There was a thread on the tanks at Gaza posted by the grandson of a tank driver for Lady Wingate.E-Company,Palestine 1917 was the thread and it contained a lot of pictures including Sir Archibald. Black Lion Decals does a set that contains Sir Archibald. It is set 72001 British Mark I-III. They are a good company to deal with and they do custom decals. As for the color I can find no information saying they were painted anything other then Dark Khaki. The same color used on the Western Front. They did coat some of the tanks with oil and throw sand on it for camoflague but I do not know which tanks did. The safe bet is Dark Khaki. I hope this helps. The E Company thread containes a lot of photos.
David Fletcher has this to say: "No information survives on the colour applied to tanks in Egypt but it seems safe to assume that they were finished in the same khaki brown as armoured cars and other transport. This would soon have faded to a lighter shade while abrasive sand steadily scratched the paint away."
For what it is worth, Ernest Swinton stated in "Eyewitness" that the tanks were covered in white paint, then coated in sand while the paint was still wet.
The photo shows Sir Archibald after its destruction at the 2nd Battle of Gaza in April 1917. At this time, the tanks did not seem to have the roof stowage racks seen in later photos. Note that the tank seems to have the extended bolts for fitting spaced armour.
-- Edited by Rhomboid on Thursday 18th of November 2010 07:58:33 AM
