trumpeter 135th scale k5 leoplod railway gun 280mm

When I started to build mine, I had emailed the curator at Aberdeen concerning the correct colors of the Leopold.  Here was his response:

"Sir: The original paint scheme on the gun was "Panzergrau" which, for the 
lack of a better term, is black. The gun was painted in its current scheme 
before it went to Italy. It is the then current Med camouflage scheme. 
After firing into Anzio the Gun Captain was informed he was to be withdrawn 
and as he put it "go back to the Army." The gun crew broke into a shed 
alongside the tracks and found some light gray paint that belonged to the 
Italian rail company. They used it to paint the gun, cutting the paint with 
gasoline. After they got it painted, the German propaganda folks from 
SIGNAL showed up and took several photos of the gun painted light gray and 
filmed it "in action" in this totally unauthorized paint scheme. Thus, when 
it was captured it was in a very light gray paint scheme and that scheme was 
maintained over the years here at APG. Several years ago when we go ready 
to repaint the weapon, we found the original scheme under the gray. We 
marked it with chalk and reproduced it as close as we could get it."

 So originally, it was painted in Panzergrau, then painted in camo (it's current paint scheme) and then painted in light grey.

Hope this helps.

Jesse

As far as the paint goes, you really should consider the fact that since the K5 railway gun is such a HUGE model,  the "scale effect" of light on a structure that large would actually render the paint lighter than what you would expect, and certainly lighter than out-of-the-bottle.

I would paint it Tamiya Panzer Gray, but forget about the "Blue" aspect of it; Panzer Gray was a very dark gray. I"d put down a base layer of gray, and then add some light tan or "Buff" to it and give it an overspray to highlight the upper surfaces, spraying from above. Then add more white or buff, and really hit the upper surfaces so that you have a graded finish from dark below to lighter above.

This will look more realistic than one monotone shade of gray.

I built this kit.  It took me nearly seven years to get to within a dozen parts of finishing it.  The reason it took so long was the mind numbing boredom of building the two flat cars the gun carriage rides on.  I painted it Panzer grey with lightened panzer grey drybrushed and streaked on.  There are a number of websites with lots of pictures for references.  BTW...The kit is not a difficut build and the parts fit together beautifully.  If you should need replacement parts, go to Stevens International.  Their customer service department is very helpful

Good luck

Ray