King Tiger Color

[Jnewboy]

I am about to paint two king tigers and they are both going to be from the SS PzAbt 501 from the Battle of the Bulge. Many pictures of this unit I find depict a "grey/blue" as part of the camo. Some have said this color is incorect, some say it is correct. FoV use it on their 1/16 KingTigers. This grey/blue color is the question. Is this color real? if so what color is it? Below are examples of what Im talking about.

[jackalope]

I believe it would be field gray, the reason it may appear to have a bluish hue could very well be the effect the sun bleaching the paint and weathering and road dust would have on it. But being a novice at this stuff this is just my best guess take it with a grain of sand till more experienced members can speak up, but to me it looks very much like Tamiya field gray with a little weathering. My 505th KT got its color lightened up by the weathering and road dust to the point it looks like different colors then what I started with.
That tank #334 is 1 scheme I had been looking at very hard for my next build after this Tiger is done.

[Jnewboy]

Yes you are right, it may be a field grey. I have always read that they only used Dunkelgelb after 43 and stopped with the grey, however some sources say that they still used some gery at the end due to a shortage of paint. If anyone has any definative information on this I would love to hear it.

[HengRong]

Field grey (Feldgrau) was the colour which was used for a wide variety of German uniforms, this was never painted on tanks. Dark grey (dunkelgrau) was the colour painted on early to mid war panzers. They ceased using it in 1943 and even though there were some unusual paint schemes late in the war I strongly doubt it was ever seen on a King Tiger. I don't go much for the FoV King Tiger camo scheme and would be using olive green (olivgrün) as its replacement. I hope that helps a little.

[jackalope]

Really the dark gray? I tried that but it seemed way too dark to me, I thought field gray was the correct color.

[billpe]

It won't be grey, they'll be dark yellow, red-brown and and a shade of green. SS PzAbt 501 Tiger IIs would have come direct from the factory painted in the standard ambush scheme, using supplied patterns. Those tanks were built October/November 1944 and delivered at the start of December then almost straight into action. The photos of that period all show the factory standard scheme for those tanks.

There is some nice research here http://www.network54.com/Forum/47207/th ... -+Overview

I would really doubt any King Tiger ever had the slightest drop of grey on it and remember, most of the pictures you see are artists interpretations and should generally be ignored unless they state a source photo. The 2nd image is a pretty well researched one though and is from a Jentz and Doyle book and is backed up by other research on the topic.

[billpe]

Really the dark gray? I tried that but it seemed way too dark to me, I thought field gray was the correct color.

The grey used on tanks was very dark. Reports often say it was near black in colour under certain light.

[HengRong]

Dark grey (Dunkelgrau) is what the Germans named the colour they painted early to mid war panzers. The Tamiya version of this is XF-63 German grey and I find it to be pretty close. Tamiya XF-65 Field Grey is for their uniforms. I hope that clarifies it for you. Cheers.

[HengRong]

Thanks for the help with that Billpe.

[jackalope]

Dark green? WOW, was I off! Told you to wait till someone else could chime in.