I am painting my first 1/16th scale figure and had some questions about the subject. On the SS tanker commanders uniform, how normal was it for them to have the black jackets and camouflage paints? If it was the norm, what type of camouflage did they have, oak leaf, splinter.......?

Jody,

Without digging through a pile of books there are a variety of choices that you could use and mix with the Black wraparound panzer jacket. You could use the Italian pattern cammo for the trousers or pea-pattern. Being SS they had a certain flexibility in choice that others did not have.

Look here on the Alpine Miniatures site, particularly under the 1/16 figure for an idea[s].

http://alpineminiatures.com/35figures.html

John

One thing to bear in mind if you're using an Italian camo is that it was used mainly by Liebstandarte and HJ. Reason for this is LAH liberated reams of the cloth when they disarmed the Italians and had it made up themselves by battalion tailors into all sorts of weird and wonderful garments. As the NCO officer cadre of HJ was LAH that's why you'll see HJ members wearing it in period photos. Oak leaf trousers are a bit of a no-no as the only oak leaf trousers officially made were part of the reversible winter uniform although I have seen some weird oak leaf half trousers in Bayeaux. When I say half trousers I mean just the front with elastic around the back as they were over trousers. Probably your safest bet is peas pattern as that was probably the most widespread cam from 1944 onwards. Nothing is impossible with the Waffen SS and I have seen period photos of some stuff that is obviously field made. An example is an officers tunic cut from Italian cam cloth. I think a lot depends on what you feel comfortable doing. Some might say doing oak leaf trs is incorrect but having said that if they were made up by a battalion tailor who is to say its wrong? I would say generally if a panzer crewman had peas pattern trousers he'd have the jacket as well after looking at period photos. I've never seen a mixed pair but who's to say it never happened?

Further to my last. Don't do splinter cam. That was a specifically Wehrmacht/ Fallschimjager pattern. Same as tan and water pattern. It is highly unlikely you'd see a member of the SS wearing that as their resupply was much better and they'd receive specifically SS items cam wise. Hope that's of some help