I am building a Panther F. The war ended before they were built so I am planning on an extended war scenario. Were tanks marked with fidelity at the end of the war like they were in 44? I know units were being created from survivors of other units so that true unit cohesion was a fleeting thing. Were unit insiginias, balkencrosses and vehicle I'd numbers maintained?

Balkenkreuz and numbers lasted longer, but unit markings tended to be less of a thing as the war wore on. In some cases numbers were left off, but the 'kreuz hung in there.

The beauty of a paper panzer is you can invent you're own scenario and do what you want!

Not entirely; if you're starting from a known set of practices the subsequent practices should at least seemed to have evolved naturally out of them. If this was an entirely new situation the OP created from scratch, or say what he describes only a decade or more down the road things may have changed enough to warrant "do what you want".

The paper panzers may not have been real, but they weren't fantasy. They were based on the technology and mindset of the time. They need to make some sense in that context.

Seems like safe bet to go either way on the markings. On the one hand, it's possible to envision a single unit being created and outfitted for employing the new machines; but on the other hand, things could have been desperate enough that they were getting shoved into existing units in order to shore them up. In the former case a unit marking (a new one, never seen before) would be appropriate; whereas, in the latter, probably not.

Pure speculation on my part, but that is the essence of what-if, right?

Good luck!

That was what I was thinking. Continuing the marking policies at the end of the war and realizing that the luxury of spending months to return divisions to full strength and retraining are long gone. Now they just combine surviving units and add new equipment as it arrives. I was wondering how they would remark the tanks when they were combined into a new unit?

Consider historical precedent. Usually tanks as they moved between battle groups would just be renumbered. Occasionally if a group lasted a commander would add a personal insignia for unit morale and identity.

Or you could go total fantasy and actually use your imagination and do something unique and interesting as opposed to just another sprayed tricolor tank with crosses on it.

Or a tank directly off the assembly-line and into battle. Russians in Leningrad did something similar.