"Fuel and oil drums colors? WWII Era" Topic

I've got some oil and fuel drums that I am painting up for objectives in WWII games. What colors should I use? I assume OD for allies to some extent. I imagine they were also painted different colors. I have no idea what the Axis would have done or if 55 gallon type drums were even common among the Germans.

I suspect they'd match the vehicle colors, so probably dark gray for early war, sand for the desert, and dunkel gelb for the mid-late war period, though there might still be many dark gray ones about.

Definitely OD for the allies, but not that OD I got from the Testor's spray can the other day, that is more of a light, orange-brown color (nowhere near O.D. in my opinion).

I seem to recall reading that German 50 gal cans were painted a dark green grey color?

Yes, if in doubt most German stuff was painted RAL6006, a dark grey green.

Honestly, for things like oil drums any sort of dark grey or green is fine.

I believe drums from Burmah oil, who supplied most of the commonwealth forces- to the extent that Indian slang for an oil drum used to be a burmail, were either dark grey, medium green or dark blue often with the companies name printed on them,

I am really glad to set this thread as I will be needing to paint up some German oil drums for my Desert Rats movie Stronghold. Dark gray-green seems the ticket!

Terry

It seems that German 200l fuel drums were galvanised (zinc plated) and left unpainted, at least until shortages of zinc in late 1944 after which they were painted green or dunkelgelb.

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cujoman, that's a great help to me, always looking to add color where possible