Vallejo 71.025 Dunkelgelb Ral 7028 - matches real German WW2 Dunkelgelb?

There were several shades of DY used during the 2+ years after the switch to the 3 colour scheme. And this doesn't allow for the different sahdes produced by paint companies. I once read that during the restoration of a 251 halftrack, they found 7 different shades of Dark Yellow.

I don't believe there is any such thing as an authentic Dark Yellow.

Bish

I don't believe there is any such thing as an authentic Dark Yellow.

It would be a matter of replicating the colour of a vehicle seen with your own eyes, leaving the factory on a certain day. Photographs are prone to colour shift or have been colourised and as mentioned, paint batches varied depending on availability of materials.

Great points. It seems that Vallejo has changed its 71.025 Ral 7028 Dunkelgelb, it is lighter and less greenish than samples I purchased ten years ago; more accurate and generally matches an authentic German WW2 camo M40 helmet which I had purchased years ago. I’ll use Vallejo’s Model Air’s latest 71.025 Ral 7028 straight on my next finishing project, Tamiya King Tiger. I’ll couple that with hard edged camo using Vallejo’s Ral 6003 and Ral 8017 Model Air colors. An oil dot filter, some pin washes along with some slight scratches, and pigments on lower hull, road wheels/tracks will give it a newly delivered to field look.

When weathering more, I‘ll lighten 71.025 with Vallejo 71.075 (ivory) 60/40 ratio, and apply more contrasting discoloration, streaking, chipping and oils - making and finishing models all the same way makes me stale.  Some of my examples have more weathering than others. That’s just me.  

71.025 is a very close match to what was Dunkelgelb Nach Muster which was only used from February 1943 to the end of Operation Citadel (Kursk) in August. That colour was withdrawn due to feedback and compaints from the front and never entered the register. What became known as RAL 7028 was actually a beige colour.

As a Vehicle restorer with lots of German Vehicles I have to be absolutley correct on this and I have an aggreement with a German paint company who very kindly makes the German RAL paints or me from their archive and the official chipsets of the period.

When AK brought out their "Real Color" sets which are meant to be matches to chipsets I tested them against the paints which are made and matched for me.

Dunkelgelb Nach Muster

RAL 7028

August 1943- May 1944

May- December 1944

December 1944 - End of hostilities 1943 with RAL 6003 as base coat

THere were shade variants from this as each factory had their own pigment formulae, but they were never more than 10% each way from the chipsets on the left. A letter was sent out thanking the paint firms for this high standard even with the constant disruptions and shortages caused by the Allied bombing effort and can be read in the Freiburg Archives.

What you can do is to message Vallejo on FB who have my samples are should be developing these into the model air range and tell them to get a move on!

These shades, strangely enough are not far out from the Afrika Korps paints and one of my recovered motocycles sports a manufacurer date of August 1944 and has a base coat of RAL 8000, one of the Afrika Korps colours!

Nothing is nailed down when it comes to usage, but the AK paints are not within the actual tolorences and I think that they have been using stuff that has been outside for 70 odd years which is prone to sun bleaching etc as their references. Also, their paints aren't as good as quality as Vallejo's model air, apart from their Xtreme metals which although don't like handling or masking are fantastic!

 

 

Forgot I had these. Origianl paints takin outside. Sprayed directly onto white spoons. In order of usage

 

As a bonus. Here's Trumpeter's Pak 44 with RAL 8000 as a base

This was taken inside.

Bish

There were several shades of DY used during the 2+ years after the switch to the 3 colour scheme. And this doesn't allow for the different sahdes produced by paint companies. I once read that during the restoration of a 251 halftrack, they found 7 different shades of Dark Yellow.

I don't believe there is any such thing as an authentic Dark Yellow.

 

 

Agree with Bish 100%. Way too many variables.

I noticed in AK’s book that there is a Dunkelgelb Variant paint chip, which actually looks very close to Vallejo 71.025 under incandescent lighting. The Vallejo 71.025 also looks close to the repainted prototype Konigstiger and Jagdtiger at Bovington tank museum. Additionally, doesn't scale effect (ie 1:35, 1:72, etc) require a lightening of the base color?...at least that is what I learned with all this color theory. Perhaps AK has is right for fine model scales, but on 1:1 basis, they are off the mark as you noted.

Ignore scale model effect. This is something that has crept in to modelling and is the political correctness of this hobby.

What you need to do is to learn just how our eyes and brain see and sort colours out.

If you stick to original chipset colours as Vallejo provide then you are not going to go far wrong. Start with the Afrika Korps RAL colours from the Vallejo range as your base for European camo and then you can alter the shade within the 10% tolerence.

I have found that using the Afrika Korps colours as a base unchanged and then putting on the green and brown makes our brain see the base colour as a very slightly different shade as the sub-conscious part changes the data slightly to bring out details and to make things clearer and more defined for our conscious brain.

This is what the brain does with colours naturally. Use the right colours and let the brain do it's job!

Now, from Christmas 1944 towards the end of the war the shade of 7028 was quite dark as you can see. Painted on top of the RAL 6003 green base coat made it look even darker. Doesn't matter what scale. Use the correct colours and let the brain do its job!

try it on plastic spoons.

 

Thank you for your expertise and advice. I’m now rethinking my finishing techniques on German AFVs. Getting out of one’s comfort zone is a challenge at times.

 

Just ran some tests this afternoon with Vallejo Model Air Ral 7027 (for 1st registered Ral 7028 match), Ral 8020 (for D-Day to 12/44) and Ral 7008 (last Ral 7028 12/44-5/45), lightened 10% for acceptable Ral variance. Vallejo Ral 7027 with 10% variance looks like a good match. I’m not sold on Ral 8020 but Ral 7008 looks like a match to Ral chips for last 7028 variant (Ausg. 44). Didn’t realize that the last registered Ral 7028 was that darker than previous versions. Today’s model paint manufactures made the last Ral version too light but then again some period b/w photos show a much lighter version of Ral 7028 - a darker version wouldn’t show that light even in a b/w photo. Anyway, I’m content on using Vallejo Model Air Ral 7027 for 1943-1944 Ral 7028 match and will use artistic license to say that companies were using up old stock Ral 7028 paint Dec 1944 onwards.

The Dunkelgelb “beat goes on.” Heck, it’s fun (for me at least) and apologize for my overthinking of this topic.

Don't forget the 10% goes both ways too... darker and lighter.

A combat test of the RAL 6003 base coat with the last variant of 7028 took place in October 1944 during Operation Panzerfaust in Budapest, Hungary. New Tiger II's were painted up and issued to 3/ 503 Heavy Panzer Batallion. You can see that the base coat is green as the roadwheels are painted much darker than what is obviously the Dunkelgelb which has much less usage on the hull. you cannot really tell the difference between the brown and green, and obviously the foggy weather is causing the combat cameraman some trouble

This King Tiger has zimmerit (last one with zim rolled of the lines in Sept ‘44?) so it’s ral 7028 is an earlier variant, unless it was repainted?

 

Sorry, please ignore this post...you did note Oct 1944, so the new tanks still wearing zimmerit is a very good possibility. 

Arighty, I've been following this thread for a while now and I think I'll add my 0.02

I've been using RAL 7028 Dunklegelb (71.025) , RAL 8017 Rotbraun (71.041) , and RAL 7009 Verde Aleman (71.020) as my late war colors of choice.

Not because they are exact matches to factory colors, but because they appeal to the way I want to represent my German armour builds. They're good looking colors in combination. 

Furthermore, you don't need exact color matches anyways. Due to environmental variences the colors will always be off in some way. Weathering will change the hues and the way we see those colors as well.

I'm basically in the school of, it "looks cool". So I never worry about exact color matches.

When it's your model, go for what you want to display! That's my thoughts on the subject.

Vallejo advised me this week that they released its new ral 7028 depicting its correct color under their primer label, 73.604

 

https://acrylicosvallejo.com/en/product/hobby/primers-en/german-dark-yellow-70604/