"West German armor color 1985" Topic

I have been searching around but haven't found a definite answer….

for my 1985-ish project would the Germans still be in the single color scheme Gelboliv(?) or had they migrated to the tri-color?

If they are in the Gelboliv…I have seen discussion of it on the message boards but I have not seen a Vallejo equivalent. I am painting 3mm figures and when I start the Germans I am trying to settle on a color. I was wondering if the brown violet color might work?

The absolutely best match for RAL 6014 Gelboliv (which is what the West Germans used) is Model Masters RAL 6014 Gelboliv. The Bundeswehr began the change over in 82 or 83 and it wasn't completed until about 86. So for 85, the majority of vehicles would've been in NATO tri-color, but there would still have been a small but noticeable minority in overall Gelboliv. I use the Model Masters color for all my 3mm West Germans, as I set my battles in 1981.

Here's a post from my blog showing some of my West Germans in the Model Masters Gelboliv:

link

Thanks History… Sounds like I need to do a majority of the tri-color. Of course, I have to finish some Chieftains and then on to some motor rifle troops first!

I'd say (from memory of the time) that in 85, you'd want no more than about 10%-20% still in Gelboliv

Hi,

Just one remark. The three color camo "dreifarbtarn" had a computer calculated layout, meaning that all tanks had the spots on the exact the same place. This was at the time cutting edge technology. But this is a real challange for a painter as you have to make all your tanks clones of the orginal colour layout.

Greetings

Another remark:
In the V-Fall meaning real war would have been a "dunkelgelb" colour be issued to apply a second layer on the basic gelboliv. This was also used in manoever and the paintjob would be done by the tank crew. This tactic was dropped as the dreifarbtarn came into being.

Greetings

Rudi, I remember that the dunkelgelb was to be applied, but if all h*ll had broken loose and WarPac forces were running riot all over Germany, I wonder how many vehicles really would've gotten painted.

Mmmh… I would guess…. All of them.
:)
A war is no reason for breaking the rules of disobying an order.

Shattering German stereotypes there…. ;-)

I would expect no less from the German Army.

So what about the territorials? Would their vehicles be all decked out in German precision as well?

The M48s that rumbled passed us in 86 as we had a brew in a woods were plain Green,

I think this vid is late 80s, M-48 at about 5 mins, the rest is just pure Chieftain porn!!

YouTube link

Tally Ho!

I imagine the Heimatschütz guys were at the tail end of the paint supply line, so they were probably last to switch over to the tri-color

And some nice A-10 PORN as well!!!!

As a cadet (1985-89) we used to visit German units at Castlemartin quite a lot and I remember seeing plenty of plain olive Marders and Leopard 1s even then. Never saw a plain olive Leopard 2 though. Lots of softskins remained plain olive until they left Wales in 1996.

The Tankograd books show plenty of German AFVs and LOTS of softskins still in plain olive well into the late 1980s.