I'm looking for some references for crew figures for late cold war Bundeswehr tank crew- and I'm coming up pretty blank. I've exhausted all my ideas for useful image search strings...

Era is early-mid 1980's, vehicle is a Gepard. (Picture the single crewman that Tamiya included in their Gepard/Leopard 1 kits, that's kind of what I'm going for.) Uniform solid color, or camo? If solid, green or grey? Beret maroon or black? Does that headset thing have a boom microphone?

Any guidance appreciated.

Hi!
I was trained on Gepard in 1983. Here is an old offer of someone to sell it, he shows nice pictures of it.

https://www.multi-board.com/board/index.php?thread/61426-panzerkombi-mit-teddyfutter-in-gr-8-170-180-105-von-1983/

On the 4th picture (under the flag) is where the rank is shown. A standard shoulder badge with the rank is sewn on there. For a Gepard, look for the symbol of the rank of "Gefreiter", "Obergefreiter", "Unteroffizier" or "Stabsunteroffizier", sometimes "Feldwebel" printed in white on olive green cloth)

https://www.bw-online-shop.com/camp/bw-camp/dienstgrade-bundeswehr/

The combination is of two separate parts of clothing, the summer suit and the winter lining from which you can see the collar. In summer, it was removed from the summer suit.

On the back, below the shoulders, it had a grip for rescue operations (to lift the crewman out of the tank). When not used, it was covered by a zipper.

Itw as only single colour, the one on the picture is pretty worn by frequent washing, when it was new, it was much darker.

When in the tank, we wore the barret, colour "korallrot" (coral red) with the emblem shown here

https://picclick.de/Original-Bundeswehr-Barett-Korallenrot-Flugabwehr-Truppe-Gr-58-253545199903.html

The symbol was a Roland´s missile and the two crossed cannons of the Gepard. Alternatively, we wore a cap called "Schiffchen" (which I found absolutely ugly)

http://www.armeeshop-klabbers.de/product_info.php?info=p4_bw-schiffchen-heer-oliv-gebraucht.html

and in winter we had this one, called "Wintermütze" (winter cap)

https://www.meinbwshop.de/bw-bundeswehr-wintermuetze-original-oliv-neuwertig

of which two "wings" can be folded to cover the ears to the chin when it was really cold.

and when it comes to headset, we had this one

https://www.asmc.de/bw-funk-headset-telemit-gebraucht

The weapon was a pistol P1 or also an "Uzi" MP2 machine gun.

This were the shoes:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kampfstiefel_(Deutschland)#/media/Datei:Bundeswehr-Kampfstiefel_Modell_1983.jpg

They usually came in black, with only a small number being delivered in dark brown. In case someone had the brown ones, these had to be turned to black with shoe polish (you know, army...)

In winter, outside the tank (Gepard had 3 crews, one in the tank, one in air defence role with MG3 machine gun and "Fliegerfaust", one in rest) we had the "Feldparka"

https://www.multi-board.com/board/index.php?thread/82711-der-bundeswehrparka-feldparka-feldjacke/

(starting from 4. picture onwards.

"Flecktarn" (multi colour) came quite later in the early 90s from which I can remember. I had my combat clothing from 1983 to 1990 like that is shown here.

Hope that helps!

Andreas

Wow, fantastic!!

Yes, that certainly helps- everything that I could ask. Vielen Dank!

I should have some in progress photos of my Gepard to post soon.