Rare color pic of German Dark Yellow...

when I first opened this thread I almost snorted my Dr. Pepper up my nose...

the picture loaded slow enough that at first all I saw was the burning hulk I do think that the picture has had filters  darker forground and the color was probably not as accurate as we would have liked.

 Oh I thought there was a list of where most of the german tanks were destroyed....

On the other hand all ya'all are down right SPOOKY with your knowledge of these tanks

"Check out the dark-yellow overspray over the panzer grey on the big field-guns, and the 88, which appears to be in dark yellow...I think this is probably a mix of pics from Tunisia and perhaps Sicily/ early Italy..."

The guns in the pic from front to back are

1) 8.8cm Flak 18, basecoat dk grey w/worn dk yellow repaint

2 & 3) 10cm Kanone 18, both appear to me to be dk yellow with a darker camo atop the basecoat of dk yellow

4) 15cm sFH18 Haubitze, all dk yellow

5) 5cm Pak 38, multi tone,

6 & 7) 7.5cm Pak 40, 3 tone camo

8 & 9)two unknown gun carriages

10) 8.8cm Flak 36 (likely) or Flak 37, looks to be all dk yellow

11) to the right, another unknown carriage (maybe 5cm Pak 38)

12) 10.5cm leFH18 haubitze, all dk yellow

13) after the leFH18, it gets sketchy -- maybe the next one is a 8.8cm Flak 41 with a folded gun shield -- I dunno.  Although the multi toned 8.8cm Flak 36 or Flak 37 is visible in the far left as well.  Note the T-2/M31 TRV in the far right background.

None of these pieces (each one I list was actually sent to Panzerarmee Afrika) rules out Tunisia but there is a Sicily/Italy feel to the pic.  This is just a guess.

I think this thread gets my vote for the best of the year-so far. The knowledge about the tanks plus the incredible pictures make this one a very valuable thread.

These pictures are great, and I see they are from 'Life', but is there a specific book, or are these readily available on the net? I'd love to have a collection of these for my own reference.

Google is your friend

Life's images are organized on google.  Just input "life images".  You can then search through 1940s or put an input such as "tunisia". 

stikpusher wrote:

TD4438 wrote: Damn good discussion.I noticed the tracks on these tanks are rusty.How long would it take them to look that way in Tunisia or Italy?   In damp conditions, surface rust will form quickly once the vehicle stops moving, sometimes overnight (seen that myself and was quite suprised). And as WBill said, if set afire,a soon as the metal cools, it begins to oxidize. In dry conditions, it will also rust/oxidize quickly, once there is no longer movement to scrape it off.

TD4438 wrote:

stikpusher wrote:  TD4438 wrote: Damn good discussion.I noticed the tracks on these tanks are rusty.How long would it take them to look that way in Tunisia or Italy?   In damp conditions, surface rust will form quickly once the vehicle stops moving, sometimes overnight (seen that myself and was quite suprised). And as WBill said, if set afire,a soon as the metal cools, it begins to oxidize. In dry conditions, it will also rust/oxidize quickly, once there is no longer movement to scrape it off. That's all I needed to see!Don't none of you's guys ever tell me my tracks are too rusty ever again!Ever!

Moderation is still your friend...a lot of what you see in these pics is unusually high levels of oxidation (combined with impacted mud/dirt) due to the tanks having burned. If you look back at the pics of the III-N that's relatively intact and doesn't appear to have burned, you'll see that its tracks aren't deeply rusted. Now if you're looking to model burned out tanks, then yes what you've seen here provides some excellent reference material to back that up.

This looks like a three-tone scheme if I've ever seen one:

stikpusher wrote:

...and what looks like some very rough zimmerit on the bolt on plate between the bow gun and driver's visor.

Also, note in the sequence of pics showing the Tiger about to be blown (GI shoving TNT under it)...that it belongs to the same sequence as my original posting pic...the upside down burning hulk is that of the same Tiger after the charges have been set off...this ties those pics together... 

Yup... These look like to different sequences of photos that have similar bckground areas to my eye. I edited my earlier post about this... the first pics are almost certainly Tunisia, the burning Tiger, Mk IIIN from the 501st, and Mk IV "8". The schurzen MK IVs in three tone are perhaps from Italy of some other area of the Med? I dont think Sicily because most of my reference hotos from there show MK IVs in plain overall Dk Yellow w/no schurzen.

Again looking at the backgrounds, in the one set, the skies are heavily clouded, while in the other they are completely clear/blue. This rules out the pics being taken at the same time.

Too bad there are no unit markings on the Mk IV column... makes photo interpreting so difficult....

stikpusher wrote:

...and what looks like some very rough zimmerit on the bolt on plate between the bow gun and driver's visor.

Field applied?

subfixer wrote:

stikpusher wrote: ...and what looks like some very rough zimmerit on the bolt on plate between the bow gun and driver's visor. Field applied?

Great discussion here, and love those pictures. I have perused most of these on the LIFE website myself, and many of them carry caption information. The guys who voted Tunisia appear to be correct:

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?q=TANK+source:life&prev=/images%3Fq%3DTANK%2Bsource:life%26start%3D60%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN&imgurl=b427936943788384

"Burning wreckage in a field after the battle of El Guettar. Tunisia. April 1943. Photogrpah by Eliot Elisofan"

 Its definitely a Germaine tank. Note the name over the driver's block.

These also look like Ektachrome images. They have that bluish cast that Ektachrome has. Kodachrome tends to be a warmer film. Ektachrome first came out in the early 40s and was easier to process than Kodachrome, so its likely that some Life photographer might be using it.

Joe

   Here are some pics of the Bulgarian panzers with what looks like some of the original dark yellow paint. These are pics taken just recently and I think the color is very close to the Life photo.

   Here's a color pic of a Mk IV in a three-tone scheme.

   And the same tank in black and white.

  Can anyone tell me if the original photo was taken in B/W or color?     

panzerguy wrote:

Here's a color pic of a Mk IV in a three-tone scheme.      And the same tank in black and white.      Can anyone tell me if the original photo was taken in B/W or color?

Hard to say...and as a trained historian I have to ask a more fundamental question first...what's the source/origin of the two photos? Publishers would often print photos in b/w even if the source negative was on color film due to reduced cost of printing or to retain consistency with the other photos, etc.

These are very cool to see, thanks for sharing. I thought i would lighten'em a bit so we could see the color better.

wbill76 wrote:

panzerguy wrote:        Here's a color pic of a Mk IV in a three-tone scheme.      And the same tank in black and white.      Can anyone tell me if the original photo was taken in B/W or color? Hard to say...and as a trained historian I have to ask a more fundamental question first...what's the source/origin of the two photos? Publishers would often print photos in b/w even if the source negative was on color film due to reduced cost of printing or to retain consistency with the other photos, etc.

The color photo has the look of a hand tinted or computer colored B/W photo.

cameraflage wrote:

Isn't that a cleaning rod sticking out of that barrel??????   Great pictures on this tread!

stikpusher wrote:

Can anyone tell me if the original photo was taken in B/W or color?

 This Pz IV is of 12SSPD and an entire series exists of this vehicle and others along with the crews in various poses.  They are all in B/W.  I think the pic was originally B/W too

    If these are colored in then it's a pretty good piece of work. When I first saw it I thought the colored one was the original. The reason was what looks like glare on the driver's glass block. But when I look at it closer the name Paula looks a little to white.

    I was thinking it might be HJ due to the fact that the crews were known to write their girls names on their vehicles.

panzerguy wrote:

If these are colored in then it's a pretty good piece of work. ... But when I look at it closer the name Paula looks a little to white.

I ran the color photo through Photoshop, dropping out all of the color saturation until it was monochrome, then compared that to the black and white photo. They were identical. My thinking is, its a lot easier to turn a color photo into black and white than it is the other way around. If it was colored, its a really good job...but I dont think the black and white image was the original.

The name does, however, look somehow enhanced.

Joe

Sorry to revive this thread after 4 years, but we now know the location of the Tiger wreckage, and what the battle was. We even know that the "Life" captions are wrong.

tiger1.info/.../4-Tigers-Panzer-graveyard-Hunts-Gap

David

Yeah, but this is a great thread to revive! I forgot about all these cool photos! Even if Life was off in their captioning for which battle.

I am glad that this was brought back I did not see it the first time through. Great pictures good reference material.

Well since this thread has been resuscitated, how about some OD from teh same time and place... now the question is...

to dust?

 or not to dust? (or less dust anyways)

That wrecked Mk III looks a lot like one of the hulks we used as target practice at Grafenwoehr when I was with the 14 ACR in Germany.  The poor thing has been hit repeatedly.