[CharlieC]

I don't know what the rationale was for Mauve as a US camouflage colour. Ralph Lovett has noted that he's never seen any evidence that the 5 colour scheme was ever implemented although the 3 and 4 colour certainly were. In general there seem to have been two objectives in WW1 camouflage. Use colours which could help equipment blend into the background and break up the apparent visual outline of equipment so it was less obvious. Often artists were employed by armies to devise colour schemes and patterns to achieve these goals. The most famous one was by the painter Solomon who devised the camouflage scheme for the British Mark I tank. Unfortunately the tanks very quickly were covered in mud in action so it was a bit pointless and was why British armour was painted Brown until the 1920s. The Germans were known to use unusual colours in their camouflage schemes - Red and Purple in small amounts were observed so Mauve isn't too much of a stretch.

The Vector 1:25 model of the Lebedenko tank uses a card jig to build the wheels - and it certainly needs it - so it might be the best solution for the Holt 150-ton model.

How about the angled treads Holt used on the Steam Wheel tank which came from the Holt agricultural machinery? The form of these treads can be seen on the Steam Wheel Tank model on Landships II. Holt used to recycle their designs as much as possible so if they had built the 150-ton monitor reusing their tread design would have been likely. Image is a very early Holt tractor before they went to tracked vehicles.

Charlie