as extensive as the Niki as they had so mamy T-28’s and not enough parts to keep them all up at the same time. Many groups had to essentially shelve the vehicle until command could get them supplies and tell them where they were needed.
The few notes on the BT’s shine some light on this as the majority of captured Soviet equipment was so poorly kept that they feasible couldn’t keep 1 vehicle running with 50 spare vehicles as everything was either warped, cracked, missing, or jery rigged to barely function. This wasn’t just a BT issue but a common theme of soviet vehicles that were captured.