More than one German Dark Yellow - fact or fiction?

[Chauvel]

Ok…so I’m on hunt for another German Dark Yellow because, clearly, 4 different ones in my stash already isn’t enough . I had a look at Hataka. They have a boxed set of late war colours. Bugger me if they don’t have 3 different Dark Yellow’s.

Did the German’s REALLY change the tone of Dark Yellow over approx. 3 years? Or is the variation I read about now more to do with individual perception or colour shift through photo reproduction & ageing?
When I started researching for my armour models, I was always led to believe there was only ever one Dark Yellow, one Dark Green & one Red Brown…

[Namabiiru]

Now you’ve done it…

BTW: Everything you ever wanted to know about peoples’ opinions about Dunkelgelb here

[SSGToms]

According to Thomas Chory, who published the penultimate be-all end-all color chip book on WWII RAL colors in 2000, there were 4 shades of Dunkelgelb throughout the war. These 4 shades were recently very well covered by AK Interactive Real Colors. That’s that.
This is just my considered opinion, I own the book, YMMV. To delve into the endless chasm of Dunkelgelb opinion and misinformation, hit the link provided by Mark. It’s quite a thread.

[BillM]

It really depended on how the paint was mixed in the field, either with water or gasoline. It depended also on the concentration of paint with either of the above. Manufacturing also impacted the final color. There may have been four mixing pastes, but the final color depended on many, many variables.

Bill

[TopSmith]

What he said.

Real Colors: German Army Dark Yellow 1943-1945 Set LTG AK-RCS006

Vendor: AK Interactive

Product Code: LTG AK-RCS006

Availability: In stock

Product Type: Paint

$16.36

[Armor_Buff]

Matt nailed it.

Likewise have the Chorý’s book and it’s the most definitive, well researched and credible work on the topic IMHO.

[SableLiger]

And away we go…

Mixing Dunkelgelb for German vehicles – The Dining Table Napoleon

Camouflage System 43 - 45

German Armor Camouflage

[Biggles50]

Same old can o’ worms being opened again!

[SableLiger]

[TopSmith]

Hold on. Back when there was only one dunkelgelb. People argued that it was to this or that and had to be toned down or brightened up. Then it was discovered that there were different dunkelgelbs at various times. So people were both right and wrong. But since there were no surviving official color cards we were left to look at under hood photos of 70 year old vehicles. Then someone thought to investigate to see if the original maker of the paint was still around and they still were and… they still had the original formulas and could make batches opon request. Problem solved. Now the challenge of the model paint makers is to replicate the official colors as produced by the original paint manufacturer. We are arriving at a definitive solution.

[loncray]

There is neither living memory nor reliable record of most of the paints used in the 1940’s. The best representation can only be an educated guess much of the time.

[Armor_Buff]

In the 1970’s, I interviewed a veteran who served with Patton’s 3rd Army, specifically the 4th Armored Division.

When talking about the Battle of the Bulge, he mentioned seeing a German tank and said, it was black, it looked black.

He was in his mid fifties and sharp as a tack. I interviewed him twice. His reputation in the community was rock solid credibility.

Per a primary source, some German tanks looked black during the Battle of the Bulge, ~December 1944 to ~ January 1945, late in WW2.

Flies in the face of the popular religion, mythology or whatever you want to call the narrative

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Practically every IPMS/USA member I shared that ^ story with in the 1980’s, 1990’s 2000’s, 2010’s etc laughed at the idea of black looking German tanks in late 1944 to early 1945.

They’d say (because they knew better based on “book knowledge” ) the veteran who was there, didn’t know what he was talking about.

Some would even sneer, that guy definitely wasn’t there and sure didn’t see any German tanks…because they were DARK Yellow, after 1943

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A late German tank in dark yellow etc as popularly imaged after 1943.

Real Panther in original paint

Could that Panther in the museam possibly look BLACK under any circumstances?

Don’t look towards the rear…

The veteran was in my opinion 1000% credible.

All those self appointed “Experten & Aficionados” that ridiculed what he said are absolute percent…clowns of the lowest order

Beyond Jentz…

Notice how dark the reference indicates the green and brown predominant the Panther in September & November 1944 per factory paint scheme. Later per book at least one factory drops the dark yellow.

YMMV

[srmalloy]

@Armor_Buff

Could that Panther in the museam possibly look BLACK under any circumstances?

When the order was issued for units in the field to overpaint the overall Dunkelgelb of their vehicles with Olivgrun and Rotbraun, the paint was issued as cans of pigment paste, to be thinned with gasoline and sprayed on the vehicles using the unit’s spray guns, in whatever pattern the unit wanted, ideally with 1/3 remaining Dunkelgelb, with 1/3 Olivgrun and 1/3 Rotbraun (and we know how well ‘ideally’ would be followed in the field). If the spray guns were not available, the colors were applied with whatever was at hand, and when ‘surplus’ gasoline was not available, the pastes were thinned with other fluids, from motor oil to water, and the degree of thinning was up to the people doing the mixing. As a result, the Olivgrun paste could come out as any shade from pea green to a blackish green, and the Rotbraun as any shade from brick red to chocolate brown. If you take the darkest end of both color ranges, it’s entirely possible that you could get a vehicle that would appear black at range.

[Dioramartin]

I don’t know about black, except daylight was in short supply in December (and in shady forested areas) and tanks were probably wet too, so would certainly appear fairly dark especially early morning/late afternoon. Assuming they weren’t winter-camo’d of course.

But Battle of the Bulge aside, as for dark yellow there’s also the actual application of it. See Tankerken’s fantastic new post:

WWII Panzer Repair Video

It’s highly unlikely that many of hundreds of German mechanics would all use the airbrush as diligently as this one for the camera…

…or that it would look the same on every tank, given the variations of what dilution was being used, what kind of diluter was being used, what was being over-sprayed, and how clean or dirty it was in the first place. In other words, F&!!#$!! yes it’s safe to say there were multiple shades of dunkelgelb as exhibited on German AFVs.

[Whitney_Foreman]

Finally, someone knows their history

[Pave-Hawk]

Only way to close can of worms is put it in a bigger can. That way the worms have room to grow.

[Nate_W]

Yeah, Dunkelgelb, Dunkegelb Aus '44 DG I, and Dunkelgelb Aus’43 DG II. I believe that’s the sort of…established nomenclature now, for lack of a better term. I in no way claim to be an expert or authority on the matter, I just love building late war German equipment and have done some research into getting tones and shades right.

As others have stated here, WW2 German vehicle paint came in cans of concentrate. It was thinned with gasoline and airbrushed on. This was so that field shops could use it and do paint work. This meant that every mix was a tad different due to different mixes, whatever was in the brush prior, whether it had been cleaned or not and the conditions in which it was applied.

It’s a lot of fun for we model builders for the freedom and diversity this allows. All of these colors also looked different under different lighting and conditions and this book did a great job of showing how a color can can change under shade vs bright light.

[Nate_W]

I have no doubt the vehicle that veteran saw appeared black. I’m sure it did.

I think a distinction between a Panther appearing black and a claim that one was indeed actually painted black would be worth making.

I’m not positive which camp you are in on this subject. That the Panther he saw appeared black, or that some Panthers were actually painted black and his story makes for compelling evidence of this.

I’m no expert, I just have never heard of Panthers being painted black, if that is indeed your point.

If that’s the case, did this veteran you interview mention the specifics of the encounter? I could imagine passing any Panther during the night might give one the impression it was black.

I can also imagine seeing one through a foggy periscope or gunsight at distance on a cold dark Winter day in the Ardennes could give that impression.

An uncomfortable truth, yet one we face as researchers nonetheless, veterans can be mistaken. I know this firsthand. My uncle Calvert (BAR gunner 28th Infantry Div) swore his unit faced down a couple Jagdtigers in the Hurtgenwald and my Grandfather (ball turret gunner B-17G 486th BG 834th BS) swore until he passed in 2014 that he was on the famous Ploesti Oilfield Raid even though it took place in 1943 when he was in High School and his missions were all out of Sudburry England from December 1944 through very late April 1945.They were a sharp as tacks .At 38, they’re still the bravest and best men I’ve ever known.

That photo you provided of the Panther in original paint. It does have a very dark tone to it. However, you can see the lighting is very bad.

Ambient control and flash bouncing is something every photographer encounters and here you can see it on display. The flash of the camera illuminates things closer to it while making things further away seem much darker through the lens and developed prints than they really are. That along with the aging original paint do make it look very dark and likely different from the way it appeared during wartime.

You can see that towards the end of the barrel we get a better impression of the actual colors used. It definitely looks like a green or tanish base with large red bands, although I’m unsure if what appears red is indeed rotbraun bands or exposed oxide primer. It could be that this vehicle was originally painted dunkegelb aus DG II with rotbraun bands or it could be resedagrun base with rotbraun bands, or something like that.

I definitely don’t look at that and think “that panther was painted in black paint”, but I do see this and think “that would appear very dark, almost black in the right circumstances”.

I hope that doesn’t make me a clown of the lowest order,

You seem pretty impassioned about the topic, so I wanted to make sure I understood what you were saying properly.

cheers!

[BringupthePIAT]

Something else to consider on the “Black Panther” thing - We look at German tanks on laptop photos which are lit and sometimes brightened before publishing.

We are not hunched at the bottom of a freezing fox hole in a miserable, dark piece of Belgian woodland with mud and snow everywhere, having not seen the sun properly for many weeks. We are not squinting and flinching every time we hear German Nebelwerfers shellacking our positions. I have no dust, mud, blood, sweat or tears in my eyes. I am not shivering with cold and borderline hypothermic. I am not terrified for my life and I have not seen close friends blown to pieces.

In a gloomy, dark, frigid and muddy forest any mud/oil/grime streaked German tank will look dark against the snow and there won’t be enough light to be able to tell colours really. I’d contend that sticking your head up to take a really long look at what colour the Panzers were would not be top of most infantrymen’s priorities - you likely don’t care what shade of dunkelgelb or black it was, more that it was fervently trying to find and kill you and your buddies.

[Armor_Buff]

@Nate_W Nathan,

Lots of good discussion and thoughts in your post.

I’ll clarify as it seems I was unclear…

@Armor_Buff

When talking about the Battle of the Bulge, he mentioned seeing a German tank and said, it was black, it looked black.

…it looked black.

The veteran, who was there, under fire said a German tank appeared black.

Used the Panther picture as an example of a very dark looking German tank in original paint. It supports his claim that German tanks could look black. We discussed German tank types, the black appearing tank that day wasn’t a Panther.

I don’t think based on his account the tank in question was actually painted black I do think under the lighting conditions and in the situation, it appeared very dark and he described what he saw.

I’m reluctant to disregard a credible veterans account of events when a detail doesn’t jive. Zero claim made to being an expert, I have ~45+ year ongoing interest in panzers. I believe being dogmatic will steer a modeler or researcher off the course to truth.

I find Dragon’s box art of the Late Panther G…sort of comical…but whatever…I didn’t drink the red oxide kool-aid back in the day either…that later ended up retracted.

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Impassioned? I tired of the aficionado who’d argue with actual authentic photographs saying the picture(s) are wrong.

Example…club Experten proclaimed actual pictures of an Abrams are wrong. The panel on the right hand side should ALWAYS be the same color as the vehicle, exactly like the one on the left.

The Abrams apparently didn’t get the Experten’s memo.

Our club Experten nearly blew a gasket. That tank is wrong! I AM RIGHT etc.

At first it’s hilarious, then it gets old.

Cheers