"German Grenadiers" Topic

Fellows:

I'm not the most informed fellow when it comes to WW2 uniforms, and as I am just getting to this period I thought I would paint up some Bolt action German Grenadiers…picked up the box to find that some of the figures are wearing the shelter half as a jacket.
Question parte the first: What type of camouflage pattern could these be in?

It also says on the box "also ideal to be used as Waffen SS. All you need do is paint a suitable camouflage pattern"
Question parte the second: Does this mean that the shelter half, if I wanted them to be ss, could be in pea dot pattern?
Question parte the last: When I type into google German Genadier uniforms I get all sorts of SS references, are SS and grendaiers the same thing?

Thanks in advnce

Fellows:

I'm not the most informed fellow when it comes to WW2 uniforms, and as I am just getting to this period I thought I would paint up some Bolt action German Grenadiers…picked up the box to find that some of the figures are wearing the shelter half as a jacket.
Question parte the first: What type of camouflage pattern could these be in?

It also says on the box "also ideal to be used as Waffen SS. All you need do is paint a suitable camouflage pattern"
Question parte the second: Does this mean that the shelter half, if I wanted them to be ss, could be in pea dot pattern?
Question parte the last: When I type into google German Genadier uniforms I get all sorts of SS references, are SS and grendaiers the same thing?

Thanks in advnce

The poncho / shelter used by the standard Wehrmacht had it's own default camo pattern:

SS pea-dot camo was something usually used on jackets, pants, and helmet covers. But this was done to the uniform. Seems the SS also applied this to their own zeltbahns, too.

Google around -- there are LOTS of variations on the pea dot pattern, and SS often used mismatched patterns between their pants, jackets, and helmets.

And for your third question, the idea of Panzer Grenadiers was to have a highly mobile infantry unit which could keep up with the armor. Both the Wehrmacht and the SS deployed units to do this job, so yeah, duplicate effort for the same idea.

Wehrmacht is the term used for the whole of the German armed forces. The Heer (army) and Luftwaffe used the splinter pattern (there are a few variations). The shelter quarter (poncho) had two sides of the same pattern, but different color tones (spring and fall). Google should turn up good images if you type in Zeltbanh. The SS had several different camo patterns, most of which had two different colors (again, spring and fall). Planetree, oak A, oak B will return good results for the pattern of Zeltbanh.

Pea dot was late war and limited to, as far as I remember, just a tunic and pants. No pea dot zeltbanhs that I know of.

Hope that helps.

No peadot zeltbahn or helmet covers.

Other than usual SS camo such as autumn oakleaf you can also do the zeltbahn in italian camo (late war)

I wrote these a long time ago.

Artizan Guides are here
link

Crusader Guides are here
link

Here is a link to a very basic paint guide on video. It does show and cover the different parts of the uniform including the zeltbahn shelter (around 3:05).

Mick's guides linked above are more detailed so they may be more useful. As mentioned, I linked this video simply to show the difference between regular uniform parts and shelter sections.

YouTube link

You can also use regular Grenadiers with the classic tunic and paint the trousers and helmet cover in camo.