Panzer colors aren't right?!

[John Kettler]

Brother George sent me this in connection with some Micro Armour™ AFV painting he's doing. According the post by a grog's grog when it comes to authentic German AFV paint jobs (restores Panzers), the RAL colors of today are NOT the RAL colors of WW II. Apparently, they got messed with as part of the overall extirpation of the Third Reich. Believe you who work magic on AFV skins will find this of real interest, and I hope this link won't cause the Moon to fall upon me. It's a forum.

http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/89131-german-military-vehicles-actual-colours-shades-and-tones/

Panther in original camouflage scheme (minus mud on it when pulled from a river). Post has others, together with correct color palettes.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

I'm surprised not one person has replied to this post, since it would seem highly topical.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Oddball_E8]

Yeah, one would have thought this'd draw more attention.

But then there's been alot of patches released and such so people probably missed this in all the commotion.

Also, might have better luck not putting this in the mods section.

[folkie]

i believe the colors could vary widely. german paint was issued in paste form and it was up to the crews to mix it and apply it. so depending on how and what the paint was mixed with you could get a variety of shades.

[StieliAlpha]

i believe the colors could vary widely. german paint was issued in paste form and it was up to the crews to mix it and apply it. so depending on how and what the paint was mixed with you could get a variety of shades.

Yep. In my projects, I have a lot of painted steel structures with colours from all different codes. My experience is, the final top coat colour is not uniform anyway. The actual appearance depends on a lot of factors: colour mix, shelf time, primer coat colour, surface finish (routh or smooth), surface preparation, means of application (spray, brush,...), curing time and conditions....

So, anything which "looks alike" is probably fine.

Ah, I forgot to mention the different fading of paint under different environmental conditions.

In my projects, we quite often have issues with equipment from different suppliers, which should have the same colour but is obviously different.

In war times it probably was even more difficult. E.g., I remember that I read once, that the typical "white wash" was often only chalk being diluted in water and applied with brooms. I do not think you can expect a standard white here.

[StieliAlpha]

Brother George sent me this in connection with some Micro Armour™ AFV painting he's doing. According the post by a grog's grog when it comes to authentic German AFV paint jobs (restores Panzers), the RAL colors of today are NOT the RAL colors of WW II. Apparently, they got messed with as part of the overall extirpation of the Third Reich. Believe you who work magic on AFV skins will find this of real interest, and I hope this link won't cause the Moon to fall upon me. It's a forum.

http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/89131-german-military-vehicles-actual-colours-shades-and-tones/

Panther in original camouflage scheme (minus mud on it when pulled from a river). Post has others, together with correct color palettes.

Regards,

John Kettler

And after a quick Wikipedia research:

Yes, the RAL numbering system changed around 1940 to the 4-digit numbers which we have nowadays. Interesting to note: until 1944, the army or Heer camouflage colours had a 7 or 8 as first digit.

And yes again: the RAL System started with 40 colours in 1927. Nowadays we have more than 200 in four different RAL systems.

[John Kettler]

Thanks for the feedback.

Mods,

If appropriate, please move this to the main CMRT Forum. I put it here because it seemed most appropriate, which isn't necessarily the same as best!

Regards,

John Kettler

[StieliAlpha]

Don't know, why this topic kicks me on. Probably because it is such a nice technical issue.

Hi John

I found two sites, which may be interesting for you in regard to this topic.

This one with the offical history of the RAL institute:

http://www.ral-shop.com/ral-history/

And this one from a forum of "bunker nerds" (or should I say: Grogs? ;-) ). They discuss a very similar topic:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=149691

[StieliAlpha]

Brother George sent me this in connection with some Micro Armour™ AFV painting he's doing. According the post by a grog's grog when it comes to authentic German AFV paint jobs (restores Panzers), the RAL colors of today are NOT the RAL colors of WW II. Apparently, they got messed with as part of the overall extirpation of the Third Reich. Believe you who work magic on AFV skins will find this of real interest, and I hope this link won't cause the Moon to fall upon me. It's a forum.

http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/89131-german-military-vehicles-actual-colours-shades-and-tones/

Panther in original camouflage scheme (minus mud on it when pulled from a river). Post has others, together with correct color palettes.

Regards,

John Kettler

Hi John

I investigated a little further. And the RAL question is, indeed, less than clear. A question widely discussed in different stakeholeder groups. It seems everybody struggles with confusion. From modellers to AFV collectors to train grog's.

To start with RAL never was a clear definition. The system provides tables and specifies: This colour is RAL 7015 slate grey. Unlike the NCS system, RAL does not specify how a colour is composed. Only how it shall look like.

Clear is: The colour numbering system changed around 1940. Before that the code was named "840 B", basically just the number under which the standard was published. It included 40 colours, named 1 to 40. Important to note, at that time only the number was standardized. Not the colour name.

Around 1940, the system changed to the 4 digit numbers which have today. But again, the names have not been standardized.

After the war some names were changed (obviously nobody wanted to read "Feldgrau" or "Panzergrau" anymore. E.g., RAL 8017 was "Red brown" before 1945. Nowadays it is called "Chocolate brown".

My personal favorite is RAL 7028 "Dark yellow", which was actually more like khaki. Fits nicley, because the 7xxx series are grey colours.

To make it a little more complicated, it seems the "offical tank colour" was "Dark yellow according to sample". That is the sort of yellow which we know from CMAK and CMFI. But it never was a RAL colour.

Further some colours were deleted from the RAL list. E.g., my favourite RAL 7028 does not appear in todays lists anymore.

So, what we can say the RAL table of today is certainly not the RAL table of the '40s.

Back to the technical side discussed earlier: It seems, indeed, that the colours were delivered to the front as powder or paste, designed to be diluted with as many dulites as possible. Water, petrol,...

Note: This was because the camouflage was normally applied by the combat units, not in the factories already. Though there have been exceptions, of course.

You can imagine that the result was less than uniform.

Here are some more interesting links:

This one about RAL 7028: http://www.militaerlacke.de/lack/1kkunstharzlacke/wehrmacht/ral7028dunkelgelb.php

This Wikipedia article includes a RAL table (you can find it elsewhere, too), with some notes about where the colours were used, what changed when,etc.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAL-Farbe

And here a nice discussion of some AFV guys, trying to figure out the "RAL issue". Very interesting, because it shows samples of old RAL tables:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/47207/thread/1344357686/In+Tomas+Chory

Ah, with reference to CM, I forgot to mention that the computer can not show RAL colours anyway. At best something which looks similar.

So, to answer your brothers concern again: Don't worry. What looks ok and nice is probably good enough.

[Wodin]

You can't go by photos for the exact actual colour of the Tank in real life for starters due to photo development of the time and age\time will effect colour on photos. Also real life will effect colour, light\shade, sun, time of year (I find colour is washed out during the winter) etc etc. I also expect the paint mix wasn't always exactly the same over the years.

So unless you have some tanks from that time that have been kept in an environment where age\sun hasn't effected it it's always going to be guess work to some degree.

So as mentioned above if it looks OK and good enough then it will be.

[GhostRider3/3]

i believe the colors could vary widely. german paint was issued in paste form and it was up to the crews to mix it and apply it. so depending on how and what the paint was mixed with you could get a variety of shades.

Interesting I have some books from Bruce Culver, actually I have all of them. Panzer Colors series of 3 books. They talked a lot of tactical markings, paint schemes and such.

I believe that some tanks were actually painted in the factory, and sometimes on the field. Although quickly adhered in some areas to protect the metal especially in the desert, but I don't think it was just paste.

I have a few more books on the subject but those just jumped out.