There seem to be so many confusing and contradictory sources on colors for panzers at the very end of the war. The Panzer IV J was produced into 1945. Would it be realistic to paint the base coat olive-green as some panzers were said to be painted toward the end of the war, or would one have to go with the dark yellow base?
Thanks,
Jon

This promisses to be an interesting discussion...

As for myself, although there is some photographic evidence that suggests an olive green base was used on some Panthers and components (like road wheels), I've never seen any photos of Pz IV J's that suggest the same thing.

You just never know what'll turn up in references these days, especially from some of the East European researchers that are digging up lots of previously un-published photos.

It'll be interesting see what others might come up with about this!

Jon;

"Oooooo - Yeah!" there does seem to be both much interest in and much confusion about late-war panzer colors! Right away, I'll admit I am no kind of expert about any of this, and all of the following is just my interp and opinion about stuff I've read on this issue over the past years. First off, it seems to me that the sources folks cite are oft-times seemingly contradictory and things are not helped by the complications added due to the Germans frequently changing regs and directives about painting...

Some useful background: Regs specified from Feb 1943 that the standard (European theatres) monochrome "Dunkelgrau RAL 7021" armor paint-scheme was heretofore to be replaced by a factory base-coat of "Dunkelgelb nach Muster" (soon re-named "Dunkelgelb" RAL 7028), with 2 camo colors - "Olivgrun RAL 6003" and "Rot-braun RAL 8017" - to be supplied to troops - for local camo application. This resulted in the wild range of "bi-color" and "tri-color" camo schemes so popular with us German modelers today.

These 3 colors actually remained "in effect" per regs to the end of the war. But (and this is where knowledge gets thinner and opinions and such thicker...) the "who, where, and how much in what pattern(s)" of application got ever more confusing!

For example, there was apparently growing shortages of paint and a need to reduce or simplify the tangled supply issues to the front by later 1943 - so "new regs" were developed from AUG 1944 to specify that factories do all the painting. But at the same time, supplies of paint - apparently of Dunkelgelb in particular, became strained, so factories started varying their paint application and started "informally" leaving parts of hulls in rot-oxide primer. This "expediency" was officially endorsed in OCT 1944 with new regs directing factories to use the rot-oxide primer as the "base-coat" and apply "limited amounts" of the D-gelb, Oliv and R-braun as camo over the primer.

(Did this mean - "leave some primer exposed as a 4th color in the camo scheme"? or "apply the tri-color only on upper surfaces and leave lower hulls in primer only"? I doubt seriously that anyone knows the real answer to this!) In practice, they surely rolled tanks out with varying patterns and amounts of primer showing. To add to the "fun", the OCT 1944 regs also allowed factories to replace the dunkelgelb with old stocks of that dunkelgrau RAL 7021, if "needed"! Nobody says with certainty nor hard evidence that this was done, but a "hypothetical" case exists for a NOV 1944+ camo-coat of dunkelgrau + olivgrun + rotbraun pattern applied over rot-oxide, with some primer showing! WOW, what a COOL paint scheme, that!

But you asked about latest-war IV-J paint schemes... so:

The last "formal" act of the German paint story perhaps bewitches and may flummox folks a little... In DEC 1944, new regs were apparently posted to direct factories to re-assort the 3 camo colors in use since 1943 - the dunkelgelb, olivgrun, and rot-braun - the OLIVGRUN would now be the "base coat", with patterns of dunkelgelb and rotbraun applied over it. No mention here of "officially" allowing rot-oxide primer to show thru....

So, from this, your answer could / should well be that your latest-production IV-J could likely be painted in olivgrun as the base, and patterned with the gelb and braun. In practical terms, this amounts mostly to re-apportioning the colors in a tri-color camo scheme. The gelb and braun were likely "hard-edged" patterns. (But... ) I know... we all crave certainty in answers, but there's likely no such hard-and-fast by German painting in1945!

My OPINION is that you would reasonably have lattitude - rot-oxide could well play a role, either on less-visible lower hull areas and / or as part of a "4-color" paint scheme where all 3 camo colors may have been applied in "limited amounts" with some primer still exposed. I think the INTENT of the last regs was to have a fully-painted (no primer visible) tank and the designation of olivgrun as the new base-coat was to get this done while conserving the apparently less-abundant dunkelgelb. The actual PRACTICE would perhaps still have reflected sporadic paint supply... That, and one has to figure that, while new regs were posted from DEC 1944, they probably only eventually came into effect - not any instant change in factory painting practice, even if paints were on hand.

German camo and vehicle-painting - specially so for late-war stuff - is a subject of great interest and I'm sure there are all sorts of strongly-held opinions out there! I wait with anticipation for the "right info" to emerge in a storm of Nebel und Feuer!

Hope this helps!

Bob

I want to use olive-green as the base, so any reasonable argument that doesn't shut the door on it is good. The new reg from Dec 44 seems to be all the wiggle room I need.
Thanks,
Jon

this is from memroy i read this here starting in 1944 germans ran out of grey paint or stuff to make the grey thats why they went with dark yellow base from 1944 on. i pretty sure i am right lol

To the above user, Dunkelgelb with overspray started in 1943 afaik

James;

You are of course right - as of FEB 1943 (see my post above). The "why" is, IIRC, because they had already had sufficient feed-back from the front concerning the easy targets dark grey tanks made on an otherwise dunn-colored landscape. Now THIS point - the RATIONALE for the new reg - is always more open for quibble and debate than the fact that the base color WAS changed to the dunkelgelb... that's what makes things FUN!

What's so COOL about this is that paradox posed by PRACTICE! Consider this: Let us suppose that they DID switch to D-gelb because they were running out of the old reg Dunkelgrau... so, OK. The new D-gelb reg comes down in FEB 1943 after factories start complaining about their growing shortage of the grey. So what would have happened? Did the Germans ORDER paint manufacturers to STOP heretofore the production of dunkelgrau - thus guaranteeing that a grey shortage would soon actually occur? Were tank plants ordered to "Continue using the grey UNTIL stocks are gone, and then switch over to gelb"? Did they DO this even if that was the order (which I have to say "soto voce" at this point: there is no such order apparently known and certainly not widely publicized in today's available sources)? I think NO to above! Factories were ordered to switch over to base-coats in gelb. Period.

What would have happened in PRACTICE was that the factories actually switched pretty promptly over to the gelb... there would likely have been remaindered stocks of grey left in the back storerooms at factories, AND grey still at the paint factory warehouses AND grey still motoring around in the supply channels... And all of this grey, paradoxically, would now be "surplus"! So, what we have is the cool paradox of going from "shortage" to rather suddenly much more than we need! That there WERE available stocks of grey in late 1944 that tank factories COULD have tapped if they ran out of that gelb, per those later regs is "clearly suggested" by the fact that those later regs did specify this option!

Just good clean Xmas-Eve fun with the ol' panzer-colors bug-a-boo, Gents!

Merry Christmas to All!

Bob

also, the lufftwaffe were using Grey for their airfield vehicles? if i remember correctly

hope this helps .I found it on a site called missing lynx:



For direct, concise statements on this stuff, try the little Osprey book by Jentz. Really, the Jgpz 38(t) just followed the well-established general rules and dates for: field camo, ambush, red base w/yellow/green, and (not quite so well-established) red base "winter". It's pretty straightforward to corroborate this with photos, using the close spacing in time of the various modifications to establish narrow windows for production dates. And of course none of the paint schemes really looks anything like the others, so there's little confusion as to what one is looking at.

The only twist is accepting Jentz and Doyle on the winter paint scheme's colors. I think the Kotzing Pz IV color photos establish the red/yellow/white/(green) scheme generally, and explain the lightest stripes in late Hetzer photos convincingly. I just wish I could see some primary material on that one.

For that matter, I just wish I had a T-bill for every time I've wished that about one of Jentz and Doyle's assertions. But they keep being right, doggone it.


Respond to this message

David E. Brown
(Login DavidEBrown)
Missing-Lynx members
24.222.209.241 Cran, here's that text you wanted to see (German & English): January 31 2008, 10:40 PM


EXCERPT FROM:

Verordnungen des Oberkommandos des Heeres
3. Februar 1945 / Ausgabe 6 / Teil B – Blatt 3 – Seite 37-38

52. Anstrich des Heeresgeräts
24. Januar 1945

Neufertigung

1. Das Heeresgerät der Neufertigung wird, soweit ein Anstrich noch zugelassen ist, an Stelle des Gelbanstriches (RAL 7028) mit einem Grünanstrich versehen. Für den Farbton ist maßgebend die RAL Farbtonkarte 6003, Anstrichstoffe wie bisher.

2. Welche Geräte, abweichend von den Abgabe in den Zeichnungen und Geräte-Lieferbedingungen, noch einen Anstrich erhalten, ist aus den neuen Anstrichvorschiften ersichtlich, die allen Heeres-Abnahme-Dienststellen Oktober 1944 zugegangen sind.

3. Geräte, für die entsprechend dieser Anstrichvorscrift in der neufertigung ein Buntfarben-Tarnanstrich vorgesehen ist, sind solange grün zu streichen, bis das entsprechende “tarnbild” als Vorlage zur Verfügung steht. Die Tarnbilder werden den Firmen nach Fertigstellung durch die Beschaffungabteilungen des Heereswaffenamtes zugeleitet.

4. Die Farbtöne für den Buntfarben-Tarnanstrich sind*:
Grün RAL 6003
Braun RAL 8017
Gelb RAL 7028 Ausgabe 1944
*(RAL Farbtonregister 840R)

5. Vorhandene Bestände an gelber Farbe (Farbton RAL 7028) sind für folgende Zwecke aufzubrauchen:
a) für Kleingerät, soweit es sich nicht um Gerät handelt, das der Mann ständig bei sich trägt,
b) für Geräte, die nur in Heimatkreigsgebiet eingesetzt werden,
c) für den gelben Anteil des Buntfarben-Tarnanstrichs.

In Zweifelsfällen zu a) und b) ist über die Heeres-Abnahme-Dienststellen Entscheidung einzuholen.
Die Heeres-Abnahme-Dienststellen naben bis zur Herbeiführung der Entscheidung die Weiterverwendung der gelben Farbe zu tolerieren, auch für Großgeräte.

6. Für Großgeräte, die beim Bahntransport auf offenen Wagen verladen werden, ist der Verwendung der gelben Farbe mit sofortiger Wirkung untersagt. Stößt die rechtzeitige Beschaffung der grünen Farbe hier für auf unüberwindliche Schwierigkeiten, so ist dies sofort telegraphisch zu melden an Heereswaffenamt (Wa Chef Ing 1), Berlin, Charlottenburg, Jebensstrasse 1 (31 00 12, 31 83 01/App. 33 86). Die Auslieferung der Geräte dart durch das Fehlen der grünen Farbe nicht auf gehalten werden.

7. ......

Orders of the Army High Command
3. February 1945 / Edition 6 / Part B – Paper 3 – Pages 37-38

52. Painting of Army Equipment
24. January 1945

New Production

1. New production Army equipment will be supplied, as far as painting is still certified, painted in green instead of painted in yellow (RAL 7028). For this colour, its determination is the RAL-colour card 6003, coating of materials as before.

2. That equipment, from the delivery in the drawings and the equipment terms of delivery, are still to receive another coat of paint, and are shown in the new painting regulations, which was forwarded to all Army Acceptance Services in October 1944.

3. Equipment, which according to these painting regulations is for new production with the intention of having a multicolored colour camouflage finish, are to be painted green until the appropriate " camouflage drawings " are available. The camouflage drawings will be transmitted to the companies after completion by the procurement departments of the Heereswaffenamt.

4. The colours for the multicolored colour camouflage finish are:
Green RAL 6003
Brown RAL 8017
Yellow RAL 7028 Version 1944
*(RAL Colour-register 840R)

5. Available stocks of the yellow colour (Farbton RAL 7028) are to be used up for the following purposes:
a) for small equipment, irrespective of the device, which a person constantly carries with himself,
b) for equipment, which is used only in the Homeland war theatre,
c) for the yellow proportion of the multicolored colour camouflage finish.

In cases of doubt for a) and b), these should to be referred to the Army Acceptance Service for a decision. The Army Acceptance Service will tolerate centres making the decisions for the further use of the yellow colour, and also for major items of equipment.

6. For major items of equipment, which will be shipped by the rail transport on open cars, the use of the yellow colour is forbidden with immediate effect.

If the punctual procurement of the green colour creates insurmountable difficulties here, then this is to be transmitted immediately by telegraph to the Heereswaffenamt (Wa Chef Ing 1), Berlin, Charlottenburg, Jebensstrasse 1 (31 00 12, 31 83 01/App. 33 86). The distribution of equipment because of the absence of the green colour is not to be delayed.

The above post was found under a reference to "early Hetzers" I am sure that the information contained was to all military contractors.

I was not attempting to plagarize just passing the information. I hope enough credit was given.
Rick

i have a interesting picture of a Pz..IV ausf.J.
i think it is red oxid, and it looks like it has 2 types of jellow over it, but im not sure.


and this is a pic of a Panther at the patton museum in USA, it looks like it is hull red+olive green:

it is now 'sand gelb'. repainted....

interesting StuG, sand gelb + red oxid + grey primer barrel


and jagdtiger 331, witch is now brown + white...
before the repainting:


red brown + jellow

hope this helps, jan

Good stuff, James.

I've often wondered about the RAL 7028, version 1944, but have yet to have read or seen some clear comparision between that and the "usual" RAL 7028! (Seems like the WWII German equivalent of the "what's the correct shade of WWII US Olive Drab?")

You might find the official camouflage pattern drawings that are referenced in Hv 1945 Nr.52 that are found here interesting:

Panther Camouflage Schemes

The El Mito article says that these drawings for the Borgward carrier are the only ones known to exist right now (although the new regulation says that official factory patterns would be published).

Unfortunately, the evidence of just how wide spread these 1945 rules were applied seems to be pretty spotty. Like I said in my earlier post, there are a few photos of final production Panthers that appear to be in olive green base with one or two addional colors added.

I'm just not aware of any similar photos for Pz IV's though.

I think Bob's points about the differences between what the official guidance spelled out and what was actually done on the factory floors are well made.

In regards to Jan's photos:

The Ft Knox Panther has been analyized and studied, and the current understanding of that tank is that it was painted in a two-tone olive green and red brown hard-edged scheme. There are some period BW photos of that particular tank also, that show the edges of the cammo spots quite clearly.

There are other photos of Jagdtiger 331 taken shortly after the war while it was still in Germany that clearly show it was painted in a three-tone "ambush" pattern with the contrasting spots being sprayed on.

Here's an earlier color photo of the same vehicle compared to the later Aberdeen photo:



The Aberdeen vehicle was partially repainted before that later photo was taken. (You can compare the outlines of the cammo spots to see some differnences.)

There's been some discussion on other forums about the Pz IV photo: Opinions run the spectrum, but I find the ones tending to variations of the standard three-color pattern most compelling with fading on the vehicle and in the color print explaining the odd look. Some guys are proponents of the theory that one of the yellow colors seen on the print is really a faded green and others claim that the one of them is really the standard dark yellow that had white painted over it (winter cammo) and the faded white accounts for the second yellow shade.

I think the really important point is that these old color photos are very unreliable for more than just general color references.

The StuG III is very interesting, and not the only one in present day collections that has a "primer" gray gun barrel.

Here's another StuG III with a gray barrel:





An interesting discussion... I'd love to see the WWII olive green Pz IV that's sure to be posted sooner or later!

Mike;

Always like to see these old pics posted again! And I DO love them!

quote[I think the really important point is that these old color photos are very unreliable for more than just general color references.]quote

Actually, I think I would sort of re-phrase to say "the really important point is that these old color photos are very unreliable for more than ... general pattern references"!

IMHO, they are near onto useless as actual color references - consider that the Pz. IV pic Jan posted shows marked "red shift", as does the top JagdTiger pic you posted, while your lower JagdTiger pic - same tank - probably taken using a different film in a different camera under different lighting conditions - shows a marked cyan and blue-shift! So none of these should be construed in any way as showing what the colors really were - yes, you can certainly say that those reddish-brown areas were likely either the rot-braun OR the rot-oxide "elements" of the camo pattern... and likewise that the palest areas were probably gelb... see? No certainty here! We can, however, use them as reliable form-guides for constructing our pattern - sizes and shapes, given we make some assumptions as to the colors of the darker-color blotches, etc. - but they do not inform us as to what the actual colors were!

This is the great bug-bear of historical color photos. We love them and some like to hold them up as icons of the Gods of all (historical?) Certaintude! But beware. All color films - both prints and negatives - undergo color-shifts with age - it's near-axiomatic that the chemical compounds used will oxidize or otherwise re-combine over time . To further add helpfulness and clarity to photo-interp, different speeds of a given film type, such as "KodaKolor" or "Ekta-Chrome" differ dramatically in their sensitivities across the spectrum (generally, my experience has been that faster = bluer, but...) from the get-go. "Comparable" types of a speed - say ASA 64 color print - from different makers - Kodak versus AgFa - also differ in spectral sensitivities. Every photo-geek knows all this and each has brand, type and speed preferences based on their perceptions of these realities. Arguably, NO film really accurately and faithfully captures the entire visible spectrum evenly... aging pics just add onto these difficulties for us interpreting the colors!

At least in the digital age, where the photo-image is translated into numerical codes stated in sequences of 1 and 0 x pixel, we shouldn't have to worry about "red-shift" over time!

Bob

When I see camouflaged panzers, often, if not usually, the wheels and lower hull behind them are still in the base coat with no camouflage painted over them. This means that whatever color is the basecoat will still cover all the wheels and the hull behind it. So if I go with olive-green as the base, no matter how I distribute the colors on the upper part of the hull and turret where the camouflage is usually applied, it will still be very clear that the base is olive-green.
I painted a panther this way recently and like the look alot, and it's very clear that olive-green is the base coat.

Jon:

That's right in the general case - wheels and lower hull - specially on Pz. IV types with smaller road-wheels - would typically be the hull base-coat, and not camo'd (whereas the big-wheel Panthers and Tigers were often camo'd on their roadies), so if you are going "olivgrun", then wheels and lower hull side would be oliv... Now, per the above discussions, IF you may be thinking one of those latest-war examples with possibly some rot-oxide primer visible, that would likely be that hull-side behind those wheels... and the lower reverse-sloped plates of the hull front and back. Road wheels would be oliv... and the uppers based w/ oliv.. and camo'd w/ the brown and gelb. It would look pretty cool, I think!

Bob

So let me see if this floats.

Lower and underside of hull red oxide.
Base and wheels olive-green.
Upper hull, turret, and camo'd areas random (red-)brown and dark yellow.
Maybe even a dark grey-black gun barrel.
??????

Sounds like a PLAN!

The gun barrel probably did arrive at the tank assembly plant in some sort of satin black enamel. So, IMO, this could be a good look for your latest production tank. As you have mentioned your plan to portray something rather sketchily painted, maybe the barrel could get just a couple of "lick n promise" gelb stripes... you know, the guy shooting the last ounce and giving a brief nod to the planned-for paint-job... Just an idea!

Whichever way you go... Do It. I really look forward to seeing this!

Bob

@ Bob:

Yea, your rephrasing pretty much sums it up.

I was intending to say that those old color photos are not good for anything except to show the most general interpretation of colors (i.e. what appears green, brown, yellow, etc is probably some known shade of one of those colors). And even then, it's pretty much a fool's game to say that anthing was precisely primer red as oposed to chocolate brown or primer red showing through faded dark yellow or if something was actually faded green instead of dark yellow. Exact shades are pretty impossible to take from these photos, and colors that are close, could easily be interpreted incorrectly.

Even newer digital photos have to be used carefully. That same StuG III looks radically different in each of the several sets of photos that I have of it- from recovery out of the bog, to when the breakers were stripping her guts to sell to the highest bidders. The colors in each set of photos are quite different and reflect the lighting, age, exposure to sun, wear and tear from people walking on it, humidity (the photos after a rain shower show very intense colors), etc.

(My personal OPINION is that the German dark yellow and ,to a large extent, their olive green were a very unstable colors, faded fast, and were subject to being easily worn. These colors are very questionable even on preserved original vehicles in museums and collections. On the other hand, their primer red seems to have been very tough, and it usually shows through quite nicely on most old, original vehicles. A lot of photos taken in the late 40's after the war and after these derelicts had sat in the sun for a couple of years show, I believe a lot of fading in all of the cammo colors - dark yellow, olive green , and brown. I think these things combine in old photos and on old, preserved vehicles to give a false impression today about how these paints were used. But as I say, this is just my opinion...)

However, I do think that if the photos are looked at in the context of and with other information (descriptions and text from orders and instructions, etc). they can provide important and valid clues to what was actually happening.

But you definitely have to be careful!

That Jagdtiger as shown in the Aberdeen photos has been repainted - repainted! The two photos not only show the potential contrasts between films, etc, they show that myths and legends can grow from some pretty unreliable information. At one time, those old color Aberdeen photos were considered to be very valid sources of actual color and cammo pattern information. In this case, I believe that a lot of color plates and model box art have been based on these post-war color photos, perpetuating the inaccuracies and fixing them in the minds of generations of model builders and enthusiasts...

The earlier, war-time photo shows that by the time the Aberdeen photo was taken, the original cammo pattern had been painted over, and some very questionable colors now appear (like the OD or gray spots, the bright sand-yellow which has now been painted down over the original areas that didn't receive war-time cammo under the fender-Schurtzen top edges, colors that have been reversed, etc).

So, what we know now is that (at least in this case) what were once considered valid color photos of original camouflage (even if somewhat weather beaten and worn) were never that at all! The earlier photo is certainly not very useful for the exact shades of the colors used, but it does show the pattern, and if what is known (or assumed to be known) about actual painting practices is combined with what can be told about the general colors used, I think that you could make a pretty valid and educated guess about which spots in the earlier photo's patterns are which colors (dark yellow, olive green, brown and primer red). Of course, some assumptions would still have to be made, but at least your basing those on some color evidence instead of pure B&W.

The lesson has to be to never take these old color photos (or any others for that matter) at face value and always incorporate their information (such as it is) with other sources.