"Help with German cammo schemes" Topic

Hi all, I know this may sound like a noddy question but please try to humour me, when did the German armoured vehicles switch from the flat dark grey colour scheme to the more elaborate mustard, green and brown disruptive pattern schemes. If year and theater are important, I am planning on doing the Hitlerjugend Division for June/July 1944, an armoured division for France may 1940 and an armoured division for operation Barbarossa mid 41. Thanks in advance for any help, and even more thanks for people who can resist saying "WOW even my kid's know that". Best wishes…CH

The colour for German vehicles changed from german grey to dark yellow in early 1943.

Cat herder:
The transition from variations on panzer grey to variations on German yellow happened in early and mid 1943 in most theatres. So your Barbarossa Germans should be panzer grey. The France 1940 should also be panzer grey but may also have a camouflage pattern using a dunkelbraun (muddy brown) over the panzer grey. Finally the HG division should be dunkelgelb (German yellow) with some green and possibly a red-brown camo scheme. There are plenty of pictures on the inter-web for reference. Cheers.
Rod Robertson

This is place to start

link

Thanks very much chaps, I can make a start on my pile of Pendraken lead now, all the best…CH.

Poland and France: Grey with dark brown (they are almost the same value-so appear as the same color in most B&W pics). Solid white crosses for Poland, solid yellow crosses for France (generally).

Soviet invasion to 1943: Grey. White cross with black center and various other versions.

1943 onward: dark yellow base with various patterns applied at factory and in the field of olive green and dark red.

1944-45: the base color changes to love green but the color combos stay the same. Generally.

Lots of variations on the themes above. Sometimes you see yellow with dark brown, sometimes late late war olive green with dark yellow etc. etc.

Africa is a whole different ball game besides.

Also in the '42 to '43 period, some vehicles might be camo'd with dark green, red-brown AND dark yellow over the dark gray basecoat. Finally some vehicles in S. Russia/Ukraine may have been painted in North Africa colors but deployed there due to hot and dry summers.

Damon.

France 1940 – Grey.

Though some may still have carried brown/grey. But even in Poland colour pics of plain grey can be found and many of colour pics of plain grey tanks in France in 1940 exist, as above, those Panzer IVs dont have a third of the tank in brown.

While the regulation order to effect the change to plain grey was officially done in July 1940, it had likely been going on for sometime previously like many such things in the German Army. The official date for an order specifying camo colour is not as exact as we may wish…

My personal view is that the 1940 order was merely an official enforcement of existing practice.

So from colour photographic evidence it seems that plain grey was in use from Poland 1939, and that possibly the brown was left off to speed up production times, or due to lack of paint stock or numerous reasons.

But it certainly seems you cant go far wrong with plain old grey…

There were some vehicles in basic tan on the Eastern Front as early as 1942. These vehicles were originally slated to go to North Africa but were diverted to the more critical theatre. A regular switch to tan was in place by 1943 as mentioned previously. Towards the very end of the war some vehicles were painted grey again due to shortages in the official tan paint. Also, keep in mind that German commanders had considerable leeway in this and frequently used whatever was available. You can get away with almost anything once allied air superiority disrupted supply lines and demanded extensive camouflage.

I like my grey and brown panzers to do double duty in Poland and France. YMMV.

So do mine…;)

I have them in both types of pattern as a mix looks right, especially for Poland.

Plus my 247 just looks pretty in grey/brown. ;)

vehicles earmarked for DAK got a light tan-ish color in 1942 (IIRC). Kursk should be all in dunkelgelb, and possibly with green line camo over the top.

One of my model kits actually had a dunkelgelb with tan (not dark brown) camo pattern, I think that was for southern Russia in 1943 or 44.

I'm heading down that path as well. Can't have too many early war panzers…

I think evidence for late war dark gray tanks is a bit questionable. IIRC Bruce Culver (one of the authors of Panzer Colors) has since disowned his own work mentioning this, and this interpretation may have arisen from B&W photos of vehicles based in dark green, as was the order in the Spring of '45.

Damon.

Hi again, first of all can I say a very big thank you for some exceptional feed back, it would have taken me a long time and quite a bit of cash to get this much first class information from books. The second thing is, because I am by nature a self doubter even if I have the book with the information in, I sometimes think that I may have misinterpreted what I have read, on TMP people say " Look, this is the way things were" and I feel much more confident with that knowledge. So thanks once again to all, best wishes…CH.

There was a couple of hybrid Tiger Is of KG Fehrmann knocked out in March 45 that were in grey, but this was due to that being the only colour the workshop that built them had available…