Panzergrau: Tamiya got the blues?

Eric,

Yes the "dunkelbraun" is different from the rot-braun seen in the later '43 onward 3-tone scheme. For my purposes, I found that Testors Modelmaster Schokoladenbraun was a good match.

On a side note, as it relates to a point you made earlier about the N. Afrika vehicles, those were sent over in Feb '41 and by then would've had just the straight panzer gray scheme and not the earlier 2-tone. HTH!

Bill,
Thanks muchly. The B&W photos are actually much clearer. This is good news from my point of view. I've got a 1940 PZIV and am looking around for an early Stug III - anything that varies the color scheme is very good news. Now the question is, what color in the real world would best correspond to the 1939-June 1940 German Dark Brown? I assume it would be quite different than the later 3 color brown. Any guesstimates? Maybe this is worth a new thread. (Actually I've got to scan some Culver stuff that gives early war alternatives as Panzergrau vehicles were moved into Africa and later found itself in winter. All would make neat kits. Even the 3 color scheme can get a little repetitive unless you really look at some the variants rarely modeled.

Eric

On the question of the early-war 2-tone scheme in place from Nov '38 to June '40, that information is clearly contained in Panzer Tracts 1-1. They don't repeat it again in other volumes of the series due to the varying print dates and other factors. So you won't see it stated multiple times and the only place it appears is in 1-1 and includes a rarity in the PT series, actual color illustrations of the Dunkelgrau and Dunkelbraun colors prescribed for the 2-tone scheme. Jentz and Doyle support their claims on 2-tone via the use of original/primary source documents for the ordered schemes. The monotone Panzer Gray scheme was not ordered until June '40 and prior to the two-tone scheme, the ordered scheme was 3-tone, so there's no factual evidence to support a monotone Panzer Gray scheme in place for the early WW2 campaigns. The two-tone scheme was applied at the factory or depot level with supplemental instructions that vehicles in the field with the prior three-tone scheme be re-painted as time/materials allowed to conform with the new scheme. That didn't happen universally and by the outbreak of war with Poland, there were still units with gear in the older three-tone scheme.

As for photos showing the two-tone scheme, they exist in both b/w and color. Here are a few examples (taken from a wide variety of sources so not limited to just Messrs Jentz and Doyle in terms of supporting evidence) Notice that these pics are of clean vehicles in the b/w pictures and how hard it is to distinguish the two colors...once you get a nice layer of dust involved, even in the color pic on the Pz II it's extremely hard to pick them out without looking at the pic in high-res and large dimensions.

You can check out a short piece by Jentz and Doyle that knocks the Panzer Colors series done by Bruce Culver in the 70s. I've got Culver's volume on camo and assuming that Jentz and Doyle are right Culver's brief mention of pre-war German armor omits yellow. There's a pic you can check out there that is supposed to show the dark brown and dark grey used in the French campaign - unfortunately the colors are so close that you can't tell them apart. Yikes. To be honest, I've never seen an early war German AFV that had a grey/brown scheme - maybe someone with Doyle's books could give us a lead on that.

This whole thing reminds me of a running battle that is still not really settled over the colors worn by Japanese aircraft in the "offensive" stage of the war: was it a light grey or a greenish grey? Anyway, judge for yourself:

http://www.panzertracts.com/PZfacts.htm

I don't know what else they have found to fault in Culver's book but it is available, it's not very expensive and has super photos. I've never seen the enamels Greenland refers to (he makes no claim to be connected with them that I've seen: indeed he uses Tamiya half the time) but if he things you had to add blue to get a Tamiya equivalent that must say something. Tamiya's German Gray definitely has a bit of blue. It actually reminds me a lot of Payne's Gray. But as an earlier post illustrated, eyes do not see the same images. Ideally what you'd really want to know is any numerical reference that would give ratios of primes in the paints. Something like Pantone. But who knows. We've got Federal Standard and when paint makers try to get a WWII equivalent for Olive Drab, they're a little different. When I was doing my last plane, a LA-5, part of the camo is a kind of grimy black widely used in the first half of the war by the Soviets. I thought it was a dead ringer for Payne's Gray: so I mixed it 50/50 with black. Even with the mix, though, the deep blue (actually a kind of purple) showed in the bottle. I almost chickened out. But when it dried the color was, if anything, too close to straight black.Gray/Greys is goofy.

Eric

I am a big fan of the Xtracolour enamels, but i never realised Tony Greenland had a hand in them. But i can't say i have noticed a blue tint in the Panzer grey, it works fine for me. I used to follow Tony's methods after reading an article in FSM from many years ago. But now i have gone off them, though the book mentioned is still a great help.

Terry, i take it you now Hilary personally. I love the books that he brings out, i am currently working my way through getting the panzer Tracts series. The problem for us modellers is that often come out with things that only they seem to discover and we sort of have to take their word for it. There have been two recently. The first was the issue of the 251 re-numbering in relation to the 251/3 and now this thing about German tanks in France and Poland being painted in two colours and not just Panzer grey. I don't recall who brought it up on here a few weeks back. In the panzer tracts books, they don't mention colours, but i just got hiold on number 2-3 which deals with the Pz II D,E and F. Theres some very clear close up shots of German armour in Poland and France, and i can see no evidence of a two colour scheme.

I have no idea where this idea was published, i haven't seen it myself, just what has been said on here. But it can get a bit confuseing when one person, or group of people claim somthing, but no one else does.

All I can really add here is that the last time I was speaking to Hilary Doyle about colours he showed me a photo of a Sdfkz 6 or 7 in the factory and it clearly showed the brown applied to the vehicle, but as far as colours go he has an actualpaint sampling chart that was used in the factories to match up painted items to the required standard.

Hilary did tell all the people in attendance that there was a story about 20 panther hulls that failed the primer colour match and were left out in a yard until they could be repainted. I believe that from what Hilary Doyle was pointing to was a simple fact, the vehicles were painted to a given standard in the factory but once in the field it was a different story.

As for the Hannants enamels that were produced to Tony Greenlands specs back in the early 1990's I did buy a set and I did not like them.

Panzer grey kills me because there are so many storys and opinions as to what the exact shade should be.

Terry.

Why do I feel that even as I was typing here that this would come back to bite me in the rump.............

wbill76

 

Check out the color modulation on the lower right fender

OK, I give up. The photo is from Libya in late 1940 when Rommel first got into town? I think vehicles for what was later called the DAK were initially Panzergrau - the decision to send Germany to Africa was taken in haste. (Might have been important too. Wonder if an extra armored division could have helped Army Group South out in Barbarossa - it was their failure to take Kiev that got Moscow off the hook.) Maybe Tunisia in late 42 - another decision made in haste? The tank looks right off the boat - doesn't show wear or any rust on the muffler.

Ben's color really looks like what Tony Greenland had in mind, although Greenland's techniques for giving "depth" to the model are so old that they're new in some ways. (Light color for prime. Granzergrau or Dunkelgelb over the whole vehicle. Substructure darkened if you use Dunkelgelb: made matte if grey. Upper surface satin. Massive campaign of drybrushing with oils progressively getting lighter and more selective. Topped off with 100% coverage with black, brown or yellow pigments. Wash considered necessary only for zimmerit, but pinwashes recommended. Everything done after construction is complete (I assume minus fiddly bits, although it's not said. This is going to be interesting to someone who has always worked under the influence of Gary Edmundson or Adam Wilder.) As for grey/gray are we modelers or modellers?

There's also the much argued "scale effect." A while back I made a 700 scale Kirishima painted Kure Arsenal Grey - which is very dark. I didn't make any adjustments for scale. I can barely see the thing in my back room: my other ships are all lighter and they show up much better. Ditto on my first tank, Tamiya's old Panzer II which I painted German Gray - it's much more difficult to see than my greenies. That may be very good argument for a little license.

Thankee for the illusion sites - my wife's a teacher and thought them neat. Reminds me of the kind experiments we college students got paid $5 to take (that was a case of beer in the late 60s).  But it's all true. The closest IPMS chapter is a fair distance, but I'm tempted to join. Outside of a very aging collection at the local shop, the only plastic models I've seen in the past year have been the ones I made. Pictures galore. But a photo image is a kind of illusion (I'd like one of Finescale photographers to take some snaps of my efforts - bet it wouldn't hurt) and computer monitors lie like bandits.  Be really interesting to see what a top modeler's work looked like in person.

Eric

As for color perception----

http://www.echalk.co.uk/amusements/OpticalIllusions/colourPerception/colourPerception.html

http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/lum_adelson_check_shadow/index.html

http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/lum_contrast-contrast/index.html

EBergerud

Tamiya's German Grey looks like a good bet and I'm not quibbling with Jentz and Doyle. The problem is that "grey/gray" (they can't even decide how to spell it) is a very odd color. Folks with no taste for color mixing would make a grey by mixing white and black. I'm not sure what would work industrially, but that might not necessarily be the best way to do it. If you wanted a really deep black pitch to mix with a white paste and some thinning agent, you might well have a kind of "chromatic black" which is made with blue. Indeed, there's no doubt that Tamiya "German Grey" has a bluish tinge. BTW: the many photos of Panzergrau vehicles in Greenland's book are all "dark grey" but with a very subtle bit of blue. He used Hannants enamels but recommended Blue and Dark Grey for a Tamiya mix - I'm sure German Grey wasn't available when he wrote. It's true that I've seen some models that have their kits a kind of greyish blue and don't doubt that it may be pretty but is not history. This issue has precedent. I do believe that American sailors throughout WWII were given a kind of deep purple paste with a big bunch of white paste: depending on the ratio you made haze grey, deck blue, navy blue.

Do appreciate the thumbs up on Tamiya. I have a couple of bottles so I won't go looking for more. Can also use it as a benchmark to whip up a batch of Panzergrau with acrylics when I run out.

Eric

Isn't it spelt 'Gray' in America and 'Grey' (the correct way ) by us Brits?

It's like Armor and Armour!

Onto the actual subject of the question in hand. It'd have to go with Bill on this and say that the 'real' Panzer Grey is VERY dar and almost black BUT I really like to mix my colours and my last StuG (the one the dog ate) was painted with a mix of about 60% XF-63 German Grey and 40% XF-18 Medium Blue with a little dribble of Flat White. It was obviously waaaay too blue but I don't use artistic licence often and I love mixing my own colours. After the basecoat was applied this much lighter shade allowed my pre-shade to show through and and the subsequent weathering would have darkened it a fair chunk anyway.

I've seen some Panzers in the magazines that are virtually painted entirely Medium Blue without a hint of any Grey!

Here's my 'Artistic License' StuG that the dog chewed so it didn't get finished (I've had to order another kit as I've got the Friuls etc) - I don't use my license very often and I'm going to paint the replacement in the same colour too, I really like it but I wouldn't go any brighter:

Many thanks,

Ben  

One of my all-time favorite color photos of a panzer gray vehicle is on the Achtung Panzer website.

The analogy of the colors used for US navy ships and the different mixing ratios doesn't apply to the RAL codes. The RAL codes were established by a central government authority to exacting standards and applied at the factories in huge quantities on an industrial scale. The Waffenamt was notorious for not accepting anything, regardless of gear type, that didn't conform with standards. Granted you might have very slight variations from one paint batch to another but not in terms of chromatic tonal shifts in terms of how the "gray" was comprised in terms of blue tint vs. no blue for example. The RAL standard 7021 does not contain any blue.

The field issued paste tubes/tins were for maintenance touch-ups only in the case of panzer gray, not full-on overall vehicle painting in the field, so any minor variations introduced there due to various thinning agents used would be vehicle specific at most and not wide-spread. 

Tamiya's German Grey looks like a good bet and I'm not quibbling with Jentz and Doyle. The problem is that "grey/gray" (they can't even decide how to spell it) is a very odd color. Folks with no taste for color mixing would make a grey by mixing white and black. I'm not sure what would work industrially, but that might not necessarily be the best way to do it. If you wanted a really deep black pitch to mix with a white paste and some thinning agent, you might well have a kind of "chromatic black" which is made with blue. Indeed, there's no doubt that Tamiya "German Grey" has a bluish tinge. BTW: the many photos of Panzergrau vehicles in Greenland's book are all "dark grey" but with a very subtle bit of blue. He used Hannants enamels but recommended Blue and Dark Grey for a Tamiya mix - I'm sure German Grey wasn't available when he wrote. It's true that I've seen some models that have their kits a kind of greyish blue and don't doubt that it may be pretty but is not history. This issue has precedent. I do believe that American sailors throughout WWII were given a kind of deep purple paste with a big bunch of white paste: depending on the ratio you made haze grey, deck blue, navy blue.

Do appreciate the thumbs up on Tamiya. I have a couple of bottles so I won't go looking for more. Can also use it as a benchmark to whip up a batch of Panzergrau with acrylics when I run out.

Eric

Yep, the original paint chips that Jentz and Doyle provide in the Panzer Tracts series show that the Dunkelgrau we know as "panzer gray" is very dark...period color photos also substantiate this. The tendency to go medium gray or even blue-gray is an artistic license approach and has nothing to do with the reality of the colors used. Panzer gray was applied to vehicles at the factories prior to shipment to the depots and the crews didn't mix their own colors in the field. All colors issued to the crews in the field were in the form of paste tubes that conformed with the appropriate RAL standards for authorized colors. RAL 7021 was established as the standard "panzer gray" color. HTH!

I don't find any basis for Greenland's claim.  German dk grey is almost black -- even with extreme lighting, "bluish" hues wouldn't be extant.  Go with Tamiya -- it's fine.