I'd heard about the "report" of a green tiger in North Africa ....

Saw something on line about green tigers at Kursk. Did the mythical Green Tunisian Tigers migrate north, or what?

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Saw something on line about green tigers at Kursk. Did the mythical Green Tunisian Tigers migrate north, or what?

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In Tigers in Combat, Volume 1, by Wolfgang Schneider. it's reported that the 503rd Battalion's maintenance officer didn't want to be bothered applying a three-color camouflage to the whole battalion, so he dumped all the colors in together (and from 800 yards away, the individual colors would blur anyway). Presumably, a muddy, light olive green would have been the result. This is based on veterans' recollections forty-some years after the fact, of course.

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I'd heard about the "report" of a green tiger in North Africa ....

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There were also reports of a 'Pink Panther' in Indochina...

There were also reports of a 'Pink Panther' in Indochina...

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There were also reports of a 'Pink Panther' in Indochina...

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That was no BS. Here's a declassified document from the CIA



H.P.

I think that was officer Dontgive A. Schmitt. If the story is true, thats a totaly different level of lazy...

In late 1942 amd early 1943, the mandated colour scheme for all Tigers operating in central Russia and south of there, was "tropical".

The Tiger factory still had a stock of the original 1941 "tropical" paints, so that's what they used.

Therefore the overwhelming majority of Tigers in Spring 1943 were painted like Bovington's "131". This was described by British troops in Africa as "green".

There is zero evidence, in eight hundred photographs, of any African Tigers being repainted while in service.

David

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Saw something on line about green tigers at Kursk. Did the mythical Green Tunisian Tigers migrate north, or what?

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In Tigers in Combat, Volume 1, by Wolfgang Schneider. it's reported that the 503rd Battalion's maintenance officer didn't want to be bothered applying a three-color camouflage to the whole battalion, so he dumped all the colors in together (and from 800 yards away, the individual colors would blur anyway). Presumably, a muddy, light olive green would have been the result. This is based on veterans' recollections forty-some years after the fact, of course.

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Hi, Gerald!

You know, I remember reading a few stories about "Green" Tiger Is being seen in Tunisia, 1943. I forget exactly which books that I read these stories in, but yes, I did read about "Green" Tiger Is in several different publications. I remember reading one story about these Tiger Is having been painted in OLIVE DRAB, which was "appropriated" from stocks of captured US Army paint. How true this is, I have no idea. This story might even have been a total fabrication...(?) Maybe you, or someone else could shed some light..?

Side-note: I have a DRAGON ARMOR "die-cast" 1/35 Tiger I supposedly "Afrika Korps", No. "142"; it is factory-painted in a sort of PALE OLIVE color that COULD pass for a really faded FS-34087 OD, after it had been parked out in the desert for a couple of years...

Egh, who knows..? I CERTAINLY don't...

Thanks guys. But we got lost. Question was regarding green tigers in Russia .... O.K, Kursk is Ukraine but .... Which I presume is the same answer as green Tunisian tigers. Someone on another site is fostering the idea of green Tigers (from S.Pz Abt.503). Guy doesn't seem too bright and probably hasn't figured out Kursk isn't in in North Africa and thinks the old myth applies there too. (Green Tiger Mafia couldn't get the story to stick in Africa so ... "There must have been green ones in .. in... Yeah! Russia!" Next it'l be the Soviets used captured green tigers in Manchuria against the Japanese.

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Saw something on line about green tigers at Kursk. Did the mythical Green Tunisian Tigers migrate north, or what?

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In Tigers in Combat, Volume 1, by Wolfgang Schneider. it's reported that the 503rd Battalion's maintenance officer didn't want to be bothered applying a three-color camouflage to the whole battalion, so he dumped all the colors in together (and from 800 yards away, the individual colors would blur anyway). Presumably, a muddy, light olive green would have been the result. This is based on veterans' recollections forty-some years after the fact, of course.

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Hi, Gerald!

You know, I remember reading a few stories about "Green" Tiger Is being seen in Tunisia, 1943. I forget exactly which books that I read these stories in, but yes, I did read about "Green" Tiger Is in several different publications. I remember reading one story about these Tiger Is having been painted in OLIVE DRAB, which was "appropriated" from stocks of captured US Army paint. How true this is, I have no idea. This story might even have been a total fabrication...(?) Maybe you, or someone else could shed some light..?

Side-note: I have a DRAGON ARMOR "die-cast" 1/35 Tiger I supposedly "Afrika Korps", No. "142"; it is factory-painted in a sort of PALE OLIVE color that COULD pass for a really faded FS-34087 OD, after it had been parked out in the desert for a couple of years...

Egh, who knows..? I CERTAINLY don't...

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There are two sources for the Green Tiger story, and they are somewhat entangled. The US Tech Intel report done for the Army on knocked out Tigers in North Africa was mainly devoted to important issues, like armor thickness, firepower, engine and transmission design, and so forth, but there is a sentence devoted to camouflage, which Major Jarrett simply described as "green."

Decades later, Wolfgang Schneider asked German veterans about green painted Tigers, and they reported that they repainted some equipment in captured US No. 9 Olive Drab (better suited to the more temperate zones in Tunisia), and that started this whole fad in model building. However, a researcher must be very careful about planting ideas while asking questions, as that could affect the recollection of the witness.

Since the publication of Schneider's Tigers in Combat Vol 1, color photos taken for Life Magazine of German Tiger wrecks in Tunisia have been unearthed, which show them in tropical colors.

During restoration, it was discovered that the Bovington Tiger had been painted using leftover stocks of the 1941 tropical colors, not the 1942 paints, and one of the 1941 colors was indeed greenish.

...Question was regarding green tigers in Russia .... O.K, Kursk is Ukraine but ...

Someone on another site is fostering the idea of green Tigers (from S.Pz Abt.503).