Paraphrasing Osprey here; By December of '44, the once fearsome 3rd Fallschirmjager Division, decimated in the summer battles, was now reconstructed using surplus Luftwaffe ground personnel, reject-grade recruits and lead by inexperienced Luftwaffe staff officers. After the embarrassing all-day delay of the start of Peiper's advance by a US infantry platoon holding-up a entire paratroop regiment, Peiper commandeered a battalion of paratroopers to reinforce his own men. Since the paratroopers could not keep up with Peiper's columns on foot, he had them ride on the backs of the Kingtigers. They saw very little combat during the opening phase of the battle.
So...yes, they rode on several KTs, it's just that 222 was a camera hog, at least it seems that way. I have photos of many of 501's TKs, including 204, but I don't see any of 234 yet.
I have color plates of 104, 212, 223, 313, 003, 332, and 204. I now notice that Osprey depicts 204 and 003 with tactical numbers in blue outlined in yellow.....Hum...
And this Osprey title is by Jentz and Doyle, and they are supposed to know this stuff, though the artist is Peter Sarson. Maybe he slipped one by the editors? The previous statements about the color-coded numbers for each company came from
Tigers in Combat, volume II, page 7. For what this book costs, it had better be correct! So it seems there is some disagreement as to the number colors...(like I haven't seen this problem before!)
Personally, I am inclined to believe the
Tigers in Combat version. Why would the author simply make up this color scheme, (which was not uncommon with other units), if he didn't have any evidence? Also, Osprey's artist depicts 2 KTs of second company, 222 with red/white numbers and 204 with blue/yellow numbers. My intuition tells me that having two different color schemes in the same company is rather unlikely. Plus,
Tigers in Combat is a 421 page book, Osprey's is 48 pages......Make your own call.