I have a Panzer II on the bench at the moment, and while I want to do it as a 5th Panzer Regt vehicle, I also want to do something a bit different from the normal Afrika Korps sand yellow color scheme. I recall seeing some of these early vehicles (ex 3rd Panzer Division), being unloaded from ships circa February 1941, and while they were black and white photos, the tanks appear to be grey, in other words not yet in their African camouflage. I also recall seeing photos of the famous staged Panzer Parade in Tripoli, prior to moving forward on that first offensive thrust. Seems to me these tanks were also still in their original gray.
My question then is did these tanks arrive in Africa in their original livery, or are the photos playing tricks on me. In a perfect world color photography should have been invented 75 years earlier. Thanks in advance for your answers.
On 17 March 1941, Inspectorate 2 ordered that equipment in North Africa should be painted two-thirds yellow-brown (gelbbraun RAL 8000) and one-third gray-green (graugrĂĽn RAL 7008).
On 25 March 1942, Inspectorate 2 ordered that gelbbraun and graugrĂĽn were to be replaced by brown (braun RAL 8020) and gray (grau RAL 7027) once existing paint stocks were depleted, using the same pattern.
WW2 German AFV’s for DAK - who really knows these days? Those were the guidelines it seems.
It’s been show several times in black and white photos that often demarcation between the two colors doesn’t show up very well that they often appear to be the same color on black & white pictures.
Even with just a cellphone edit…those colors almost disappear going to black & white. Just imagine adding a weeks worth of dust out in the field and how little contrast would remain between the two colors.
I think it’s also note worthy how the red 131 looks “black” in the B&W edit.
