Am I correct in believing that panzers sent to Tunisia would not have a base coat of gray? I read somewhere that they were painted dunkle gelb over rot oxide.

Hi Matt

I am a bit confused over your headline late war camo, since the fighting i Tunisia was in 1942-43.
But back to your question. The pictures, I have seen, show vechicles in panzergray with sand overspray, sand with green overspray, sand or overall panzergray.

To my knowledge, panzers with the dunkelgelb colour did not arrived untill the start of 1943 to Africa, but note that DAK had a very large number of British or US equipment, so British desert sand or US olive drab was very common.

I have only seen the red primer in the late stage af the war, end of 1944 and start of 1945 and at that time, there were no the fighting in Africa.

Hopes this clarifies your question.

Ole

You have your primers confused. Rot oxide was the standard, until late in the war. I believe it was in '44 that rot oxide was changed to rot braun. The DAK is not the army that would cover the III N. It was part of the 501st spzd.

Matt;

Hi!

Best of my knowledge, your best answer lies in the 3-part sequence of vehicle-paint schemes used in north Africa...

The first vehicles sent over in early 1941 wore the regulation dunkelgrau RAL 7021 as used on all armor of the period. These formed the basis for the DAK and received various treatments once in Africa - painting with mud, captured Brit paints, Italian paints.

The "second phase" consisted of new vehicles destined for direct shipment to Africa being painted at production factories in Gelbbraun RAL 8000, starting in later March, 1941. Vehicles seconded from in-service European units and wearing the regulation dunkelgrau 7021 were repainted at shipping depot in Italy in the assigned Africa color, G-braun 8000. These vehicles also variably received a secondary camo coat of Graugrun 7008 - also per the new Africa paint scheme regs of March, 1941. So... some vehicles arriving in Africa in mid and later 1941 arrived with new colors over dunkelgrau, while others, new from the factory, arrived in new colors over rot-oxide primer.

The third Africa phase started up in late Mar 1942, when the Africa color scheme was changed to a base-coat of Braun 8020 with camo patterns in Grau 7027. These colors phased in as old paint stocks depleted, so tanks sent to Africa in mid 1942 could have gone with the previous colors, or with new colors. Again, new factory production received the new colors directly over primer. Any vehicles seconded from older stock and taken from other units could still originally wear regulation dunkelgrau 7021.

In part, your answer comes down to what vehicle type shipped when. IF you know when a specific vehicle came into production - up-gunned III "specials" and the new Pz.IV F2 / G for example being in 1942 - you can determine whether they were likely new production painted and shipped directly to Africa, or older stuff seconded in dunkelgrau first from Euro units and repainted and shipped to Africa.

No vehicles were likely shipped to Tunisia wearing dunkelgelb - which had hardly entered service when Africa pretty much ended.

Hope this helps!

Bob

Bob: Thank you. I am building a pz.III N of the 501st spbz, in Tunisia. So, it looks like grunbraun 8000.

Matt:

Hi!

OK! A III-N from late in the Africa scene! And I'll guess that maybe you are going to do that Dragon / CH N SmartKit specific to the N present in Africa with the 501.

Bill Plunk did a (IMHO) super nice job on one of these back ca 2008 - posted the build og and lots of pics on Armorama at the below link.

https://armorama.kitmaker.net//features/2030

There have been several other stellar builds of this one posted around, too. (And it's on my to-do list!)

I would note that your intended victim arrived in Tunisia late in 1942 or maybe early '43. As such, it most probably did so wearing the Braun 8020 and Grau 7027 "tropen" scheme as versus that Grunbraun 8000 base... As N were all converted earlier tanks - no III was built originally as an N -, and rebuilt to N configuration at refurb depots, I would guess that the donating hull would likely have been a refurbed or seconded Euro unit III M or L which more likely than not had original dunkelgrau over rot-oxide. The N for Africa would have been depot-repainted to the reg colors and scheme - and as N came out later in 1942 as 7.5cm L/24 guns became available from Pz. IV getting up-gunned - I think the Africa scheme for N would be the last version.

Looking forward to seeing this!

Bob