"German gun / vehicle grey early - mid war" Topic

What paint colors do you use for this in 15mm? I've access to most big brands at the hobby stores but paint colors are hard to get right… And I don't trust every brand either!

I used the Testors spray paint "Panzer Gray" to prime my vehicles, then dry-brushed and detailed from there and they look pretty good.

Testors isn't a bad deal if you just want a rattle can solution. I prefer Testors Acryl myself through the airbrush, but I think Tamiya a little too blue IMHO.

Damon.

Jovian1 is spot on, it's the dry-brushing that transforms the grayest of panzers. It's what I do with my 10mm 41-42 Germans.

I use Jovian1's method. Easy and looks great. IMHO worth the expense of Testors Model Master spray.

I used Colour Party 'Panzer Grey' which is really, really dark, almost black. Then heavily drybrushed with Humbrol ocean grey (a bluish grey) and a very light drybrush very light grey.

Panzer Grey was a very dark colour but faded pretty quickly, so you can use a wide range, but don't make it too light.

I think the local hobby store has Polly-S, Testors, and Tamiya…maybe Humbrol. A different store has GW and maybe some Vallejo.

@Garand – I'd use the Acryl airbrush solution, but I didn't want the clean up of the airbrush and the added mess – I just wanted them primed quickly – as I do with all of my figures – prime fast. After that it is the brush work which brings them to life. Loads of fun to paint – and fast too. Makes painting French tanks down right difficult by comparison for my early war project!

Of course to put a spanner in the works, a lot of German vehicles were painted with a 2/3 gray to 1/3 dark brown scheme up until the painting orders of July 1940……
panzertracts.com/PZfacts.htm if anyone wants to argue! I've also seen a number of large format high quality photographs from the French Campaign in recent publications that clearly show the 2 colour scheme as being fairly common if not universal. The same photos in a smaller format often don't show this clearly.

Yep: little known or studiously avoided. But if you're doing Poland 1939 or France 1940, grey Panzers are not in order.

Allen

To add, the photos showing the 2 colour scheme are clearly seen in Panzerwaffe Vols 1 (up to Poland) & 2 (France).
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Yes, you can do the two tone scheme, GW Bestial Brown is a decent match and it makes a change. Personally I've found that on the models you can hardly differentiate between the two colours once they are dirtied up a bit, which is presumably one reason why it was discontinued.

The more interesting thing are the variety of national insignia and unit markings, especially those nice big white/yellow crosses including some slap in the middle of the front hull.

I don't suppose I can get the thread back on track with a recommendation of a paint color from one of the available manufacturors that is historically accurate – at least as a starting point. Obviously wear and weathing changes it.

What you want is a match for the standard color specification RAL 46, later RAL 7021--as the color appeared back then. Vallejo says their VMC 862 is a match. If you Google "RAL 7021", you will see that Testor's, Model Masters, and (I think) Lifecolor also say they have RAL 7021-matched Schwarzgrau colors.

Don't expect any of these to be perfect color matches for small models, and as you've said, weathering will also affect it.

Allen

thanks, I ended up going with Testor's / Model Master's water based paints. I'll let you know how they come out on the mdoels.

Best match i have ever found for panzer grey ,was on the misted sidewalls of the spray booths at chrysler big van plant.Its really just a blend of many industrial colours.

"a recommendation of a paint color from one of the available manufacturors that is historically accurate"

OK Colour Party 'Panzer Grey', but it will need to be lightened on smaller models, it is the same colour as you'd paint a 1:1 tank in….

"OK Colour Party 'Panzer Grey', but it will need to be lightened on smaller models, it is the same colour as you'd paint a 1:1 tank in…."

so the smaller the model the lighter the color from the original?

The concept of 'Scale Colour' was popularised by Ian Huntley many years ago. Roughly, the smaller the scale of the model, the more that the model colour needs lightening.
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Note however that not everyone agrees on this!