Hi guys
I’m working on the Tamiya Pz II in the French campaign and was wondering about the colour scheme as the instructions give all grey tanks but the more I read the more I think it should be grey and brown. However most of the colour pictures I’ve seen appear to be all grey but black and white pictures are inconclusive. What are your thoughts?
Completed model is on page 2
I’m still a little fuzzy about it, but I do believe they were in a two-tone color early on. Too bad you were a little late on this, otherwise you could have gotten into the Blitz in the West GB. It’s over, but lots of great info. If you have some spare time, check through the thread.
Thanks Tigerman that is perfect. I knew there was a French campaign group build on the forums but couldn’t remember the name of it.
There have been a few discussions on this. I believe the current opinion, supported by some good referance material, is as tigerman says. The colours are hard if not impossable to distinguish in B&W photos. And the kit companies still haven’t caught up yet.
2-tone scheme was the standing ordered scheme until July 1940 and BOF ended in June, so the 2/3 grey, 1/3 brown would be appropriate. Even in pristine just-painted-and-no-dust photos of vehicles outside the factories/depots makes it hard to pick out the scheme. Through in variable lighting, dust, camera, film, etc. conditions of stuff in the field and it disappears entirely. Color photos are avaialble of vehicles in the field for BOF showing the 2-tone clearly though.
This isn’t a great example, but this Panzerjager I shows the two-tone off on the shield prominently. i think it’s easy to see how in a B/W photo the camo would get lost.
bill, not sure if you mentioned it before. Do you happen to know the RAL colours used. I assume the grey is the standard Pz Grey, just not sure about the brown.
According to Tony Greenland, my best guess is RAL 8002 signalbraun, which he says was used with RAL 7021 schwartzgrau, especially pre 1939.
There has certainly been a largish amount of “toing and frowing” about the German two-tone scheme up through JULY 1940!
I would echo previous that looking over the recent past group-build thread on the Blitz in France should be informative. That and other threads on this site, Armorama, Track-Link, etc., have flogged this one nicely! [:P]
With a few exceptions, I think that most tanks and larger vehicles which were actually physically in service by say JAN 1940 would have been painted per that standing regulation of 1/3 dunkelbraun RAL 45 over dunkelgrau RAL 46. I think vehicles which went into major rear-area rebuild could have been repainted in R-46 only during the earlier part of the Blitz - that’s of course only my opinion and a guess based on numerous reads and discussions… While the braun/grau regs were in effect to 30 JUL 1940, there seems some evidence that this reg was increasingly vacated in practice as the Blitz went on, and eventually simply became formalized by the all-dunkelgrau RAL 46 reg posted end of JUL 40. So you do have some choices…
About those colors… Dunkelgrau RAL 46 was apparently renamed Dunkelgrau RAL 7021 after 1940, according to T. Jentz and H. Doyle. So, from this, you can use your “standard” dunkelgrau as the grau base color.
The brown seems to be somewhat more challenging… Per Jentz and Doyle, the “specified” brown was Dunkelbraun RAL 45… I am not sure, but IIRC, RAL 45 was NOT “Signalbraun” (RAL 8002). This dunkelbraun RAL 45 was later renamed dunkelbraun RAL 7017… It should also not be confused with the later “schokoladenbraun” or “rotbraun” RAL 8017 which was used from early 1943 on in German “tri-color camo schemes”.
So what brown WAS RAL 45? From what I’ve seen around the web, this was a darker brown then that signalbraun. So, when I needed this a little bit back, I added a little black to my Testor’s signalbraun to darken it a bit! But that was my non-expert approach and I think a guy could go different ways with his/her “dunkelbraun” and still be fairly “safe”![:)]
Bob[;)]
What a can of worms you opened Bob. LOL I’m not up on my RAL’s so I’ll leave this open to some lively debate.
Thanks for the help guys! Looks like I have another bottle of brown paint to track down.
Here are the color chips from Jentz and Doyle if it helps you out.
And how they looked in an actual color pic from the period as reference.
RAL numbers weren’t used to designate the colors prior to 1940, they were just designated as “Nr.” so don’t get too uptight about “RAL45” and “RAL46” as those are totally different colors. To create the duneklbraun, I used Testors Schokoladenbraun straight out of the bottle as it’s a pretty close match to the color chip you see above IMHO.
Some great info there guys, thanks a lot. I had read some where that RAL7016 Anthracitgrau was used as the grey colour in this scheme. Going off the info you guys have given, clearly it wasn’t. In that case, do you happen to know what this colour was used for.
No idea Bish…the scheme that was ordered prior to the two-tone 1938 scheme was a three tone that didn’t include any sort of gray…but perhaps the Anthracitgrau was a converted color from some other use? The RLM used its own color designations for aircraft schemes, maybe it was a color also used by ground forces for some other purpose? Germans loved to label everything so the fact that there is a designation meant it was used for “something” at “some time”. [:)]
RAL numbers come from
quote[ In 1927 the German Reichsausschuß für Lieferbedingungen und Gütesicherung" (State Commission for Delivery Terms and Quality Assurance) invented a collection of 40 colors under the name of “RAL 840”. Prior to that date manufacturers and customers had to exchange samples to describe a tint, whereas from then on they would rely on numbers.
In the 1930s the numbers were changed uniformly to four digits and the collection was renamed to “RAL 840 R” (R for revised)…]quote - from the current posting on Wikipedia.org ref RAL…
While I don’t in general suspect wiki… of being particularly authoritative on most things, they probably have this simple factoid pretty straight?[:S]
The colors we’ve been kicking around - dunkelbraun RAL Nr 45, dunkelgrau RAL Nr 46 - are historic realities. Some sites use just the “Nr.” and others add on the “RAL” when speaking of them… I’ve seen it both ways. [:)] Using “RAL” just acknowledges the reality that those colors were standardized and assigned listing numbers (Nr.) under the Reichsausschuss…starting from 1927. “Nr.45 dunkelbraun” is a specific formal name and ID for a standard color under a specific system (RAL) - “Nr.45” otherwise means nothing, if not in the context of the system which established it!
So, by me, it seems intellectually and technically honest to use that full designation RAL Nr. xx, when speaking of an earlier RAL standard color just as we seem to have no trouble using “RAL 7028 dunkelgelb” instead of just 7028 dunkelgelb when speaking of a post-1940 RAL color… but that’s just me![:D]
And the old, 2-digit RAL numbers we are kicking around here were changed to 4-digit numbers starting in the late 1930’s… the colors did not change.
As tigerman offered above… opening cans of worms. Ugh![:D]
As to what those colors looked like… well, the J & D scans have frequently been offered up as the “holy grail” in this subject. Not all agree. IF you look, for example, at the supposed “signalbraun” which Testor’s ModelMasters offers, that surely is far from being “nearly-indistinguishable” from any version of “schwarzgrau” or “dunkelgrau” or even “anthrazit-grau” which any paint maker has supplied… unlike what is clearly suggested by those scans.
And therein lies a little food for thought, by me: it’s all possible that Testors’ is way way off - not just a wee bit, but WAY so, with both their "signalbraun and any other “dunkelbraun” they offer, or…! So, for those who read any of many sites which identify the brown used in that pre- JULY 1940 2-tone scheme as being “signalbraun” (and many do…) rather then “dunkelbraun Nr.45”… what do you do?
“yous pays your money and yous places your bets”, gents! It’s a model. Build it. Paint it. Enjoy it - however you do![:P]
Bob[;)]
What? [:S]
No rust on the tracks either. Sorry Manny boy.
Here are a couple shots of the Tamiya Panzer II French Campaign I did for the GP. I used Tamiya XF-63 German Grey, lighten with XF-12 JN Grey, and XF-64 Red Brown, lighted with XF-57 Buff.
More worms for the fodder…
If you change to the German spelling of Anthrazitgrau, you will find a lot of entries. This colour was used on German ships of both world wars. How it ended up considered as a panzer colour, I’ve no idea.
The document Heeresmitteilung 1940, Nr. 864. seems to be the key, as this was the order that ceased the early two tone scheme to the single grey scheme. Assuming it names the grey that had been used with the brown (and whether or not it was a different grey altogether), then the mystery would be solved.
regards,
Jack
Jack, thanks for that. The only place i had heard of it was in the xtracolour paint range. A search of the RAL colour they use shows up nothing in relation to WW2.
Speaking of can of worms, not French Campaign related but there’s also the two tone scheme for the DAK vehicles. [^o)]