"German tunic colour - Humbrol vs Vallejo question" Topic

The colour callouts on the back of the new Airfix 1/32 boxes suggest using Humbrol 78 for a sprinkling of German paratroopers' smocks. That is, some can be all Hu78, and others can be mottled.

Hu78 is a medium greyish-green shade. It is most often used as an interior colour for airframes. AFX also suggests it for some late-war German aircraft camouflage.

I've painted some FJs in this scheme and they look fine. Dark foundation colour, mid-green over it, pale highlights. I assumed this was a Luftwaffe colour so although unexpected it didn't seem obviously wrong.

I now see though that it's suggested by AFX for infantry jackets too. It appears much too light for this use to me. Infantry tunics were filed grey and Vallejo do a Field Grey colour. It's a dark greeny-grey and is in fact quite close to Humbrol 75 (Bronze Green).

Was there a lot of variation in field grey over time? Could it have weathered to as light as Hu78? If not, are my FJs wrong and a bit too light, or was paratrooper green a lighter colour than army tunic green?

I could redo them in Vallejo tunic colour if the Humbrol shade is badly wrong, but is it?

There was a great deal of variation in field grey so 78 is probably a valid option (Valiant's paint guide uses it IIRC) but like you I always thought it too light IMHO. Preferred 86 back in the day when I still used Humbrol. For the early FJ smock I would like to see a different shade to field grey so stick with 78 for that.

I use Humbrol 75 for British AFV's – I would have thought it far too dark and too green for German Infantry tunics. At the risk of airing too much on the movie and tv greyside of things, I have used Humbrol 92, 106, 111 with a little bit of 31 to grren it up…………

The one piece green jump smocks were quite a different colour to wool field grey tunics, lighter and greener (hence 'Green Devils').

The only mid green German infantry jackets would be faded reed green denim/HBT ones. Guy Sajer entertainingly described his as being faded to the colour of .

Wool uniforms didn't tend to fade so badly, shoddy late war production runs excepted.

Was there a lot of variation in field grey over time?

Yes. See …
picture

and …
link

Why is it that we can dress some 18th cent grenadier with great ease, but one of the best documented wars in history always makes my head hurt?

I am amazed that the main colour for the most prolific protagonist is in question.

As to the OP, after researching huge amounts of secondary and tertiary information I must confess I havent a clue!

"I am amazed that the main colour for the most prolific protagonist is in question."

I can never get my head around an acceptable paint shade for 'reed green' as it can be anything from a dark green to a light olive tan once it has faded a lot. Feldgrau is a bit more stable.

Still, if you think the Germans are bad, try the Sovs….

The curse of mass production in an era of poor quality control and not terribly colourfast dyes, plus a lot of our ideas of what uniforms should look like are coloured by films and TV shows (which have quality control and film colour issues all of their own).

At least for the eighteenth and nineteenth century we can all agree on what colour 'Cornflower Blue' is:)

wrt the actual colour of feldgrau, I have a 1942 stamped wool jacket which is indeed a dark green-grey shade. Eaxctly the same colour in fact as the Tamiya pot of field grey, with which I touched up the paintwork on some of the replacement buttons.

Thanks all. Especially donlowry, that first link is terrific. Some of those greys are actually brown!

@ Grizzly – I'm glad it's not just me. I figured a sort of slate grey all over with a bluish tinge. Then I looked at some sources, and, well, it ain't necessarily so.

It's quite liberating actually!

The main thing I find odd though is the proliferation of things like pleated pockets and coloured collar and shoulder insignia on uniforms worn in the field. What were they thinking??

They looked at British battledress and said:

"If pleats and insignia cost us the war, so be it, but defeat would be better than victory dressed like THAT!"

On a more serious, and constructive note, how is this for a summary of the development of the basic German "Field Grey" uniform?

1. up to mid war (41,42?) Greyish Green tunnic H78) and slate grey trousers (H31?);
2. At some point, although the effect continued to be called feldgrau, the tunic seems to have become the same colour as the trousers;
3. By 1944, any brown or grey that takes your fancy (This is why Speer should have been hanged "Crimes against military fashion").

With, of course, the caveat that all this stuff gets polluted by more and more wackier and wackier bits of camo kit as the war goes on.

The rather green jacket with the dark green collar (on the left in my 1st link) is the 1939-40 style, gradually (or quickly) replaced with more monochrome versions as time went on. Also, the early jacket was worn with slate-gray pants, which soon gave way to field gray (whatever that meant), probably matching the jacket.

Grizzlymc,

Except that the M44 Feldbluse was very similar, if not based on, British Battledress! Plus pleats and coloured collars were dropped during the course of the war too.

Don

It would seem logical that the pants would become the same colour as the jacket, but I get the (possibly unjustifiable) impression that the jacket lost its distinctive green, rather than the pants acquiring it, does that seem out of order?

Nigel

Well, maybe with defeat staring them in the face, they lowered their standards of sartorial elegance – a Speer reform perhaps?

BD looks awful, but its really just a layered, multi piece overall – quite practical really, and the baggyness is now pretty much standard worldwide.

Humbrol H111, if you can find any, (OOP but I found a shop with a huge stock here in Oz) is a good match for feldgrau.

I wonder if AFX will take the same approach with discontinued paints as they are doing with kits?

OOP kits are being systematically reissued with updated decals. It would be nice if a few discontinued paint shades were to come out, reformulated as acrylics.

ET

Which city in Oz?

I think the jackets became less green and the pants more green after 1940. Presumably troops were then issued "suits," that is, matching coats and pants. However, they might have continued to wear older issue until it wore out. And as can be seen in my 1st link, different issues … differed.

You have to wonder – at least Brit Army serge was the same beetroot poo brown for both wars.

I thought that the variation in your pic was 44-45 and that mid war it was all a sort of grey suit as you say.

Hard to believe that old sweats wouldnt have kept their distinctive uniforms till they fell off them!

Grizzlymc – Melbourne. These guys hobbyplace.com.au It was a couple of years ago. I bought a dozen tins & they had at least as much left.

Actually British BD colour could vary too, Canadian made BD was considerably greener than British made BD. The Canadians could use British made clothing & vice versa, just to confuse it further….

Pity, I will be visiting my dad in Sydney for a few days in August, maybe I can mail order.

I am aware of the confusion about cross dressing Canadians, it gives me headaches, as does webbing, blanco, and helmet colour.