What color was German tents, sleeping bags and rucksacks during late fall of 1941

M. Brindos

If I had chosen only one solid color overall I'd have a huge indistinguishable mass on the back of my tank. Breaking up the colors even a little makes each piece look separate.

 

Amen brother.  I never use the vehicle color on any of the gear on the vehicle.  In real life the colors of equipment never match, even if they are painted in garrison.  Especially jerry cans and tools.  i.e. If the vehicle is painted green, I will paint any tools, tarps, boxes, etc. that might be green in a different shade of green to break up the colors.

M. Brindos

No problem. I will reference my E-8 one last time here so you can see for yourself. If I had chosen only one solid color overall I'd have a huge indistinguishable mass on the back of my tank. Breaking up the colors even a little makes each piece look separate.

Go, have some fun. Experimentation can lead to fabulous results sometimes.

 

 

German troops did use blankets as Carlos suggests. Usually a mid gret colur. For the rucksacks, i use tamiya XF-52. The Germans use the Zeltbann for sleeping undr. This was the waterproof cap worn by the troops and several could be atached together to make a tent. they were always in the splinter patern camo colours.

http://www.zeltbahn.net/wh_camo.htm

Yes Thanks...

I made one long and thick roll that would represent a canvas of some sort.  I will attach that to the side.  I wll leav out the sleeping bags...as they look more like bedrolls but a little to large...

Stuart06

I am building a Wespe tank and have the vehicle in the German grey weathered to match what it might look like for the first late fall after the invasion of Russia.

I am lost to find out what color German tents, sleeping bags and rucksacks were as they stored the on the outside of the vehicle as stowage?

 I was thinking panzer grey like the tank..but then I thought...Some sort of green or camouflouge in the open or forest where they my camp.

Any ideas?

 

 

Were the German troops issued sleeping bags at that time? Most armies were simply issuing a blanket or two for sleeping in the field. 

Tents are more of a HQ type issue, and not for each vehicle or soldier. Those were in solid field gray or olive green shades. Each German Army soldier was issued a poncho/shelter quarter. Along with tent stakes, rope, and pole sections. Four would be buttoned together to make a tent. The poncho/shelter quarters were made from a camouflage material, Army in the splinter pattern, and SS in their various patterns.

Rucksacks were not a common issue item to panzer troops, aside from in North Africa. Those were issued mainly to mountain troops, or as mentioned in theaters such as North Africa. They were made from an Olive Green canvas.

Vehicles were usually issued with a canvas tarp that crews would also use as shelters. In 1941 those should be in a field gray or dark gray color close to Panzer gray.

I've always used one of the luftwaffe rlm colors, dark gray green, but I don't know how that translates into German. If you need it I can check when I get home from work and see which rlm number it was.

No problem. I will reference my E-8 one last time here so you can see for yourself. If I had chosen only one solid color overall I'd have a huge indistinguishable mass on the back of my tank. Breaking up the colors even a little makes each piece look separate.

Go, have some fun. Experimentation can lead to fabulous results sometimes.

Thanks M. Brindos.....

I tried googling it, but never quite got the right images.  If I did get an image, it was in black and white....

But your suggestions is good.   I will try it...

Thanks

I would go with German Field Grey and lighten and darken it randomly on different pieces. I'm no expert on German equipment of the period, but no two makers got the color matched exactly any better than we did.

Basically you have some tiny artistic license to play with there. 

When I added the equipment to my E-8 I varried the colors a lot and never used the same colors next to each other. After a brown wash they all looked pretty much the same until I went back over them with some highlights and broke up the monotony.

You will always have this freedom to vary the colors slightly. Just look on Google images and you will see a lot of differences because of fading, lighting, and the mark 1 eyeball. You just have to get it all close enough to fool the eye.