Don't lick the paint!

[Nick]

If you ever see a Cruiser Mk1, Valentine or a Matilda tank in the light brown camouflage of the Western Desert, don't lick the paint. Certainly avoid ingesting the paint if it is the original WW2 sand brown painted over the factory dark green.

It's not a matter of the paint being lead based. Far from it. It just might have been made of rancid Worcestershire Sauce and a handful of Camel Poo.

Jasper Maskelyne was a famous magician who'd learnt his trade from his father and grandfather who were inventors and had also been on stage. They were descended from a long line of famous Maskelynes including an Astronomer Royal. One of them invented the coin operated toilet door lock, coining the phrase 'Going To Spend a Penny'.

Jasper signed up in WW2 because there was no audience for his stage show. He joined the Royal Engineers Camouflage Section and was sent to Egypt. While there his Camouflage Team were told to find enough brown paint for 200 newly delivered tanks. They raided the Cairo municipal dump where they discovered gallons of dumped Worcester sauce which became the liquid base to which they added the only available brown substance - Camel Droppings.
This as you might imagine was right under their feet in Egypt but not free for the taking. Dry it in the hot sun and you have pellets for your fire, so they had to compete with the local boys scooping it up for their home cooking.

Mix it up with other chemicals, slap it on a tank or jeep or truck and leave it in the sun for a week until the smell wears off. Hey Presto!

He claimed in his autobiography to have done many other wonderful things with camouflage, spy rings and MI9. Recent research suggests that he was either totally overlooked in the postwar world or that he made a lot of it up... 

This would make for a good model - https://www.nww2m.com/2012/10/magical-victory-jasper-maskelyne-and-the-battle-of-el-alamein/

[NARSES2]

I now have images of squaddies on Poo Patrol 

I had heard of Maskelyne, but wasn't aware of the controversy around him.

[Gondor]

Read about that years ago. Another thing they did was to make false camel poo with explosives in it where were scattered near enemy positions. Temdend to make camp fires evenings go with a bang.

Gondor