Most historical skins.

[SwedishPSK]

What do you guys think are the most "historically common" skins available?

I want my game to look as realistic as it can from the historical point of view.

So can someone tell me which skins are the most historically common and where I can find them regarding uniforms, vehicles and terrain.

Anyones opinion is appreciated..

SWE

[Philippe]

If you get CMMOS 3.02, which will be released within two weeks, you will notice that each German uniform and helmet comes with notes that you can see on the application screen to indicate how historical or common it was.

There is a movement afoot to include this kind of information for all categories of skins in CMMOS, but that will involve a lot of research and work.

[ April 25, 2002, 02:40 PM: Message edited by: Philippe ]

[SwedishPSK]

Thanks for the info..

But when I look at old clips from WW2 it looks like most vehicles are plain gray.. or is that because the movies are black and white?

And on modern movies at also looks like the panzers are all gray..(BoB, Saving Ryan)

I haven't seen any camouflaged ones like most skins made are.. were they not common at all?

Or is it because they have mud and dirt all over them that makes them look gray?

Why not any muddy and dirty skins?..

I've been in the army myself and our CV(Combat Vehicle), was painted in green color.. But just a day or two out on the battlefield it would look almost gray or black because of the dirt and mud..

or did the germans wash their CV's at a regular basis?

and that discussion also includes most uniforms..

SWE

[Bruno Weiss]

Ah, you need some Squadron Signal books. Panzer Colors I & II, and the D-Day to Berlin book are all excellant books to get started with.

[Philippe]

Originally posted by SwedishPSK:

But when I look at old clips from WW2 it looks like most vehicles are plain gray.. or is that because the movies are black and white?

And on modern movies at also looks like the panzers are all gray..(BoB, Saving Ryan)

I haven't seen any camouflaged ones like most skins made are.. were they not common at all?

Or is it because they have mud and dirt all over them that makes them look gray?

Why not any muddy and dirty skins?..

I've been in the army myself and our CV(Combat Vehicle), was painted in green color.. But just a day or two out on the battlefield it would look almost gray or black because of the dirt and mud..

or did the germans wash their CV's at a regular basis?

and that discussion also includes most uniforms..

SWE

I'm the farthest thing in the world from a vehicle grog, and I'm only writing this as a teaser to provoke someone with a better knowledge to answer in detail, so here goes.

At the start of the war the panzers were blue-grey. How blue and how grey is open to debate. And yes, I'm sure they were'nt very blue after riding around in the dust for a week.

At some point in the middle of the war the germans decided that dunkelgelb was a more useful base color. I can't remember if it was '42 or '43, but it was long enough before the start of the period covered by CM:BO that it would be unlikely for there to be any formerly blue-grey vehicles driving around. German units in the field were issued paint, supplies permitting, and they had had several years to cover over that older color that we all love from our early kit-model days.

They also issued regulations, from time to time, about what colors to use in camo schemes. This is where things get a little complicated. A regulation for camo schemes can get issued in one month, paint may or may not be available at the factories or in the field, and it is not clear to me how universally applied a given paint scheme would be. The one thing that I think I'm begining to understand is that the Ambush Tricolor camo scheme wasn't around before October '44 (or was it November...somebody correct me on this). There was also some complicated side effects to some color regulations that came in around the end of that year involving reddish base colors. Apparently the paint shortage was starting to be felt by then, so I'm not clear on whether very late-war camo scheme color regulations were even observed. I suspect that by December '44 the german army as a whole must have been very eclectic in appearance. What I'm still not clear on is whether this was from unit to unit or from vehicle to vehicle.

A lot of camo must have been applied in the field, and it is not always that obvious in old black-and-white photographs, unless you know what to look for. I suspect that there was a lot of frantic bi-color and hasty camo improvisation in the face of allied air superiority. I was surprised by one photgraph that I saw recently of vehicles abandoned in the evacuation of Paris: almost all of them had camo. There is anecdotal evidence that moving around on roads in daylight could be a very dangerous undertaking for a german vehicle.

There are a couple of good sites on the german army on the web that have discussions of the camo colors, and if you take a look at MadMatt's thread about the two recently released blue-grey panzers you'll find more information. I leave it to those who really know their panzers to provide links and more accurate detail. I hope, eventually, to provide some kind of a camo-scheme chart for CMMOS.

[Olle Petersson]

I like to view the quality of "skins" from different aspects:

- "Mechanical" details.

Are all nuts, bolts, hatces, ..., look right and in place?

Are those present clear or blurry?

- Paint job.

Does the colour and pattern used look right?

(And in my personal view, does it fit in with the other vehicles.)

- Weathering.

Includes; sun bleech of old paint, paint chipped off (and maybe recoated in a different colour) here and there, rust in unpainted and unweared spots, dry dirt and wet mud.

My comments on these aspects:

- "Mechanical" details.

I'm way off from a groggish pow to bother much about this. Some of the original textures (still used for some mods, primarily Shermans) have nearly hideous suspension and wheels, that look as if they come straight off a rough casting.

- Paint job.

Other persons know historical facts much better than me.

Fot the Germans I prefer a simple three tone camouflage.

For the Allies I use mostly single colour, with a few exceptions.

- Weathering.

Here's where the mods really differ.

From what I've understood US vehicles were repainted quite frequently, as soon as the paint started to look shabby. Therefore they should probably look like recently painted.

German vehicles, otoh, could probably go much longer before repainting. Here sunbleech, chipping and fill-ins and rust should be common.

Dirt and mud is something that builds up in no time, so that should be present on all vehicles.

Where does this leave us with the mods?

- For sunbleech, wear and tear all of Tiger's mods are great.

Unfortunately his US Shermans look like they were painted years ago and not recently, and the basic colours for his German vehicles doesn't match the hue I want. Dirt and mud is sparse.

- Gordon Molek and Fernando Carrera have done some mods with great painting and mechanical details. These look like they come straight from the factory though, with no weathering whatsoever.

The in my opinion very best overall mods are;

- Tiger's set of German guns, 2nd ed.

- The latest Jeep mod released, who's artist I can't remember, with lots of mud and dirt on fresh paint.

Cheers

Olle