Camouflage Patterns of German AFV's in WWII (1 Viewer)

[Andanna]

Great photos - thank you. You should make these available to the group of Tiger enthusiasts on "Tiger im Focus".

I share your skepticism as to a second coat of paint. As a matter of fact, most authors argue the tanks were delivered to the Leningrad front in plain dark grey (see, for example, Jentz/Doyle, Tiger I Heavy Tank 1942-45, Plate 1A and Schneider, Tiger in Combat I, p.6: "The tanks delivered still had the grey paint and were not painted any further.")

Just for argument sake: If the tanks were painted in production in a camo pattern (and the photos from Sennelager seem to indicate that), all signage would of course have been painted on top of the base and second coat. I think your argument (with the corresponding photo) makes the theory, the tanks were painted in the field, obsolete.

Thank you for that.

 

[Phantom Warrior]

Great photos - thank you. You should make these available to the group of Tiger enthusiasts on "Tiger im Focus".

I share your skepticism as to a second coat of paint. As a matter of fact, most authors argue the tanks were delivered to the Leningrad front in plain dark grey (see, for example, Jentz/Doyle, Tiger I Heavy Tank 1942-45, Plate 1A and Schneider, Tiger in Combat I, p.6: "The tanks delivered still had the grey paint and were not painted any further.")

Just for argument sake: If the tanks were painted in production in a camo pattern (and the photos from Sennelager seem to indicate that), all signage would of course have been painted on top of the base and second coat. I think your argument (with the corresponding photo) makes the theory, the tanks were painted in the field, obsolete.

Thank you for that.

Until late in the war, tanks received a factory base coat with disruptive camo colours (if any) applied in the field. I believe unit emblems were field applied after all painting was done. BUT, there are many examples of repainting disruptive colours or whitewashing which encircled but avoided the unit emblems and numbers and some where a light overspray covered the unit emblems which were still clearly visible under the overspray.

Late in the war, the factory applied both the basecoat and the disruptive colours on many of the AFVs.

Personally, I give more credence to eyewitness descriptions of camo colours as the usually poor quality, overexposed black & white photos of dust covered AFVs makes it almost impossible to describe the camo colours from the picture.

One can go crazy digging too deep into details. As Frank said, "There is simply too much conflicting information to provide a definitive answer." I just rely on the general paint guidelines for each base coat period and allow for the many exceptions and variations caused by AFVs moving from one theatre to another, unit commanders preferences, availability of certain paint colours, etc.

Terry