Decals for 11th Armoured Division - 15mm

In the course of making my 4 KSLI Carrier Platoon vehicles, I had to order some more decals and ended up ordering from both Plastic Soldier Co. and Skytrex so I thought I'd use this as an opportunity to do a mini-review and comparison. Battlefront Miniatures also make decals for 11th Armoured Div. but, as far as I can see, these are only available bundled with their own models so not a general-purpose solution and I have no experience of them.

Soon after I started with 15mm Second World War models, Skytex launched their 'Command Decision' range of vehicles with complimentary transfers. The latter were of a type that were placed direct on the model and dampened on the reverse to release them. Later they released some more conventional waterslide decals. I ordered some of these and have been using them ever since.

Second World War British vehicle markings is a complex area. Given that I just wanted to give a reasonably plausible appearance to Wargames pieces, I've not made a great study of it, referring to online sources and 'D-Day to Berlin' by Terence Wise. 

Skytrex offer individual sheets for different divisional emblems, arms of service signs, allied stars and the squadron symbols for armoured units, giving the great advantage of flexibility. The detail and print resolution is good and I've had no problems with adhesion or getting them to conform to the model surface, albeit I have always used Microset and Microsol to help with these.

Plastic Soldier, by contrast, offer a pack containing "4 sheets with divisional insignia, arm of service markings, bridge signs and tactical markings.  Enough decals for at least 50 vehicles". 50 seems a bit optimistic to me - for a start there are 77 divisional symbols and with two per vehicle... 

Again the print quality was very good. A few significant differences to Skytrex were apparent. 

• The divisional signs are somewhat larger and, I think, oversize, to the extent that they are larger than the mudguards on their Universal Carriers.
• The arm of service markers don't include the infantry brigade - green background with a white 60, 61, 62, 63 or the engineers.
• The armoured squadron markings  are somewhat smaller than Skytrex - I don't know if one is correct or they just varied in real life.
• Obviously with smaller multi-purpose sheets there are fewer duplicates. For example there are only enough armoured squadron symbols for 5 vehicles from the same squadron and 10 from the same regiment - if you are playing a set of rules at a higher formation level with just a few vehicles per sub-unit that is great but would be a problem as you get closer to 1:1 representations.
• The set includes bridge classification signs - Skytrex don't offer these and, as far as I can see, nobody else does separately to buying a pack of vehicles. They aren't easy to paint freehand with acceptable results so this is a big plus. Unfortunately the weight options don't include all the necessary options, for example: 5 for Lloyd Carriers. Again there are quite small numbers - only enough for five Shermans and M10s, for example.

This last image shows the size difference between Skytex and PSC squadron markings. It also shows Skytrex's Allied Stars - something missing from the PSC pack.

It is disappointing that there are no vehicle numbers or names available at this scale from either source. 

I think there are plusses and minuses for both suppliers and, to depict all vehicle markings you would need to use both makes and/or do some hand painting. 

One last point: Skytrex currently charge £5 to ship decals so make sure you work out all the different sheets you might need and order them in one go - and don't do as I did and keep thinking of additional ones!