Where did this come from as a late war camo color for German vehicles? Included in the AKI late war color set, and referred to in the 1945 German Colors book. I'm no camo expert by a long shot, but what I have read about German colors at the end of the war, references are to either Olivgrun or Dunkelgrun. Is Resedagrun intended as a "scale" color for the darker hues??

That's an interesting question.

Reseda is low growing Mediterranean plant that looks a little like sage or fox glove but with light yellow or whitish flowers.

I'm not sure why the WWII Germans would have developed and named a color for a weed that doesn't grow in central Europe. On the other hand, maybe there was an RAL color called "Resedagrun" (perhaps one of those strange Luftwaffe colors?). I've never read anything about WWII German armor camouflage that references any such color, though.

However, it it's not a "real" WWII RAL color, and it's a lightened shade of green intended for post-shading, why didn't AKI simply call it something to that effect - ex "Post-shade WWII Olive Green"?

Maybe someone from AKI will chime in here and explain what they intended.

Curious...

Reseda Grun, according to the RAL page on wiki comes under RAL 6011 and was used as a priming coat on machines relevant to DIN 1844 (DIN is the german institute for standardisation, 1844 is that standard for painting machines:green)

Thanks for the responses. I have issues with the 1945 Colors book. Some of the comments on color interpretation from B&W photos seem more like wishful thinking. The profiles are great for inspiration, but the whole use and reference to Resedagrun thing throws me off (at least until someone can refer to documented proof that this color was actually used for external camo).

Curious as to why this color was included in the package...I would think a couple of shades of Dunkelgrun or Olivgrun would have been more appropriate. Then again, I'm no paragon of armor modeling...

They have been pulling German AFV's from a bunch of places, wonder if any of them has had their interior photographed. If they have and the paint is still visible that should answer a lot of q's.. I think the last one I saw on the Internet was a stuG III.

THIS! So why refer to it in their 1945 German Colors book in such a way as to infer it was used as an official color? It makes the book no more than a "fantasy" representation. Reminds me of all those German armor color profiles published many years ago with what turned out to be, at best, erroneous interpretation, or at worst, total fabrications.

Probably if they called it anything else it might not sell then .

Learn something new, every day. I thought rotbraun was the color German vehicles were primed with, toward the end of the war.

I think the above reference to Resedagrun as a primer/color was as applied to machinery and components not entire vehicles. And according to some references, this is RAL color that was not in use at the time.

Google Resedagrun images and you can see some machinery painted that color. I can say that it's a great color for mid-60s VWs and scooters!

Not impossible, even if the RAL/DIN match is created, postwar.

The use of 'structural' colors is stated as becoming increasingly common as to be specified in Midwar Germany when shortages of pigment bases required the exploitation of all possible secondary colors, often with shades that are a more garish variation of an already extant vehicle or aircraft version.

Tell me that the green you see in the tri color scheme doesn't look like it belongs on a building for instance.

Structural engineers would have to coat generators, boilers and pipe work with something to protect against corrosion and where rottebraun is a so intense as to be offensive, a neutral tan/taupe would not clash with surrounding colors.

Frankly, the shades we see at the end of the war ('ambush' etc.) are not at all appropriate to either the verdant colors of central Europe or the brick dust and fire soot of urban fighting.

Despite the leaf shadow, they are shades you would expect to see on the Russian steppe with Panzer Yellow being particularly over-warm as a tonal value.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone looked at a can of Dunkelgrun or Olivgrun, took the last scrapings of paste they could from the bottom and said: "Here, bring me some of that..." as Panzergelb which was either also running low or simply not appropriate to the environment.

Hence 'grunbraun/olivbraun' etc.

Resedagrun sounds like a variant of what we would call 'khaki' which has been used the world over by virtually every army as a tan that can double as grey for twilight/dawn ops and brown for wooded areas while also being close to the lighter greys and whites of concrete and some brick in builtup zones.

German tankers were past masters of camouflage but as with every war, that mastery was based, not on painted colors chosen a 1,000nm from the operational theater and spread across flat (linear = non natural) surfaces in fixed patterns but rather thru use of natural, environmental, materials that matched the surroundings because they were sourced from them.

Road crews tore swaths through wooded areas, debranching entire forests of trees to lay cut bows at roadside maintenance haltpoints for instance. While Desert Warriors employed water or gasoline to mist down their vehicles in the early morning dewpoint and then shoveled dusty sand across them to form a thin skin of talc like surface coating in perfectly matched tones.

Along with the use of cover and careful maneuver, this is the essence of big-bush = not-panzer symmetry breakup. Or light value = dirt value isoluminance matching.

Paint is whatever you can source, liberate or trade. It keeps your track from rusting out but is about as likely to be useful as camouflage as last years calendar that may actually get the days/dates right again, given another half century or so.