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Hi David,
Good question. Late German vehicles had a red oxide (rust red) primer undercoat. Towards the end of the war, as paint shortages increased, and time to paint vehicles decreased, the rust red was used in place of dark brown as a principle color <not just an undercoat>. So that is why many primer their German tanks with the red oxide primer.

As for american tanks, I'm not sure what color primer was used! Perhaps someone more knowledgeable on that subject can respond? I used grey primer on my Sherman.

Bob

Hi David
Industry uses the iron oxide paint, used to be called red lead, before they took the red out because it is tough it has a high solids count so it has a greater coverage. (it goes farther) Its been the standard of industry ever since they have been building out of steel.

The iron oxide paint pigment precursor used in a process for producing such paint pigment is found in scarfer spittings, a steel mill waste product. The cores are characterized by a chemical composition comprised of between about 0.04 and 0.10 weight percent carbon, about 0.06 and 0.25 weight percent manganese, about 0.015 and 0.025 weight percent phosphorus, less than about 0.05 weight percent silicon, less than 0.01 weight percent sulfur, about 94 and 98 weight percent iron and the remainder oxygen and incidental impurities and a particle size within the range of 5 mm to 0.125 mm.

It does not have a tendency to skin-off as easily as other oil based primers and dries to a hard finish which will accept alkyd topcoats without fear of alligatoring or cracking the topcoat. It becomes the base for many corrosion resistant coating systems.

There are other paints you can use but I pianted the underside of my truck several hundred thousand miles ago and most of it is still there.

If you want the ultimate protection look up Por 15 Best stuff Ive ever seen.
http://www.por15.com/