Greetings;

I am doing a camouflage pattern on German Marder tank.

Are the decals applied over the camo pattern or is the camo pattern painted over the decals - assuming the painting has been done in field and not applied directly in the factory ??

My thoughts are that if applied in the field any painting would be over the decals with the decals masked.

Options sought. Thank you, WilloW

Well... there will be no difference if you will mask it right, thats one thing.
Second thing would be that the'd have to repaint the insignia and numbers after camo paintinging the tank if they oversprayed that. I'm not even sure the tanks had crosses and numbers painted in factory.

Cheers,
Greg

Thanks Greg. Correct - if masked appropriately the camo paint would sort of blend with the decals.

I guess then that this probably the way it was done, RATHER than over painting the decals OR applying new decal after camo painting

I searched for images; however, did not find too many showing this, other than winter camo paint in which they whitewashed everything but excluded the decals.

I believe the decals were applied by the actual unit ay workshops.

Cheers, WilloW

It kinda-sorta just depends...

Markings were the responsibility of the unit as well as the camouflage paint, so most markings appear to have been applied after the camouflage painting.

But, there are plenty of exceptions. Some exceptions can be found on a case by case basis, and there were also some general exceptions.

Case by case exceptions can be seen of vehicles that were apparently factory finished in dark yellow, marked and used by the unit for some time and the finally camouflaged painted around the existing markings. These markings are sometimes neatly masked off (showing neat dark yellow borders) or the camouflage has been simply sprayed (or hand brushed) around them.

One general exception was the application of winter white wash. This was generally applied over existing markings or sometime painted around the markings or, occasionally, the markings were re-applied over the white wash.

Another general exception were early war vehicles that were in Panzer gray and already marked when the changeover to the three-color camouflage was made. At the unit's discretion, these vehicles COULD be re-painted in the new colors and there are existing photos of four-color (Panzer gray with the other three) with the pre-existing markings painted around.

Yet another general exception were vehicles belonging to existing units that were shipped with the units to North Africa. These were mostly in Panzer gray with markings already applied when they arrived, and many were camouflaged over these existing markings once in North Africa. Sometimes there are neat Panzer gray borders around the old markings and sometimes the camouflage paint is sprayed as close as possible to them (often over spraying some around the edges) and sometimes the markings were totally painted over and new markings applied.

(Although with this last, it's hard to tell newly issued vehicles which hadn't been marked until they were camouflaged and marked on receipt in North Africa.)

From about late September '44 to the end of the war, newly manufactured AFVs were camouflage painted at the factory and also received the national markings (Balken crosses), but the units were still responsible for adding tactical markings on receipt over the factory camouflage.

So, it sorta-kinda just depends on exactly what you're modeling and when, where, and by whom it was supposed to have been used.

HTH,

Well researched reply Mike that covers off on almost everything - thank you. Best, WilloW