To me the color difference on the road wheels represents wear and tear/road grime which would discolor the basic color. Just my 2 cents, 3 nickels, .....
Sure, I'm game for that. Let me add on to this...and I'm not trying to be argumentative or disrespectful of people's taste, but trying to remove any psychological blocks which may be preventing people from enjoying this model. I haven't studied German camo as much as US colors, but knowing now what I know, I do feel that a lot of WW2 field vehicles couldn't even be marketed as a model today because people just wouldn't believe something could be so disordered or ugly.
On color, there is what PA44 said, but there could other situations. What if the wheels weren't pattern painted at the factory, but just left as yellow, and the rest of the vehicle was pattern painted. When it got to the unit, they decided to repaint the superstructure a new pattern? New painter, new shades of paint. What if the whole tank was just left in solid yellow until it got to the end destination, but had all kind of routing markings on the superstructure that had to be repainted over with yellow. New painter, new shades of paint.
On the cowboy, to continue on the story I recently posted on the Figarti board about the JS2 vs King Tiger, let me finish the story here: So after the JS2 tanks were knocked out, the King Tigers & Stugs proceeded on to the next village, Klein Silber, where they camped on the southern outskirts for the night. The paras were left in Ziegenhagen to mop up. In the morning, the order came in for the armor to get going through Klein Silber. The reply was "what about infantry escort?" The return reply was: "we're losing WW2; get going!" (OK, I'm embellishing). The author of the article & leader of the battlegroup is in the lead KT, followed by another KT, followed by a StuG. As you might expect, Russian infantry pounce on the 2nd KT, knock it out, stranding the leader in the middle of the town. They then hear the Russians climbing on their tank. Two loud explosions follow, and two crew are dead. Their hatches fly open & the remaining crew jump into a sea of Russians. The Russians are now engaged with the StuG, so two functional crew run back to their people. The leader hobbles out of the tank with pistol in hand, falls on the ground, and starts crawling around all these Russians running for cover. He manages to survive, but my point is, Germans were desperately short of infantry going back to even 1943. Forget 1945. It's not unusual for panzers to be seen going unescorted into villages. Didn't some famous guy in Normandy get toasted in a village?
Anyway, could it be that this panzer is going through a village either without or with a meager infantry escort, feels safer with his sidearm drawn, and is communicating to them or another lead panzer on point?
Here's some grapics to the story:
