"Plain grey German helmets" Topic

Ok been working for awhile on my late war Germans, I have had lots of help Thankyou. What color is good for Good old fashioned Grey helmets also what colors work well for mouse grey uniforms. I have the fieldgrau,grey-green down half ways decent but am looking for the right grey type uniform additions . Special thanks to Bracken,Tango and Mick in Switzerland.

For such I use Panzer Grey.

link

??

Thanks for the link . Is Panzer grey a Vallejo color?

I think so, but it has likely changed names or is available under a different name by now (just to be confusing).

German Grey is what I've used…. Vallejo 995

In principle EW helmets were painted the mysterious 'apple green', then a sort of dark slate grey, then (not much later) feldgrau like everything else.

For wargaming purposes some sort of darkish blueish grey seems to work, for which panzer grey is fine although I use Humbrol Ocean Grey.

Mouse grey is a real tough colour to pin down, certainly paler than field grey, possibly with a greenish tint. I have a repro 'mouse grey' shirt which is almost light green but it is very old and faded. It wasn't hugely common as a uniform item outside of Waffen SS winter parkas, (and mouse grey shirts!).

German Grey is the name Vallejo gives the color I use for Panzer Grey. Model Master calls theirs Panzer Grey.

German grey is too dark. Mouse Grey was/is a middle grey color, the color of a mouse.

An awful lot of helmets were camouflaged with the same paint as vehicles in the latter part of the war (i.e. dark yellow base with olive green and/or red-brown camo).

Get googling German Helmets WWII helmets – they were mostly a dark green grey, not grey or black. Try this:

Helmet: Reflective Green 890 with a bit of black to taste.

You want to go about 2-1 green to black. Highlight with less black.

More color suggestions here:

link

Troy

Charcoal gray, or some such very dark gray.

For my late war Germans right I use field grey for the helmets with a touch of gloss

I used to use the Tamiya dark grey

RitterKrieg seems to have it about right having viewed his link to the models he shows. I have a real pair of helmets, an M40 in early war "apple green" with decals, and an M42 late war w/o decals in a rougher aluminum oxide textured finish in the "grey-green" paint which is much darker and grayer than the early war version . . .

"an M40 in early war "apple green" with decals,"

I'd love to see a colour photo of original 'apple green', and chance of putting one up?

If not, how does it compare in shade and tone to RAL6006/Feldgrau?

Specforce would you be willing to post pics?

Third on the pics please.

This very moment, I'm doing Vallejo Extra Dark Green 70896 for helmets, mess tins, gas mask cans, grenade heads, and so on. I highlight it with a straight tint (add white), as this radically decreases the overall saturation, turning a green into a gray. If you want it to look really green, do Extra Dark Green then Reflective Green as the highlight. But that will likely look too colorful and not dark enough.

Bookmark this link. Helmets are on page 2

link

Its about having fun. And gaming with your buddies. And jumping for joy when you roll the dice and getting the number you need to hit. Paint them purple and call it a day. I paint mine lime green. They look great. Only house rule is when they are lime green they ignore any hidden rule. :0)

Thanks for that link Snurl. I love ya man. And those uniforms look like they are an oven. Hot Hot Hot. Can i get a t-shirt commandant. How did they even freeze in Russia. I'd be lookin to take those uniforms off not put more on. They look like that heavy itchy wool. I think historians might have gotten it wrong. I think these things were so itchy that German soldiers took them off and than froze to death.

Iv'e seen some much thinner cotton Afrika Korps shirts and denim Panzer coveralls before, they didn't look so bad.

I just like the different array of colors for the kit stuff in those pictures. Looks like the word correct just got a bit broader.

And i paint most of my uncovered helmets with a 50/50 mix of Modelpower Olive drab and Russian green.

I gotcha Snurl. I was just busting chops. But i really do appreciate the link. Excellent resource.

No problem.

With my re-enactor hat on, I often wear wool uniforms, even in the height of summer, and they are fine. Wool really is miracle material and has the big advantage that even if you are soaked to the skin, it still keeps you warm.

Any itchiness is reduced as you are supposed to wear longjohns underneath, along with your wool shirt:) I've got a fair few original WW2 wool items and they really don't seem to be bad from an itchy pov, modern repros can be a bit scratchy though.

Wool doesn't seem to bother the sheep.

I do a lot of reenacting with my various German uniforms. First of all, the uniforms weren't pure wool, and as the war dragged on other materials/synthentics were incorporated into a "wool-blend" with less and less wool actually in the material.

I will tell you these uniforms ARE FRIGGIN' HOT, but in the winter, as someone else mentioned is the best material in those days, next to lamb fleece for warmth. Up until the invention of polypropolene and polarfleece fabrics, wool is the best material for durability and cold. Like the synthetics I just mentioned, it is the only natural material that will still keep you warm when it's wet. That is why you still see mountaineering and nautical clothing made with wool.

I've never had a "itchy" problem with the fabric, but, then keep in mind you were an undershirt anyway. The pants I never needed to wear something to isolate the woolen blend fabric from itching my legs because it never itched – and I'm sensitive to itchy wools typically. Not all wools feel the same besides. Then, everyone reacts a bit differently like reading "Martin Rapier" just above, for example?!?

So, Charles Besly and Painter Jim you've challenged me to dig out my gear – the helmets. Keep in mind people, photography will lie and color matching that way can be extremely hit or miss. Lighting, the type of lighting, the film rendition, the way it displays on your computer screen, the way a computer printout renders the color are all fallable and all will show differently, so that's never gonna be quite right. To give you an example how hard it can be, IMA.com spent 3 months trying to get the color just perfect to match original samples for their top-quality reproductions! And, by the way, their repros are indeed the finest on the market shy of the "real McCoy"! They got the thickness, the form, the weight, the color and the hardware as close to perfect as I've ever seen in the reenacting world.

I just moved from California to back to the family in Illinois to be caregiver to my Mother and our basement is totally full of my crap. Somewhere there in one of my buried CONTINCO boxes I have all my reenacting helmets, I will try to dig them out, which is easier said than done so I can photograph them. The best way to photograph anything is actually is in outdoor lighting with the diffused overcast light, not strong sunshine to get the most accurate color in photography. Artificial light is always skewed and will alter the color rendition badly.

Anyway, it may be a bit of a while before I can produce them, so keep checking this blog . . .

- Tibor

I did find my German (stahlhelms) helmets, by the way. Now to photograph them outdoors in the frigid artic-like Chicago winter we've been experiencing to get the proper lighting to represent the colors as accurately as I can! I'll be displaying an early war SS M-40 helmet in the "Apple green" color, a later war M-42 helmet in the "gray-green" color and aluminum oxide textured finish (this one is authentic – not a reproduction helmet like the others), an M-40 Afrika Zkorps helmet in "Desert Yellow", and a Falschirmjaeger helmet in the "apple green" finish.

By the way do any of you know how I can upload a photo onto these forum threads, because I've not quite figured it out yet?!?

I'd like to get these photos up soon for the parties who expressed interest!

To answer some of your wool uniform questions German uniforms were really never grey in the true sense. The 1936 tunic was very much a green-grey with a bottle green color (my name for it) color that contrasted distinctly. All four pockets were pleated w scalloped flaps, the next uniform we call the M-40 style was greyer and the contrasting green color went away being the same color as the rest of the tunic. It to had the deluxe pleated pockets w scalloped flaps. Then they began to cheapen the uniform – more synthetics added, about the same color grey w a tinge of brown creeping in. At this point dye lots began to vary a bit. It had simpler pockets, still pleated but w a straight flap design – this is referred to as the M-41 tunic. Then, the went to the M-43 design, lot more variation in lots, from the gray to almost a gray-brown and a lot less real wool! To save on manufacturing cost and time, the pockets had no pleats and the flaps were straight.

By 1944, the SS had cotton fiber herringbone twill button down, four pocket tunic w the plain pockets in what we call the "Dot 44" or "Peadot" camouflage pattern that was beginning to be the standard issue for all SS. This was called "Erbsenmuster" by the Germans, meaning "Pea Fabric"! All the "M" designations mentioned above were all post-war affectations and the Germans didn't assign these distinctions and names- the just issued the uniforms and that was it! Towards the end of the war, initially issued to the 12th SS "Hitlerjungen" Div. were issued a waist jacket that wrapped to one side, like Panzer jackets and terminated at the waist like British jackets or "Ike" jackets, if you will! Simpler less material cost cutting design that was to be the new standard for all! But, this never got wide distribution as the end of the war ended all that!

There was one last design destined to be the universal field uniform called, "Leibermuster"(sic?) that never saw distribution to anyone that can be documented but were found stockpiled in warehouses! These were intended for both Heer and SS troops! It's a very garish looking kind of camouflage best described as looking a lot like current Swiss camouflage! It's pretty ugly look it up – it's got weird splotches of "muddy red" color in it and black splotches on a tannish-mustardy background IIRC.

Correction to above post, 2nd sentence: I meant to say "bottle-green" collar!

Never heard of apple-green German helmets.

this one is authentic – not a reproduction helmet like the others

As a museum collections technician, I must warn you that colors can and will change and fade over time. Colors change due to chemical interactions with particulates in the air and humidity changes, contact with other materials (like acidic paper), or energy transfer from light. If it is an original, there is absolutely no guarantee that it has its original color. Conservators have chemical tests to discover the original pigments, but what you have is the result of 70 years of changing environments.

Well, a lot more information is readily available nowdays within minutes, thanks to google and wiki. And, when the Berlin wall came down information that was previously unavailable to the west came pouring out.
That may be the reason, or may not.
A few posts back I added a link to the Warlord forum, where a collector has posted many photos of original German kit. The variations there were way beyond anything I knew previously.

I bought my first book on German Army uniforms way back in the early 1970s. It was quite a comprehensive book but was almost entirely in black and white. What colour there was wasn't particularly helpful for painting my Tamiya plastic figures. Indeed, just about the only colour reference I had was the back of the model's box.

My more recent books are full colour on every page and printed on quality paper. They show real people wearing authentic (not reproduction) items of uniform, fully kitted out as a soldier of that time would have been. Or else uniforms and equipment are laid out and photographed and placed beside the same item from a different manufacturer, or from an earlier or later time in the war. You get to see what enormous variation there was in what I once thought was a pretty standard thing.

You should welcome this progress Tim, and not be suspicious about it!

"Trust, but verify." Ronald Reagan

Easier said than done. I am completely unable to verify the content of most, if not all, of the books that I own. If I could then I would probably have written them myself. I have neither the knowledge nor the resources to set about verifying the content of the books I buy.

Instead I trust. I trust that the author has done their homework and is not accidentally or deliberately misleading me. I trust that the reviews I read before purchase are honest and unbiased, or that if they are not then another reviewer will point that out. Finally I trust in my own judgement that I have correctly assessed whether or not that book is worth buying.

Even my venerable Andrew Mollo 'WW2 Army Uniforms' has different colours for German trousers, jackets and helmets through the war, eve if the plates are colourised.

"Never heard of apple-green German helmets."

It is one of those early war mystery colours, I'd really love to se a real one.

"By the way do any of you know how I can upload a photo onto these forum threads, because I've not quite figured it out yet?!?"

The only way is to put them on a external site like flickr or photobucket and cut and paste the url to the image in. Of just put them on a blog or website and give us the link.

Two clarifications I need to make here. One is this so-called "apple-green" is simply an affectation of just what afficianados call the early war "gray" helmets. In essence they had a more distinct greenish-hue to the gray color, but were still very gray basically. This nomenclature does not suggest that it's really green or that it even remotely approximates the color of any green apple, it's just nomenclature that is bantered about to distinguish the gray color from early war to later war darker greenish-gray (which almost) is one poster appropriately described it as "slate grey" in color. As far as I know those were the only two colors used for "combat" helmets. We're not talking about parade helmets or anything other than standard issue combat helmets.

Also, IIRC the national symbols and branch sheilds were against regulation from being on the helmets from as early as 1942, as being too conspicuous. Hence no newly issued helmets had the decals affixed. This however, didn't motivate those who already had them from scratching them off, even though it was clearly against regulation to have them.

The German soldiers especially Falschirmjaegers as well as HEER and SS, were all about "stylin'"!!! Wearing scarves tucked into their blouses, like an ascot, under the tunics, to the way they pinched the front crown of the M-43 field cap, among other things. They liked to get away with these sorts of "badges of individuality" and "customizing" a bit, breaking some of the dress codes stipulated in the regulations when they could get away with it.

The second clarification is really a correction to my comments regarding the over-wrap waist jacket I said were first issued to 12th SS Hitlerjugend division. My Bad, I had a "brain-fart"! My apologies! Before I get slammed to the mat by my highly-critical colleagues! It was first issued to the Panzer Lehr Division, immitating the style of the popular Panzer Corps jackets. It also saved on material, big-time.

I think the fact is that wartime colors just weren't exact.

I try to paint models in terms of "ranges" of colors. I'll paint one thing at a time – say, helmets. I mix up something I think looks right, then paint a dozen. Then I do it again the next night – mix a color that looks right, paint another dozen. Over time I get a nice "range" of colors.

You are quite correct wartime colors certainly weren't perfect no matter what. Though, one can say with a degree of certainty is that helmet colors, if anything, whatever the current "standard" was at the time were quite consistent, in their paint color. This can't be said about their uniforms and certainly, German tanks paint schemes other than the basic issued colors where painted and applied in varying dilutions and patterns at the whim of the person painting it. Hence, in painting armor almost anything goes.

Even german tanks when coming from the factory after they started camouflaging them in the factory rather then sending them out the door in their characteristic ochre yellow color, were only following general color position guidelines. They didn't use spray "templates" so the patterns were slightly different from tank to tank. Furthermore, different tank factories had different camo pattern standards depending which manufacturer produced them. In fact, the patterns of some tanks could, literally, permit accurate identification of which factory it was produced.

Sorry for the big whine, but this is all very frustrating because it means I've painted everything incorrectly.

Just roll with it. None of my miniatures are perfect in color, and that can be easily written off as (1) color fading and wear from usage; (2) inconsistent pigments due to wartime shortages and improvisation; and (3) scale effect. My ACW miniatures are a wild variety of dark blue because some of them are wearing surplus Regular army uniforms, while others are wearing homemade/redyed uniforms, and a few stole trousers from a band of Frenchmen across the border in Mexico.

I'm not familiar with the Andrew Mollo books, did they really show completely different colours for German tunic and trousers?

That's not impossible. The feldbluse (tunic) was feldgrau (field gray) and the trousers were steingrau (stone gray) at the start of the war. After 1940 both were feldgrau, but steingrau trousers would occasionally cycle through the supply system.

As above, in Mollo, the only significant contrast was Stone Grey trousers and Field Grey jackets early in the war. The same jacket/trouser contrast was on the Airfix box art.

After that it was all 'field grey' and pretty much up for grabs. Apart from reed green denims or tropical uniforms of course. Or Gebirgsjager 'mushroom grey':)

I recall Guy Sajer recounting how their uniforms had faded to 'piss green', but I suspect they were denims.

Martin, from this and your other posts – where do you reenact? I'm with KGvR out of Colorado.

This is a very informative discussion. I am getting ready to start painting Artizan 28mm Panzer Lehr in their wraps and trousers. Were these both Field Gray? Also what camo pattern for their helmet covers in June '44? THANKS

Yes, both "wrap" (an Assault Gun tunic occasionally worn by Panzergrenadiers, not exclusively PzLehr) and trousers would have been feldgrau.

The helmet cover for Wehrmacht Panzergrenadiers would have been "Splinter-A" camouflage.

Thanks a bunch!

I recall Guy Sajer recounting how their uniforms had faded to 'piss green', but I suspect they were denims.

Is he accepted as being a reliable source now?

"Is he accepted as being a reliable source now?"

Well, I think for some things, he'd hardly have bothered making it up. Why make up a story about the colour of your uniform?

Making up a story about whether you were or weren't in the SS I can understand.

All veterans stories need to be approached with caution, as some of this stuff is very hard to remember for all sorts of reasons, and people at the time were interestedg in different things to wargamers.

My Dad swore blind for decades his house was destroyed by a V2, and was completely gobsmacked when it turned out (via the London bombing survey) to have been a V1. Didn't remember it being a doodlebug at all, just a huge bang. He was even more gobsmacked when it turned out my Great Aunt had been on duty as an ARP warden at the time and had seen that particular V1 go over, but she'd never mentioned it to him!