panzer camo

Besides Africa, German AFVs were not painted with a destination in mind.  All AFVs from 1940 to Feb 43 left the factory in Dark Grey.  After Feb 43, they were painted in Dk Yellow with secondary camo colors added -- at first done at the unit level, but later standardized from the factory near war's end.

German armor that fought in italy was generally painted at the unit level in the typical three tone scheme.  Basecoat was dark yellow (dunkelgelb) with secondary colors of red-brown (rot braun) and dark green (dunkelgrun).  It was up to units to decide how to apply, in general.  Spray guns, paint brushes, etc.  all the hobby paint manufacturers offer these colors.

I prefer to spray a mix of Tamiya Buff and Dark Yellow for dunkelgelb.  Tamiya Field Grey for dunkelgun and Tamiya red-brown for rot braun.

panzer colors vols I, II, III are good. the squadron books can be helpful for ideas even if the ones you look at aren't for your specific build. i'm sure roy will correct me if i am wrong but the PANTHERS and KING TIGERS had compressors so their paint job might look "cleaner" than an PZ-IV. if you look at MMA vs polyscale vs tamiya acrylic pz yellow, pz green, and pz brown they won't be an exact match to each other.

The Panzer Colors books are out of print and won't be re-issued (the plates were damaged/destroyed).  While a great collection of pics, the captions for the most part are dated and have many inaccuracies (due to subsequent research).  All Unit level maintenance had air compressors for painting.  To say one type of vehicle had cleaner camo over the other would be a stretch, IMHO, wayne.

hi roy i sit corrected. back in the day (brd 1975)our bn maint (not sure about the companies) had compressors and they were used when painting camo on our new tanks (M-60A2s in NATO tri-color). prior to that we tank crew members would touch up the desert camo we had on the M60 and M60A1s (my platoon had both). so now i have collector item books. who'd thunk it.

so then it would be safe to say a dark yellow base with either or both of the red-brown and dark green, still have those colors from my hetzer project, was there any guide as to pattern or was it just what ever the unit decided?

Hmmmm.  You would have to pick the exception!  :)

Jagdpanther 38(t) "Hetzers" had less variation as most were factory finished with camouflage.  You should consult photos as these AFVs tend to have very specific paint schemes, depending on when they were manufactured.

haha you miss understand my hetzer is already done just have the colors left from that, was there a specific pattern to panzer 3s or flammpanzer 3s?

No specific pattern to Pz IIIs or Pz IIIs (Fl), the were produced and issued in single base colors and crews applied camo patterns themselves in the field (DAK theater exceptions among others) as a general rule.