Hello everyone,
I've recently purchased Dragon's 6451 Panzer I Ausf. A Serie 4. The kit is great, but it has a major setback: the painting schemes and decals. They are completely wrong for the 1936 vehicle.
So I ask, does anyone have any sources, images, anything concerning the pre/early war schemes for that specific Serie? Plus, I've seen the Star Decals' German Tanks in Norway that include the decals for PzKpfw I Ausf A. Could anyone tell me which Serie Panzer I that is? Because if it is 4, it's exactly what I'm looking for.
Thanks in advance,
Matevž

Yeah, the Buntfarbenanstrich seems suspicious.. and the Balkenkreuze seem to fit better for 1940 than any year pre war.

I guess you could either go for plain gray or grey with brown brown spots over it... The later one was used roughly til the first Battle of france. (Not necssarily stating that no vehicle with brown spots could be found after it...)

Well, the difference between a Panzer I A 3rd series and a 4th series seems to be marginal, (basicially the engine deck is slightly different) so unless you want to be realsitic down to the rivet you can use the aftermarket decals without having bad dreams

Roh...;

Hi!

OK. IF you are seeking to build a ca 1936 Pz. 1A (and the mentioned kit would certainly work for this)... You will want to paint it in the "Feuersicherlich Buntfarbenanstricht" scheme which was in effect up into 1937, when the two-color brown over gray scheme came into regs (and served until July 01 1940).

Unless you are seeking to depict a 1A in Poland 1939 or France 1940, or one used in Norway in 1940, you won't need any "Balkankreuz" national markings, as they were not generally used until 1939. Many tanks used in Poland had the early yellow and yellow w/ white borders "Balkankreuz".

Those pre-1938 Pz 1A seldom had any permanent unit markings or vehicle numbers and NO national markings. Units were experimenting with various marking schemes during the pre-war period - usually temp markings applied for field training. Platoon markings mostly used the same playing-card symbols the French used; and these were often painted on cardboard placards attached for training actions. The 3-digit tank numbers came into use only in 1939-40, along with use of divisional signs and some Army-Group labels.

As to the correct Buntfarben colors... perish that gray some instruction sets (Dragon...) and some refs have suggested. The colors are a earth-yellow, brown, and dark green. Check out the colors as discussed on some of the threads on this site and on Track-link.com and on Missing-lynx.com.

Just "FYI"; here's the Tristar Pz 1A early production kit I did up a while back in that buntfarben scheme with unit and company placards (rear mud-flaps) and the training umpire red-and-white banner as photo'd at the Kummersdorf 1936 maneuvers. The colors are fairly close to the known RAL types used in that period.



Cheers!

Bob

Hey!
I'm sorry I couldn't reply earlier.
The scheme mentions one purely grey vehicle with a post Fall Weiss Balkenkreutz. My guess is they got the year wrong and this tank participated in the post-France campaigns, most probably in Norway or on the Balkans. However, without any proofs, I can't say anything about the credibility of that claim.
I'm yet to buy myself an airbrush, so painting will probably have to wait until I get it (2 months, approximately), but Buntfarbenanstricht looks quite demanding for an airbrush newcomer. Honestly, how did you made it, Bob? I really love that work.
Fabian, I was thinking the EXACT same thing. As I came to the conclusions above, painting it in overall grey could also work, but I need to find some specific pictures first. As I lack the pictures of the details, in which the differences between the versions are made clear, I cannot decide whether the difference is small enough to be ignored (I hope to get some works of Tomas Jentz in the near future, especially the first two volumes of the PT.
Thank you both for help, and if you have any further information on the topic, I'd be glad to hear them!
Matevž

Roh...;

It's actually easier than one might think at first glance I painted it all black (my usual primer approach), and then started in with the colors - it's been awhile, but I THINK I did it "green first" followed by spraying blobs of "earth yellow" and "earth brown" colors, followed by trimming all the blobs by hand and brush to get pretty sharp edges. It went pretty smooth and fast and did not take a lot of AB skill. Honest!

The real bundfarben schemes came with some variation... some were clearly sprayed on with "feathered" edges, others were hard-edged, and still others (specially the earliest schemes in the period) had that hard-edge with thin black lines around blobs just like seen on some WWII French vehicles. So, you have choices!

Pz 1A of all series continued in service into 1941+ in Europe - into Operation Barbarossa and Russia - and the Pz 1A shipped to north Africa with the DAK. Tanks were repainted as needed - so all-gray, gray-and-brown, buntfarben, DAK sand and tropen schemes, and green-on-gray and tan-on-gray and white-wash on gray schemes (Russia 1941 - '42) can all actually be applied "legit" to Pz 1A.

Cheers!

Bob