Bottoms of German Armor

Jason,
for what it's worth, i "think" they would have the same color as the main tank body.
i will check my Panzer Colors tonight and see if they mention this.

thanks. I was thinking that prior to going to the Dark Red, the bottoms would match the rest of the bodies base coat. But when they went to dark red, I was wondering if the field painters would even bother to paint anything that was hard to reach/not visible, thus leaving the hull bottom and perhaps up in the wheel well areas the dark red color.

If I was modeling a factory painted vehicle, I would paint the undersides the same as the base coat. A field repaint of yellow over gray would most certainly be rather limited to the visible surfaces, since at that time, field supplies of Dark Yellow were not always plentiful. The color photos I have of the undersides of vehicles in their original paint are usually so rusty and dirty that the color can not be determined. I have some color photos of a Panzerwerfer 42 auf Maultier taken at Saumur which basically show Dark Yellow paint underneath in the places they could reach and primer red on parts where they couldn't reach. The only thing I would worry about is not leaving the undersides car wash clean, that would look rather unrealistic.

I'd imagine you and Wildwilliam are right in that camo didn't extend below the 'visible' surfaces. Speaking from my experience with US armor, only the base coat is used on the bellies and under sponsons. I'd have to look at my old photos of M60's to see if they did the sides of the lower hull above the road wheels, but it was usually covered with a layer of mud anyway, so it wouldn't matter much in the field where normal 'weathering' occured.

Ron

Thanks guys. I think I will basecoat the bottoms of my Final Poduction Jagdpanther with dark red and then covered it was a liberal dose of mud and filth.

Back in the old days of brush painting real tanks we painted everything you could see. The bottom of the fenders and the bottom of the hull were left what ever color they happened to be even if that was bare metal. Having been under many tanks for various reasons I can say U.S. tanks come from the factory with the bottoms painted in the base color. After you run over a few thousand boulders and tree trunks it's very scraped and chipped up with much primer showing through.

Makes sense- why bother painting it if it is going to get scraped off.

I don't know if modern techniques apply to this, but I work at a job shop that builds a bunch of different things. When we paint, let's say a trailer, we first slag blast the thing, then prime, either red or grey oxide. Then the top coat is applied to the visable parts with a light dusting to the "undersides". Typically overspray. Prime definately shows through. It would seem that in a time of war when your stuff was getting blown up as fast as you could make it, paint would be the last thing on your mind. Then the field crews would paint to suit there needs. I wouldn't be surprised to see : light paint, runs, sags, orange peel, fish eyes, etc, etc. I never thought about it until now, but the underside of the hull (Very hard to rotate after assembly) would possibly be no more than primed. This was heavy plate and surface scale would not be an issue on a vehicle that had such a short life expectancy. The fenders and such would probably never see a top coat. IT's too bad they didn't have Core 10 steel. That's the stuff they use to build art and fancy foot bridges. It oxidizes to a certain point and then the corrosion becomes it's protection. That would be a cool modeling project.

Just my $.02.

Thanks Ted Some really great thoughts. If you did some Core 10 projects, it sounds like you would need to buy some Rustall