Tiger 1 Camouflage Colours?

[Marc780]

The first Tigers to be deployed were painted solid Grey. These were first used in the Leningrad area in late 1942. About mid 1943 the Germans switched to a light yellow base tht was applied at the factory. And finding the correct shade of yellow can sometimes be an issue. It is called by several names depending on the paint maker, the German term was "sandgelb' and personally I use Testor's sandgelb as it is the easiest to find where I live. I don't like to buy paint from the internet unless I have used that same shade from the same maker before, as the results can be undesirable. Some colors I have tried and just did not like the effect so I avoid them-no shade of "tan" seems to look right. Neither does "modern desert sand", it is far too pale for WW2 German armor and even mixing in some black doesn't make it look right.

I prefer enamel, I use Testors enamel, I have never used Tamiya although many people swear by it...it needs its own thinner, is incompatible with enamel, and the hobby shop always seems to be missing the correct shades anyway. I no longer use rattle can for the base coat, airbrushing gives more control over the coverage and you can easily create very striking effects just by varying the paint coverage. Whereas a rattle can paint job lacks any depth to it whatsoever. I have had good results by priming with a dark color, even black, at least on the panel edges. And you can simply vary the base coat thickness depending on how much black you want to show through. When done right you can achieve a very striking results. the slight amount of black showing through can give an impression of real depth and also highlights details nicely.

One thing to bear in mind, particularly in late war vehicles, is there was a lot of variation to the shades of the camo colors. As the war dragged on and German industry was hard pressed by allied bombing and everything else, there was inevitably a significant amount of variation in camo colors between vehicles. So as a result, there is probably really no "wrong" camo scheme and there is a lot of room for creativity.

From the start of the war until early 1943, just about every German tank and armored vehicle was painted field grey. Those tanks destined for the fighting in Libya and Tunisia for use by the Afrika korps were painted a solid base of "armor yellow". this shade was very similar, if not the same, as "sand gelb". I have seen no pictures of any camouflage patterns used by tanks of the Afrika corps-presumably the solid "sand gelb" was the best all around color for that terrain.

By late 1942 it was realized by the German waffenamt (ordnance board) or whoever made such decisions, that the standard grey was a very poor color choice for a tank on the Russian front. A t ank in this color stood out starkly in the open steppes that comprise much of Russia, and moreoever, by 1943 German armored forces were also fighting in Sicily and Italy. they must have realized in the tropical climate a grey tank would be an even worse color choice. So from 1943 until late 1944, the factory painted each tank in a base of "sandgelb". By late 1944 the factory base color was again changed (for new tanks and refurbished tanks), to "dunkelgelb" which was a light yellowish green. There was often "sand gelb" and brown applied as camo colors over the light green. By 1945 the situation was so desperate the red oxide primer used by the factory, often was used as part of the camo pattern as well-or even the base color.

By 1943, the supplemental camouflage paint colors were often, simply issued to the tank crews in cans. The idea being the tank crews, or the unit commander, would specify what colors to be used based on local terrain, and season. The paint was issued unthinned, and intended to be thinned with gasoline. Moreover each tank, at least the Tigers and Panthers, was issued with an automotive type spray gun as standard equipment. (Not sure where they got the compressed air for the spray guns-did each tank have an air compressor mounted for its normal operation or did the air come from support units? Surely someone here can answer this question-I tried looking it up but no answers were forthcoming). Since the camo was done in the field, this would naturally mean a wide variation in camouflage patterns between the Panzer formations, and often even between tanks in the same unit. This is evident from wartime photographs as you'd have to look quite a long tiem to find any two German tanks that had identical camo patterns.

Duplicating the camo colors used is not difficult, I usually use GI Olive drab for the green portion. Forest green seems to me the wrong shade, and every other green seems to be far too light. OD green can be too dark so often i will add in a little bit of white. The brown can be trickier, I use use "Italian armor brown" lightened with a few drops of white.

One very important thing i find myself not doing, that i should be doing! Is spraying a test surface first to see the effects of the paints...cannot emphasize strongly enough, how much this really needs to be done beforehand...would save myself a lot of work and trouble if I simply adopted this one habit...

[DavidByrden]

This information seems out of date...

The official camouflage at the start of the war was dark brown over dark grey. These colours were in fact so dark that you could hardly tell them apart, nevertheless the tanks did have a pattern, visible if you washed the dust off.
This was changed to all grey in 1940.
A camouflage pattern for tropical climates was also mandated; once again the colours could not easily be distinguished, so the overall effect was green. The Tigers sent to Africa had this.
The tropical scheme was changed in 1942 to another two colours, this time giving a light sand effect.
In early 1943, the scheme for non-tropical zones was changed to a tan base coat (Dunkelgelb) with red and green applied by the crews however they saw fit.

David

[billpe]

This is evident from wartime photographs as you'd have to look quite a long tiem to find any two German tanks that had identical camo patterns.

There were periods of factory standard camouflage. The short period where Ambush was applied and Panthers are a whole different story. About the time the green was used as a base (Dec 1944), the MAN and DB factories producing them using standardised the templates. So all Panther Gs produced after this date will carry one of these two patterns so you can actually tell where it was produced from photographs.

As David says, for Tigers the crews or maintenance sections did the painting. The Battalion would generally say "here is the colours, make it a bit like this" so you get some similarities between them. Tactical number colours and outlines will generally be inline with the entire company.

FYI Marc, there is no RAL colour on the old chart called Sandgelb. It was Dunkelgelb, of which there were 3 official variations. Unless you're talking about tropical schemes, where there was a sand-gray and yellow-brown (literal translations but the actual colours aren't what you might think). The various orders are paraphrased in Panzer Tracts.

The general breakdown, with RAL numbers: http://www.stugiii.com/germanvehiclecamouflage.html. Remember its the old RAL chart, not the modern one.

[ALPHA]

Here is a pic of the colour mix, couldn't find anything other than white paper to try it on and for comparison there are a couple of other colours on there but I think with some more lightening it could be fine, need to spray it on a dark background to be sure.

It's really hard to see the color differentials ...right now from my view point they all look good for the color of the tool handles lol...probably my computer ...I would say go with your gut... as there are many point of views that might confuse you... paint the whole tank...take it out in the light...and perhaps into the shade...see if you get a better gradient

ALPHA