Righto; I’ve decided to give the very late war German cammo scheme a go on my current WIP Late Version Tamiya Jagdpanther. As I’m sure most of you know the usual scheme was a base coat of Dunky Yellow with Dark Green and Red Brown over the top.
The late war scheme calls for a Dark Green base coat with Red Brown and Dunky Yellow over the top.
I normally use German Field Grey (XF-65) as the Dark Green as apparently it’s as close as you can get with the Tamiya paint range. The problem is I’m wanting to use the Commander figure on this build as he looks superb and his uniform will need to be painted in German Field Grey too so he’ll probably merge into the build! A shade change or something needs to be done I think?
Now then, the question arises, what colour to use for the base coat? Will Standard XF-61 (as Tamiya call for in the build guide anyway) be ok or should I lighten it up a bit as I’m thinking that, after weathering, the XF-61 Dark Green will darken quite a bit?
What’s the best way to lighten it up? Just add a straight white to the green until the desired shade is obtained?
Or, will the Tamiya XF-61 Dark Green be ok and should I stop worrying about it? [;)]
Why not base coat with Red Oxide primer? Mask a few strategic paint chips and go from there like the real Jagpanther. Tamiya dark green should work, as for the figure clothing faded faster than paint. Use the field gray for it and lighten as per natural sun would.
Manny had a thread that showed ‘Bow tie’ camouflage vrs the popular ‘ambush’ A standard paper hole punch will make easy masks for the ‘dots’ between the ‘bow ties’ Just food for thought as so many paint Ambush.
So are you saying that instead of putting Dark Green on as a base coat use the Red Brown with Green and Dunky Yellow over the top? I haven’t got any red oxide primer and wouldn’t be able to get it straight away. Is the Red Brown that Tamiya recommend a substitute for the Red Oxide primer?
The figure will be fine, I’ll just use a lightened Field Grey like you have recommended.
I’m not familiar with the ‘Bow-Tie’ scheme, SF. I’m planning on a factory applied cammo scheme as opposed to a field applied one if that helps.
I’ll do a search on the ‘Bow Tie Cammo’ but if you have any links (particularly to Manny’s thread/posts) I’d be very greatful.
Depending on whose book you read, you may find that the “late” camo was Dark Yellow and Red Brown over olive green (note that Dark Yellow and Red Brown over Olive Green isn’t all that different to Olive Green/Red Brown over Dark Yellow), or Dark Yellow and Olive Green over Red Oxide primer.
You may consider a green based on XF-58 Olive Green or XF-61 Dark Green (1 part) mixed with Dark Yellow.
Tamiya doesn’t have a close match to Red primer. You may have to do some creative mixing using XF-7 Flat Red and XF-9 Hull Red.
The aforementioned “bow ties” were a side-effect of the so-called “disc” camo where the camo was applied using circular masks and the “bow ties” were unpainted areas of base colour resulting from the overlapping circles.
These late war schemes can be a bit confuseing. But first point to note is that there is no such thing as a factory applied camo scheme for German armour. The vehicle left the factory in its base colour and the rest was done by the troops at the front. I don’t recall the exact dates, but some time in late 44, deffinatly before the BoB vehicles started leaving the factory in Red primer. This is differant than the RAL 8017 used from 1943, though kit painting guids don’t usually point this out. Then after this they switched to painting in Green at the factory. A
That’s not quite correct. Starting in Oct '44 the factories were ordered to apply schemes at the factory and different factories applied different schemes…but they were factory applied and usually hard-edged to boot and represent a distinct departure from the field-applied unit-level approach to camo. The rationale behind this was straight-forward, it sped up how quickly the vehicles could be gotten into the hands of the front-line troops by removing the need for them to paint them in the field themselves…and it also standardized more or less the camo patterns at the same time and saved paint at the factories, resulting in benefits on multiple levels. [;)]
I’ll tell you something. I’ve been a WWI / WWII & Vietnam hobby Historian since Middle School when I was about 12 and when I decided to take up modelling armour as a nice new hobby that I could do at home following smashing my knee up I thought I knew everything about anything where tanks were concerned.
Guess what - I’ve realised I hardly knew a thing about them! LOL!
I’m getting there now though-mainly thanks to you guys! The Tamiya build guide and cammo painting guide constantantly referred to late war schemes and factory applied cammo. I was struggling to see how the average tank crewman could do some pretty elaborate hard edged cammo scheme out in the field?!
I’m going for a NATO Green base coat with my usual Dunky Yellow mix and Red Brown over the top.