What's the overall height?

This thing would be hard to hide no matter what the Germans painted it. How about just shades of greys and browns, to mimic a large hill. Maybe they would have thought of adding rooftop gardens and trees to add to the sense of it being a hill

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This thing would be hard to hide no matter what the Germans painted it. How about just shades of greys and browns, to mimic a large hill. Maybe they would have thought of adding rooftop gardens and trees to add to the sense of it being a hill

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Nah - he'd need to add a snow-capped peak to the main turret!

In practice, the upper surface needs to be camo'd to look similar to its surroundings from above (ie "grass" or "dirt), and then the real trick is adding enough counter-shading on the lower parts and irregular dark lines on the upper parts to break up the very regular outlines that will give it away on recon photos. (Anyone getting near enough to attack will see it sticking out regardless of paint, so the camo is for evading recon pics - later wars would introduce other issues like IR signiature etc...) There were smaller-scale schemes for "normal" vehicles that do the whole "hide the shadows" trick to either mask the edges completely or at least make it look less like a tank, so these lessons just need blown up in scale.

Bear in mind the outlines to break up are not just the main hull sides, but also the shape of the turrets, the long gun tubes, and if possible anything that indicates "front" or "back". A crazy patchwork of say dark green over Olivgrun would hopefully make it harder to see where each feature ended and the next began, even if the presence of the vehicle itself could not be hidden. One problem with the more popular "long bands" schemes is that it can be easier to make out the main elements of the vehicle if the turret etc are not in exactly "12 o'clock" alignment because of the breaks in the pattern, whereas wiggly lines, blotches, and giraffe-style honeycomb patterns are more likely to hide the joints even when things are rotated.

Point taken Steve.

Now that I can visually "see" the concept behind painting a tank like a battleship, this is what I'll go with. It will indeed be bold! It'll also make real sense (does to me finally! ).

Mike

You may want to consider the hypothetical nature of the war in which the vehicle could have emerged. I believe that suggests some significant prolongation of the war beyond 1945, a prolongation that Germany could have only achieved by regaining air supremacy over both the homeland and active fronts. This would have allowed increased industrial production to create a Ratte and operational space to employ it (though I'm unclear just what purpose it was to serve).

With air superiority, the air threat is greatly diminished and the need for aerial recognition increased, so a use of the white circled swastika against a red background would seem likely. The prominent use of this marking, along with brightly colored turret tops was, of course, a regular feature of Kriegsmarine vessels while within range of German air cover. I will grant that naval practice was driven by the need to distinguish own ships from opponents' ships and you could theorize the Allies having nothing that the Luftwaffe could mistake a Ratte for, or not.

So my argument is that ground observation followed by heavy artillery attack is the threat and to that end I'd favor horizontal banding, darker colors at the bottom to blend with ground cover, then progressively lighter in grey/blues as you rise above some assumed level of average European ground cover, topping off with a very light grey, almost white. Slap a few swastika bands fore and aft, add some yellow turret tops and you're good to go! Don't worry about something to confuse as to speed and direction. This thing will maneuver at about the speed of growing grass.

I would really like to see someone's idea of camo for the top/aerial view.

Circle or square painted on the landing pad with a designator inside it?

surely they would have named them,right?