This is a fascinating thread that I missed long ago. Glad it was revived. It'll come in useful and I'll bookmark it.

Hi,

I have made some experiments, trying to find what is best for me-not going for perfect match . For the main colors RAL 8000 and 8020 I used Gunze paints, for the disruptive 7008 and 7027-Vallejo.

Two pieces of plastic card, primed with grey primer.

For Ral 8000, H402 Grunbraun is perfect match IMHO:




For RAL 8020 I sprayed H44 flesh, think is very close match. But it's semi-gloss, so is varnished with AK ultra matte:




With Vallejo RAL 7008:



..and RAL 7027:



For me, those colors are close match for DAK, but it's up to personal preferences which brand to use. I hope this was helpful

Cheers!

Those photos by Eliot Elisofon need to be used with care. The tanks were exploded, a process that covers them in mud.



For example, the rectangular panel in front of the Pz.4 in your photo above, is from the rear wall of a Tiger, and we're looking at the inner side, which we know for sure was painted blue-grey. Here it looks as brown as everything else.

In this photo, I think we're looking at a part of one Tiger that isn't muddy. I marked the colours that I believe we're seeing.



David

Photos uploaded at last. I hope I am not thrown off the forum for sacrilege.

I know I am reviving this thread after a long quiet spell but I just wanted to thank Erich for the research he has done and the resulting information. I have wanted to find a paint code for the DAK "sand" pattern for some time.I wanted to paint a real vehicle in this colour and the closest I could find was "coyote brown". After much research across the paint codes of the UK, USA and Europe, I found this thread and my problem was solved, RAL 8000. I have had the vehicle painted but I do not seem to be able to upload a photo. I will keep trying, but in the meantime. thank you Erich!

I get a lot of my anime collections there.

iOffer is great. I picked up a 24 DVD The Honeymooners collection for $32, including shipping.

I believe that's where I got my copy from. In practice, though, I have found the used book sellers on Amazon are among the most expensive out there for specialty books. For many of the higher priced books in my military library I will either shop eBay or another site called iOffer where I have scored some spectacular purchases. With eBay I enter the title I want into the search and add it to my saved searches so I get a notice in my email every time one is listed. A little patience usually pays off in huge savings.

The iOffer site isn't an auction like eBay. There sellers ask a price for an item and buyers either accept the price or negotiate directly with the seller to an agreed on compromised price by offer/counter-offer. The selection of items there isn't as great as eBay but seems far more eclectic, especially with things like books.

You can also try contacting Mr. Charles K. Kliment, who lives in New Jersey and translated the book into English, to see if he has any more copies available. That is how I purchased my copy. BTW, I paid $39 plus $4 s&h.

The book is Wehrmacht Heer Camouflage Colors 1939 - 1945 by Tomas Chory copyright 2000, 2005 (ISBN 80-902634-2-9) published by Aura Design Studio, Czech Republic. There's an email address of [email protected] which might still be good.

Amazon had a pair of them used but not cheap.: http://www.amazon.com/Wehrmacht-Heer-Camouflage-Colors-1939/dp/8090263429

You're probably right, Jim!
I don't want to exact matching colors, just wondering
Curious to know the name of that book.

Cheers!

That's always the rub- pictures used as reference are seldom fully trustworthy as are images displayed on monitors. years ago I bought a book about German paint and it had color swatches and was chock full of pictures of the original German military gear showing the paints used and where the references the book provided came from. The title eludes me but I'll hunt it down from my stacks of reference material and post it.

Add to that the insistence of some modelers about lightening/darkening colors based on scale and the proliferation of 'experts' who only agree that they are experts and the whole enterprise of creating authentic colors on a model is a madman's errand.

Throw in the variations of field applications and 'use what's available' mentality some tactical/supply situations called for and the whole thing gets even more crazy.

I long ago stopped caring about the exactness of matching colors and just go with what looks right to me compared to the reference material I chose to follow, the aforementioned book.

Hello!

I'm also struggling to find close match (not seeking for "exact color", though ), for RAL 8020. I've made some experiment with three paints: AK Interactive RAL 8020, Vallejo RAL 8020 and Gunze H79 sandy yellow.
I use only acrylics





On several pictures it seems that Afrika Braun RAL 8020 is kind of pinkish tan color (very slight pink hue), like on this Pz IVG's, destroyed in Tunisia.



AK color is not pleasing for me-too yellowish and doesn't spray very well (unlike their new paints though).
Vallejo is pretty good match, but a bit dark I think.
Gunze H79 is also good, but seems without the pinkish hue.

Anyone have tried AMMO/Mig RAL 8020,how it looks in reality?

Cheers!

Erich, I really applaud your work on this topic, and appreciate the "heads up" on the book. But I would still caution folks here to be careful about color decisions based either on something seen over the Internet, or even in print form. As someone who used to earn his bread from taking pictures, there are simply too many variables to be precise without using agreed-on standards.

One significant problem with color photos is they change color over time. The dyes used in the emulsions weren't intended for perpetual preservation. The usual symptom of aging in a color photo is the way reds shift to blueish. The photo on the cover of the book you suggested makes it look like Winter light.

The only solution was the use of dye-transfer prints, which were made from three color steps. Hugely-complicated and expensive, these are mostly archival photos and art prints. Not the kind of thing that LIFE or the propaganda department in a country losing the war would bother with.

I also would dispute the assertion that the shading differences between colors would be apparent even in B&W photos. Many of the photos were accept as gospel today were snapshots taken by soldiers in moments of relaxation or to document a great adventure in their lives (one reason German snapshots seem to be overwhelmingly from the early part of the war and not later on). Their cameras have uncoated lenses, the films they're using are not the best quality in some cases, and the lighting is haphazard at best (shooting into the sun vs. shooting with the sun at your back).

Complicating everything after that is the accumulation of dust on the vehicles right from the get-go.

Available in USA from Amazon.com Text in both English and German.

http://www.amazon.com/Afrikakorps-Rommels-Tropical-Original-Color/dp/0764321404/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1299264034&sr=1-2

Sorry for the 3 deleted posts, but in my text was some signs, not accepted by the software. So now the rest of my text:

For a military project, we was asked 2 years ago for an adequate desert camouflage colour, so I brought in RAL8020, knowing that RAL8000 is to much “dark” and “green” in front of dunes.
We have made a prototype in RAL8020 dull matt (I hope its correct translated), “Stumpfmatt"
We even displayed this vehicle last year at the EUROSATORY in Paris.
Which means, we would not have gone out with this vehicle/colour composition to the world biggest fair for military vehicles for “Nuts” or at least without the best available research.

Last year my wife recommend me to look for a hobby to get some distance from my job, so I returned to modelling, with focuss on the North African campaign. In the meantime I am not sure if my wife would recommend this again, because now I spend more time with my hobby than with her (as she says...)
Now, as a modeller, I have never seen RAL8020 on a vehicle in colour and/or photographed with the technic of the last years, but now it stand in front of my office. So I picked up all my old photos, showing RAL8000 in the desert and tried to analyse some b/w pictures for some modelling projects for myself, comparing this with my actuall colour pictures of this two colours.
So for all which are interested on the shade of the two main DAK basic colours simply photographed, and beside all other technical reasons, which could change the colourtone on computers, some photos of a truck, painted in RAL8000 matt



or same vehicle only from slightly different position (= sun angle), same camera, same time, but creating a slightly different colour tone



Note: Chassis colour and colour of the vehicle cabin structure covering the RAL8000 is in RAL7021 Schwarzgrau semi-bright

In comparation RAL8020 dullmatt, same camera, same season, different background, but 2years old photo:



And if you look very carefully, you will realize a slightly difference in the matt grade between the colour of the bonnet and the colour of the side panels. This is, because I have made a paint damage by myself, and we was forced to repaint the bonnet again, but with the paint from a new batch.
Means: Even in 2010, paint producers are not able to produce in every production batch exactly the same colour (or matt) shade, so its quite sure that this was more common 70 years ago.
On request, I can send this photos in max. resolution to those, interersted in.

Even as I am trying from model to model, to get more accurate with all the details, I am not so focussed on what is the “right” (and only) tone of RAL8000, even from 70 years ago, means darker, browner, greener etc., for me its much more interesting to see how the colour is different from RAL8020 or RAL7021, especially if the only known source is a b/w photo. Finally to say for my own, could it be this or that, to know which colour I have to use.

From my experience, I can say that RAL8000 is extremly acting like a “Chameleon”.
Studing the following pictures, its clear to see that the same colour is changing its appareance depending on the day-light, background (landscape), and so on. Independent beside all technical explanations for possible colour variations through photo paper, computer screens and so on.
If I would have known 20 years ago that I am ending in this discussion, I would have made more and better pictures.....

So the following pictures was made in Tunisia March/April, partially very cloudy weather, sometimes raining (with other words, similar as in the Tunisan campaign 1942/43). Always the same truck in RAL8000 dull matt, same camera (Minolta), same film quality, same unskilled photographer (=myself). All simply scanned in on my scanner some weeks ago. And on my computer, they colour looks as I have them in mind from 20 years ago, or in front of my office right now.







or this, which is interesting, because compared to the red paint of the Honda bike and the skin tone of my friends, the Unimog´s RAL8000 looks very dark, which simply is a result of a cloud, just covering the sun while photographing and creating a schadow on the right part of the photo. Tis as an info how even non technical photo/computer stuff could even be responsible for different colour shades on 70 years b/w photos



This was made in Europe, summer time, before the Tunisian travel, same camera, same film quality, same unskilled photographer, only to show colour impression with different sun light and background:





This one is my 2 nd truck, same colour as the 1st. Photo was made on a cloudless day in December 1993 around early afternoon, means sun in the zenit, because just south of the “tropic of cancer”, in the desert tringle Algeria,Mali, Mauretania, in fact in “no-mans land” and 2000 Kilometers without a gasoline station....



And I agree that all this colours on every single computer screen, or colour photos, printed on different papers what ever more, will probably have a different look.
But again: Their is a clear and remarkable difference between the darker, green-brownish RAL8000 and the brighter, a little bit red-toned RAL8020, which even should be remarkable on clear b/w photos.
Especially if you compare it with uniform colours, as Dave pointed out, even seen on wartime photos (note: Standard issue for DAK troops was olive tone, which faded out after some time, and only the Luftwaffen soldiers received the desert tan as standard) or the black Balkenkreuz.

I highly recommend to everybody the book “Afrikakorps in Farbe” of the Motorbuchverlag http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/images/3613027941/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=299956&s=books
Which even has opened a new, coloured world for me and a new sight about the campaign, especially for uniforms and their colour fading. And even a lot of the pictures, showing dust and chipping on vehicles and their colour tones are similar to my own experiences.
And you will even see that some thought vehicle colour fading or chipping is simply dust and even more dust, over dark grey RAL7021 and/or RAL8000, which you can indentify only if you see it in colour and not as “dark” or “bright” on a b/w photo.

And their is no doubt that colour qualities has (hopefully ?) changed in the last 70 years, to improve non-fading and better chipping resistance of vehicle colours.
So my inputs should be seen as an different approach, in an “neverending story”

Erich

Brian,

I think we're talking apples & oranges here.

Lenses for commercial cameras did not have coatings for the most part prior to the end of the war. I'm not disputing who first did it commercially, but am pointing out why snapshots from soldiers & sailors, as well as most propaganda and news shots have poor contrast: their optics are from the pre-coated era. It's why it's so hard to discern camo colors unless they are really stark contrasts like green on yellow, for example.

I don't have the reference here, but the US Army was experimenting with coated optics during the war, and I believe some film cameramen were using them. The Army also encouraged the use of color film, which is something the rest of the military did not do because they had so much B&W film to use up.

Hi

Following this discussions and even my infos given in Bill Hazards build blog about that the TIGER´s of the sPzAbt. 501 dedicated to Tunisia has been painted in RAL8000, which in my opinion can even be “read-out” by the b/w pictures of loading in Italy and offloading in Tunisia , I got some PM`s, in which I was informed that this is a very sensitive item to discuss and could become a “never ending story”.
I was even told it could create some (discussion) stress from those who has their own knowledge, sources, interpretations or whatever.
But I was even told that a lot of modellers could be interested to share some different inputs.

My feeling is, that some of you ask themselves, what is this “Newby” tellings us, about a theme, which is in discussion in this forum over years.

So shortly about my background:
I stopped Modelling 28years ago, compared to today, on a poor level.
I have started 23 years ago to travel trough the African Sahara countries as my new hobby, 1st with a U404, painted by myself in RAL8000 dull matt.
Later on, this hobby became my job and most of my customers use the vehicles I sell, to travel worldwide. For those interested on that, or to check what I say, look here: http://www.allrad-christ.com/ac_achsestart.htm and click on the country or continent name.
So my experience about chipping and paint abrasion and dust on 4x4 vehicles, used under extreme conditions etc., is based on what I see on trucks, used by my own, and on customer vehicles, coming back for service, even after 1-2 years travelling, some of them nearly around the world.

As the following informations touches the job in my “real live”, I have to be a little bit generally, because some things are “sensitive”:
Since 2007 my own company, togehter with the vehicle producer, whose vehicles I sell, have engaged in the military field, (see even here http://www.bremachtrex.com/gallery_more.html, scroll down to “Defence applications”)
Further:
We are even since more than 3 years cooperation partner of a German manufacturer of military vehicles, by the way the same company which has produced 70 years ago the turrets for the TIGER and some other vehicles and components.
I am responsible for all the technical issues (including paint) of this and other military projects, which means:
My knowlegde about how some specific colours used actually by us, looks like, or in this case even has been used 70 years ago, are not based on computer graphics, Model companies art work, museum researches, what the grandfather of a friend has told, or what a 90 years old ex-soldier has tried to remember 70 years later, they are based on what my eyes have seen over severeal years in the Sahara desert, and what our cooperation partners and our suppliers, working in the military field, give us as fact, especially if it belongs to their company history.
If I would not be sure about this, I would not post it here and keep quiet.

S!

I never thought that this topic will go for so long.
Sure I'm learning a lot in the thread.

Getting back to the original intent of Samuel's post.

See below a link to a previous discussion on this site about DAK Colours.
I posted some pictures of my s.Pz.Abt. 501 Tiger. Tiger 112 but there are some interesting points made about RAL 8000, RAL 7008 (the colour I painted my model) RAL 8000, and RAL 8020

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/130475&page=1&ord=1