panzer communication flags

You raise a very good question that's not easily answered. The few photos that I've seen b/w where the flags are "in use" during field exercises indicate that they were a solid color as opposed to say naval signal flags intended for more complex communication. If I had to guess I would say they were most likely solid white or red (semaphor colors) but have nothing solid to back that up.

Malone D;

Hi!

Signal flags used in German tanks...  Yeah! Been around with this one myself, trying to "decorate" (fill?) a panzer I and a KleinerBefehlsPanzer IB...  Here's what I have come across from bits and pics:

Before the war, apparently many panzers, command vehicles, and A-C carried a rack of small flags - red, green, black, white, maybe middle blue and maybe yellow. Also pre-war company commanders may have had a pink-with-black diagonal bar flag, or a red-and-white or red-and-yellow or black-and-white checked flag, and some also had the old european traffic wands- circular white disk with red border, etc. Maybe used by convoy leader vehicles. Various flags show up in pics taken of tanks on maneuvers in 1936 - 38. I feel pretty sure that almost every tank had a red and a green flag - others were probably somewhat more specialized in use. Some colors were used by platoon leaders pre-war to indicate the platoon (tanks did not often have those bold numbers we see later during the war...)

Cheers!

Bob