"Help required with Afrika Korps uniform and Caunter colors" Topic

I am painting up Afrika Korps and British for the desert war. Actually, painting is the wrong tensed -- I have mainly finished.

While surfing, I found this picture link

It shows two disturbing things.

1. The afrika Korps troops are in tan uniforms. Most painting guides have the Afrika Korps in green uniforms. You can see discarded / washed out green uniforms as well on the ground (and the pith helmet on the ground is green as well).

2. If you look at the truck on the left, on the roof you can see the duck egg blue caunter color that most guides say is wrong.

Are the colors of this picture true, or has it been photoshopped? If the colors are true, when did the DAK get tan uniforms, and how prevalent were they?

The men are in shirt sleeves, and the shirt was a light tan color. The pants may be Italian, Luftwaffe issue or captured Allied which was extremely common, or just faded completely. I do mine in shades of tank with jackets in a darker green (actually late war armor 'dunkelgelb' works well)

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buy this and save yourself endless grief
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I don't see no blue?
track this down ,save you even more grief
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Look at the stripe right next to the head of the guy who is leaning over the bonnet. Looks duck egg blue to me. or is it an optical illusion caused by the fact it is near the blue sky?

probably an optical allusion, they get around a lot you know..I think this is a recoloured picture.. get the books there really is no substitute for a good personal reference section..helps you sort out all the fluff that is on the intranet..

They do not look like German uniforms to me – more like US or Italian also the weapon in background looks more like 40mm Bofors to me rather than a 3.7" AA

I was afraid it was a recoloured picture -- if it isnt it adds lots of fuel to the various camo scheme discussions.

The photo looks colourised, a lot of the 'colour' phots taken of the DAK were, for reproduction in 'SIGNAL'. Tan uniforms weren't uncommon & there were a number of sources including British, French & Italian stocks. The 'light blue' looks like light gray to me!

The tarpaulin on the truck to the left 'should' also be in Caunter scheme, but isn't. I've got no idea what pattern it's meant to be.

Lastly don't blindly trust the colour rendition on your monitor or the scanner used in the first place. The photo is almost certainly a copy of a copy of a scanned image.

I have recently being toying with the caunter scheme, here is my interpretation

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Tis not the colour that sets my antena going its the realtive neatness of the uniforms almost freahly pressed – not German IMHO

I agree with Truscott, their uniforms don't look German, including the caps, although the one on the right does seem to have a German holster (partially blocked by his arm). While DAK uniforms started out olive green they quickly faded to khaki tan, but by then they would look more worn and faded than the ones in the photo. And not so pink.

And, yes, the gun is too small to be a 3.7"; it looks like a 40mm Bofors to me also.

What does "caunter" mean?

Caunter was a british cam scheme used early war and there is some disagreement whether it involved blue or not.

The german uniforms varied in colour. If you look at that picture up the thread of all the kit. Uniforms started that sort of green or a sort of sand brown like that roll. Incidentally rather like that pic referred to by the op. They then bleached and washed out. Pretty soon they were almost all that sort of stone colour shown on the cardinals book cover.

Re the Caunter scheme, the Matilda 2 in the RAC Tank Museum in Bovington, 'Golden Miller', was painted in this scheme with the advice of 7th Armoured Veterans, definitely featuring Duckegg blue in the 70's and 80's. Admittedly, it has since been repainted to eliminate this and replace it with green grey to fall in line with the academic view.

I know which view I follow….

Actually those uniforms look a bit like the tropical pattern Luftwaffe one. The colour (if accurate, see above!) is similar to their tan pattern.

The gun is a Bofors, although it doesn't look like the standard mounting.

Don – Caunter pattern explained a bit here: link

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Here are three possible choices with an explination.

I seen a number of DAK uniform colors … From pale olive to shades of biege, tan or khaki … And in some cases the soft cap was an off white. As they occasionally bleached the cap with "anti-gas" capsules which may have contained some sort of clorine-type chemical which "bleached" them to a lighter color to more closely match the desert …

Aha! Caunter is the name of the guy who invented it! That explains it. I had seen the 3-color cammo before, just never encountered that name for it.

The desert isn't off white…. DAK olive faded like crazy into lighter tan shades, (incidentally US M41 field jackets also did this), but most of the guys bleached out their caps to help the process along – this made them look like old desert hands rather than newbies right off the boat.

It was purely a 'vanity' thing – sort of like the US airmen taking the wire stiffener out of their '50 mission' caps or modern UK soldiers shrinking their berets to fit. I'd often wondered where hose Germans got the bleach from out in Libya – thanks for clearing that up!

Legion 4 – the mark of a veteran soldier in the DAK was a very faded, pale cap as you describe. Considerable lengths were gone to in achieving that look – washing the cap in petrol was a common gambit but what you describe would work too.

1940 – 1941 – By mid to late 1940 many newly arrived vehicles and tanks appear to be painted a plain overall colour, BS. 52 Pale Cream is cited for the 6 RTR new A9 cruisers, whilst the more normal colours seem to have been Light Stone No.61 or Portland Stone No.64. However about November 1940 a new scheme was specified in G.O 297. This scheme comprised the tri-coloured disruptive designs now known as ‘Caunter Scheme'. Very many AFVs and softskins carried this scheme of Portland Stone No.64 basic with Silver Grey No. 28 and Slate No.34 or Khaki Green No. 3 in angular disruptive stripes. Period G.Os specify Light Stone No.61 or Portland Stone No.64 at various times and a local variation may have substituted a mixed light blue-grey for Silver Grey No. 28. A scheme for use in the Sudan specified Light Stone No.61 with Light Purple Brown No.49 in patches or stripes. A variation of Caunter was applied for use in Greece during 1941. This has the areas normally painted Silver Grey 28 to be either Light Purple Brown or Slate 34 and the remainder Light Stone No.61. The actual pattern deviated in detail from an exact replication of the drawings so perusal of photographs is recommended here.

by Mike Starmer and Mike Cooper
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Thank you number4 … I've been to "the desert" 3 times, … thanks for the clarification … I know well how soldiers do things to look "jaunty", veteran, etc. … I took the metal and nylon "stiffener" out of my officer's dress hat/cover. To get the "50 mission crush" look. But I normally wore the folding "Overseas" or "C-Cap" with the Airborne/Glider patch until it was no longer authorized by my current assignment. Then I wore the "50 Mission Crush" dress cover. However being a Grunt we rarely wore a dress uniform of any type. Mostly "Fatigues/Jungles/Camo Jungles and/or eventually the BDU … When the Army was transitioning to the BDU, we were allowed to wear the old faded Jungle Fatigues(had 3 sets) … I wore mine until they were no longer authorized. Besides being comfortable, they did give me that "Old Soldier" look … As I had been deployed to the jungle 3 times plus had 2 tours in the ROK on the DMZ, before I had made my 3 trips to the desert … Not really on topic, but it does give some idea of … if you will … "the soldier mythos" … and/or as you say, "vanity" …

" I'd often wondered where hose Germans got the bleach from out in Libya – thanks for clearing that up!"

There was an amusing anecdote in John Foleys 'Mailed Fist' about the perils of using anti-gas paste as bleach. He rather overdid it one day when doing his washing and managed to dissolve his underwear.

I can't imagine what the QM would say about all his anti-gas supplies being used for washing.