I saw a painting of a Tiger I supposedly from the 1943 battle of Kharkov in panzer gray with cloud patterns of dark yellow.

I'm curious if this scheme would have been carried over into any of the Tigers at Kursk a few months later, and if so, then which units carried this scheme, and how would they have been marked?

I'm looking to do a Kursk tiger, but I'd like to do something with an unique finish.

I suppose its possible that a survivor of earlier battles could have escaped being repainted, although it seems more likely to happen to a Panzer IV than a Tiger. I also am curious, if anyone has more detailed information on this. The most I know for sure is that Kursk was the point at which colors switched.

I have been studying the early tigers from Das Reich at the beginning of 1943 and I believe the 8 first tigers they received were dark grey .. One famous tank is TIKI and there are many pictures of it after the dark yellow was over sprayed ... Later the numbers were changed for the battle of Kursk but you can still see the same camo pattern .. So you can still see these grey and yellow tanks as late as Kursk.. I have begun the Early Tiger with the number S13 and it too was a December 42 Tiger so my camo will be grey and yellow too.


Rick

Some of the older Tigers, previously camo'ed in gray w/ green overspray, had larger areas of the new dark yellow sprayed over that, resulting in a gray/green/yellow pattern.

Hi, All! Let's remember that a lot of World War II German vehicles had camo applied (when possible) in a field-expedient manner. ANYTHING is theoretically possible. Even though they're chock-full of old information, the SQUADRON/SIGNAL PANZER COLORS books are still good for a lot of handy references. Just because they're old books, that doesn't necessarily make them completely wrong...

There are quite a bit of PANZERGRAU vehicles in these books that actually DO show that DUNKELGELB was used to help camouflage them in a bewildering variety of paint schemes. Even mud was used sometimes.

There were other variations besides DUNKELGELB over PANZERGRAU. OLIVGRUEN and SCHOKOLADEN BRAUN were also used with PANZERGRAU. There were even vehicles that had ALL FOUR COLORS applied in different camo patterns. Of course, in the early part of WWII, a lot of German vehicles were still painted in the Pre-War colors of SCHOKOLADEN BRAUN cloud patterns sprayed over PANZERGRAU... Classic examples are the early Pz.Kpfw.Is, IIs, IIIs, and short 7.5cm-gunned Pz.Kpfw.IVs

Sounds like its anything goes.


Its too bad I can't find a single photo of any non-SS machines from Kursk to at least have a baseline to work from.

Thanks for this discussion. I am completing a Dragon Flak 36 in dark gray, and wanted to add some color to it. I think a field-applied gelb slopped on the shield and barrel with a broad brush should do it!

Which Dunkelgelb would this be???