"Paint for 1940" Topic

Hello
I am entirely new to WW2 gaming. My preferred paints are AK Interactive.I am hoping that someone can suggest paint colours for the basic uniforms (jackets and pants, if different)and vehicles for the French, British and Germans. My vehicles will be one colour, no camouflage. I can look at Vallejo paints if that is easier.

Thank you

Hello
I am entirely new to WW2 gaming. My preferred paints are AK Interactive.I am hoping that someone can suggest paint colours for the basic uniforms (jackets and pants, if different)and vehicles for the French, British and Germans. My vehicles will be one colour, no camouflage. I can look at Vallejo paints if that is easier.

Thank you

I use Field grey for the Germans (I use Tamiya) and Khaki Drab for the Brits and French (again Tamiya but there are lots of other good paints out there)

Welcome! German vehicles should be dark gray and British dark green. French could also be dark green, or shade a bit toward olive if you want to make them different. You haven't mentioned scale, but generally speaking, the smaller the scale the brighter you want your colors to be.

Good luck. WWII can be a very interesting period to wargame.

Pity you only want to do single colours. French tanks in this period had some fantastic paint schemes.

link
My WW2 armies are mainly 1:144 scale and for my British armour I use Vallejo " Refractive Green" 890, as base with over stripes of German Cam Dark Green 979 for the period after May 1940. A Flames of War painting site suggested using Brown Violet 887 as base and that works OK.
For German armour of early war I tend to use a 70:30 mix of Vallejo German gray:white with gentle dry brushing of a paler mix. Lot of evidence suggests there may have been brown stripes over the Panzer gray, but I stick with plain gray.

For uniforms I have found the Mick Farnworth guides helpful (https://www.artizandesigns.com/painting-guides.php )
and there also guides on the Flames of War site.

Andy: Here you go. Each link is for the AK set and if you scroll down you can see the AK stock number and description of the color. Hope this helps.

German: link

French: link

British: link

There are a total of 28 sets available with the colors used to make up those sets. "I" am a convert to AK myself.

Thank you. Any more suggestions for specific paint colours for vehicles?

Hi, Andy. Haven't done early war French but for German AFVs 1939-40 I use Panzer Grey, Dunkelgrau RAL 7021. If you Google this you'll find various makers. British armour I use Khaki Green #3 which on advice I make up from Vallejo using 2 parts English Uniform 921 and 1 part each Olive Grey 888 and German Camo Black-Brown 822. That said I see now that a number of makers including Vallejo and AK do a Khaki Green #3 so you could just go with one of those to save bother.

Thank you Brunanburh

Andy, no problem. French tanks appear to have had camo schemes based on a number of colours including olive green, pale green, brown (often a red-brown) and yellow-brown or sand. The link shows a Flames of War guide for painting French tanks.
link

The link shows a Flames of War guide for painting French tanks.
link

Just be aware the paint codes are for the no longer made Colours of War range .

This is a coversion chart for using VJ colours .
PDF link

Thank you

French Tank Camo.

link

Hello, if that may be of any help, here is a little tutotial I've made to paint French armour camo. But some vehicles were actually plain dark green…

link

I think it is crazy to think how far the hobby has come. Twenty years ago Vallejo was just about the only paint anyone would use. And now you have not only Army Painter and AK, but also Scale75 and probably others.