Vietnam War Armor Decals

Vietnam decals.

I was searching for Vietnam specific 1/72 scale decals for my Russian/Chinese tanks for my North Vietnamese for the 1972 Easter Offensive. I finally located a source in Sweden. The site says “for tanks,” but there are decals for many types of vehicles.
 
Here is a link to the 1/72 Modern decals.

STAR DECALS
 
Scroll down for USA, France Indochine, Vietnam (both South and North), Laos, Cambodia, and Australia.
 
I ordered both packs of North Vietnamese. I have not mounted them yet, but they look fine. The shipping is only $3.00 to the US from Sweden regardless of the size of the order.
 
Service was great. I placed the order on July 31. The very next day I had an email from him with the PayPal instructions. I paid immediately and the day after that he acknowledged payment and said he would send them. He sent them a couple of days later and they arrived in Ohio on August 17 or 18.
 
Dealers in other countries carry his decals. However, he produces beaucoup decals and I was not sure who would have what in stock. When I saw his site and that the postage was only $3.00, that seemed to be the way to go.
 
Tom

That's good to know - I need to paint up some T-54s and was wondering about markings.

Would these work for 28mm 1/50 models? i suppose they will be to small?

thomas yeah they would although slightly smaller they are on ebay,hannants in the uk and other sellers , there is also mecs models which i did order never got as when i asked about how long after over a month and not dispatched seller wasnt very nice chris wood saw the messages so i WOULD NOT recomend mecs ..

Whether 1/72 decals would work on 1/50 models may be a matter of personal preference. I have used 15mm (1/87 or 1/90) decals on 1/72 vehicles and they worked fine. However, what saved me was that these were not regulation markings, but unauthorized gun truck art added by the crews.

To look at the math, in 1/72 scale a man 6 feet (72 inches) tall would be a 1" high figure.
At 1/50 scale, the figure would be 1.44" high. 

We are getting pretty close to 50% larger (44% larger to be exact). If my math is right, that would make the 1/72 decal almost a third smaller than it should be. 

Maybe when we are dealing with models, that difference would not be too bad. But then again, maybe it would. I guess it comes down to personal preference.

It's too bad the Mecs decal deal did not work out, thomastmcc. I ordered some a number of years ago and they have some very nice decal sheets.

Tom

yeah pity on the mecs but the star decals more than happy with them..

thomastmcc wrote:thomas yeah they would although slightly smaller they are on ebay,hannants in the uk and other sellers , there is also mecs models which i did order never got as when i asked about how long after over a month and not dispatched seller wasnt very nice chris wood saw the messages so i WOULD NOT recomend mecs ..

Thanks for the info!

Here are the NVA decals from Star Decals on my five NVA tanks.

Top to bottom, two PT-76s. One T-34/85. Two T-54s.





Tom

Thought I would add a few comments on these Star Decals for NVA armor.

First of all, they seem to be quality decals and go on fine. That is no more than one should have a right to expect, but I have seen decals that are not like that at all.

Also, a good job is done on indicating what decal is for what vehicle and where it goes. These decals come with a full color 8 1/4" x 12" sheet that has vehicles on it "wearing" the decals available. For some there are alternate decals. I think all the alternates were different vehicle numbers. All decals on the illustrations have a code number by them. On the back of the paper is a drawing of the decal sheet with these code numbers so you can find what you want on the decal sheet.

The decals seem to be well researched. Sheet 72-A 1054 has T-54B (the Chinese made version was called the Type 59) tanks and what it calls generic markings.  Some numbers are all three digits on one decal. For this sheet, there two sets of those. The rest of the numbers provided are individual numerals. Thus more decals to put on. On the research side, the numbers on the tanks on the illustrated paper that I checked, were all actual numbers verified by photos of the tanks. I was somewhat surprised that several are shown in yellow. I have very few color photos of these tanks, but all color ones I have show white numerals. This sheet has quite a few numbers. Looking on the website will show you how many of each. Doing only two T-54s, I had plenty of the numbers I wanted. Someone like OTB who can probably field NVA armor regiments on a 1:1 ratio, may run out and need two sheets. I should add that some of the numbers on the illustration sheet are said to have been in Hanoi in April of 1975. That may limit their usefulness to those wargamers who worry about whether that vehicle ever saw combat.

The other NVA armor sheet is 72-A 1055. This is for Tanks, AFVs and Generic Markings. This has the PT-76s and T-54/85s.  This sheet has more three digit decals. Unless you want to cut them up for other vehicle numbers, you will have to have 72-A 1054 to get more numbers. Besides the two common tanks mentioned two lines above, this sheet set has markings for a captured M-41 seen in Hanoi in 1975 (probably not useful to wargamers), the SU-100 SPG, M-37 truck, and BTR-50P, both with and without, AA gun. Again, all of these I have checked have numbers shown in actual photos of vehicles.

The majority of the vehicles shown on the color illustrations provided with the decals show the national insignia on the vehicle. This surprised me somewhat. However, when I looked closely at the photos in my books on NVA armor, I saw this is okay. I have read, however, that sometimes this insignia was painted over to lessen it target aspect. However, the large white numbers would work pretty well. But these are not too visible from head-on.

To the best of my knowledge, all photos I have seen have numerals showing the stencil "breaks". So there would be a line of the paint shoeing through each number. ON sheet 1055, I cannot see this on some of the decals. I had to paint them in on the numerals on both of my PT-76s. I am not saying I did a perfect job, but it was easier than I thought it might be.

So in summary, I am quite pleased with these decals.

Tom

"Someone like OTB who can probably field NVA armor regiments on a 1:1 ratio, may run out and need two sheets."

OK - got it I definitely need to get these.

Order placed!

I got myself some ARVN markings too as I need to do my Walker Bulldogs as well.

Looking forward to seeing your results.

The publisher told me more Vietnam decals would be coming soon.

Tom

Garryowen wrote:Looking forward to seeing your results.

The publisher told me more Vietnam decals would be coming soon.

Tom

star decals more to come tom ?

thomas

Yes, that what I was told. I have not visited the site since he said told me that. I really don't think I will be doing any more vehicles, except perhaps for a 1/76 Ontos that I have here. But onw never knows. This is an addictive hobby.

Tom