German camo - brushed or sprayed?

It's interesting that you bring that up Eric. My favorite picture of all time for the effectiveness of camo is the 109 over N. Africa. When you see that scheme out of context, it seems bizarre. When you see it in the environment, the plane disappears.

Always hard to say why schemes are used. Lots of different factors...are they trying to hide from air or ground observation, are they trying to defeat aiming, are they trying to hide numbers, etc.

My father is retired US Army and he's got a great story about his time at Ft. Polk when they were conducting studies for effective camo patterns. The most effective scheme they came up with involved a muted black-and-yellow checkerboard scheme. Of course, it was never adopted but one always wonders...

Here is the actual vehicle;



This comes from Panzer Colors I, page 75. I must have this photo in several different books, but I don't remember any of them explaining the reasoning behind it. I guess this is just "artistic license", just like we do on the models!

Does one ever wonder where the wierd "Picasso" scheme on stug III's came from. I doubt that fit any terrain.

One other thing to note is that German field regulations regarding paint schemes gave wide latitude/discretion to the unit commanders to allow the camo to fit their particular terrain environment. As a result, you see a lot of variation so let your imagination go to work! The base dark yellow would have been factory applied, after that the crews used tins of red-brown and olive green and these also had wide color variation as they were a thick paste that could be thinned with everything from gasoline to engine oil to regular mineral spirit thinner. RAL chips offer you a start but there's no one official German scheme to go by in that sense.

In war time Germany, keeping consistent patterns and colors and methods of application was impossible I'm sure. As has been said, pick a method, and they probably used it. Except maybe just sloshing paint on straight from the can. lol.

QUOTE: Originally posted by Copterguy Many thanks! Just to check - was dark green used along with the red brown over top of the dark yellow (or was it dark green or red brown)? If so, what is the Tamiya dark green to use? Jim

Typically both dark green, Tamiya XF-58, and red brown, Tamiya XF-64, were both sprayed over the base color of dark yellow, Tamiya XF-60. And of course, as you can gather, this was based on access to both colors out in the field.

HTH
Glenn

Back when I was in college (late 60s) we had a modeling club sponsered by the commander of the AF ROTC. One meeting we all brought an AFV that we had built and of course 90% of them were German. The captain who had organized the club had invited two visiting German professors to visit as they both had served as Panzer officers during the war. The only problem they had was "your paint schemes are too neat" Apparently the biggest percentage of the pain was applied with anything at hand (paint brushes, rags, brooms etc) and everyone in the vehicle was involved. and if they didn't have paint, mud was applied.
What most modelers (especially young ones) don't realize is that to the guys out on the sharp end have a basic attitude. If it will help me survive, then I'll do it as quickly as I can and use anything available to me to get it done. If it won't help me survive or will get me killed, then it ain't gonna get done. There are a helluva a lot more things that can help you survive than a neat, regulation applied paint scheme. Besides which, supply means "Beans, Bullets and Bodys" which places paints way down the list of priorities to a combat unit.

Many thanks! Just to check - was dark green used along with the red brown over top of the dark yellow (or was it dark green or red brown)? If so, what is the Tamiya dark green to use?

Jim

Go ahead and be creative.Pretend the crew of your tank only had an old mop to paint the vehicle.Or maybe a few brushes.Try to mimic what it might have looked like.

Try this link. It doesn't show a Stug., but might give you some ideas.

http://bsdi.usppp.com/wwiiscalemodels/schemes/panzertarnung.html

They used whatever method they had available and how much time thet had. I've seen picture's using both brush and spray.
John
helicopters don't fly, they brat the air into submission

If you have a chance pick up 'Panzer Colors' by Bruce Culver and Bill Murphy, published by Squadron/Signal. You'll see winter white camo be applied with paintbrushes, mops, brooms, sponges, by hand for the Russian campaign. So you could add a 'white winter' camo scheme over the factory paint job by almost whatever means possible, just as long at it looks 'in scale'.

HTH
Glenn

I concur with Peridexion. They used all methods and the color varied alot.

Brush, spray, sponge, rag, mop, hands.....pick your application method, the Germans probably used it. It all depends on where they were, what supplies they had on hand and how much time they had to put it on. Just to give you an idea of just how varied German paint schemes can be, take a look at this;



Of course this is an extreme example. This is commonly refered to as the "Picasso scheme"
If you have a particular vehicle or area of operations you want to model, I'm sure I or someone else can find a scheme that is appropriate.

most of the time, ive seen it sprayed. there were a couple of standard patterns for german camo. some of the other guys can give you some more info on this, but i suggest looking into (i think) the squadron/signal book. they probably were applied in the field, but there were spray guns out there both onthe tanks themselves, and with field repair units