Russian Camouflage and Markings
 by Tom Hillman

The Imperial (Tsarist) armor was painted like all equipment in a medium
green to khaki. Like the Germans, the color varied. "Armored Automobiles
of the Russian Army" mentions a grass green and I'm sold on that. English
imports stayed in their original colors. However, many were rearmored 
(Austin Mk.1) because they Imperial Russians found the armor of poor 
quality and re-armored the whole lot. In doing so they repainted them in 
their own colors. 

Markings: they were big on national flags for ID purposes, nickmanes and 
large roundels in white/blue/red (outer to inner) for the white army and 
red stars, names and slogans for the other side. Certainly the English 
Lanchester carried roundels for the same reasons.

The light gray Austin-Putilovs were all produced DURING the civil war by the
Red Army. Not a single one was finished to make WWI. (A huge error by western
historians and model wargame makers.) They were finished at the Putilov
factory and some seem to have used naval gray paint. Perhaps this paint was
taken from the vast stocks at the navy yard in Petrograd. A batch of Garford
-Putilovs built for the navy to defend the fortresses were also in a naval gray 
paint. The Tsarist and later Red airforce also used a gray paint on their planes.
These could be the same paints - the bolsheviks were not picky.

The Russian civil War may have been the greatest early use of armored cars
other than the WWI desert operations. Both sides used them extensively and
found them better than tanks due to speed and the mobile nature of the war.
Quite unlike WWI.


Source: Russian Armada #14 is a good reference. ModelCollector mag titled 
"Austins" in Russian also gives good details on production and color plates. 
A third and best reference is "The Armored Automobiles of the Russian Army 
1904-1917", published in Russia in 2000.