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Ah, that question. That question that keeps popping up and nobody can get a straight answer to.

What would be correct? So far I have 1 pnz IV painted in the way battlefront suggest in their open fire! painting guide, stippling the paint to fake soft edge camo. Now, I don't have a compressor for my airbrush, and the way battlefront suggest isn't to my liking. Would a hard edge patern be correct?

I know the crews would paint their own tanks and therefore there was no set pattern, but I can't find source material that shows SS pnz IV's painted in hard edge tri colour patterns.




Any help is appreciated, and thanks in advance

June to September of what year?

If 1944, then the camo patterns were applied at the factory after building and at that time it was generally three tone soft edge schemes.

Towards the end of August, factories were ordered to apply 'Ambush' schemes, but this only really ran on production vehicles from September 1944 to November 1944.

Hard Edge patterns generally follow this, and are quite common on Panthers, but seem a bit more rare on Panzer IVs.

21st Panzer in Normandy had a number of Panzer IVs of older variants with a two tone hard edge pattern.

Of course, lots of variation still existed with older vehicles and other getting repainted in the field by workshop crews.

Yeah, '44. Wrote it in the title but didn't show for some reason.

And that's a real bummer. Suppose I'll have to find time to use the compressor at my parents place. If I wasn't on the top floor of a block of flats I'd bring it here! XD

Anyway, thank you very much for clearing that up for me

Big P wrote:
June to September of what year?

If 1944, then the camo patterns were applied at the factory after building and at that time it was generally three tone soft edge schemes.

Towards the end of August, factories were ordered to apply 'Ambush' schemes, but this only really ran on production vehicles from September 1944 to November 1944.

Hard Edge patterns generally follow this, and are quite common on Panthers, but seem a bit more rare on Panzer IVs.

While I wouldn't normally question Big P on an issue like Panzer camouflage, I'm not sure this is entirely correct. I've never seen any evidence of Panzer IV's being issued with factory-painted camouflage (unlike, say, late model Panthers and Jagdpanzer 38ts, some of which were issued in hard-edged factory camouflage schemes).

The 'ambush' scheme only seems to have been applied to some vehicles in the factory - such as the Jagdpanzer IV, Jagdpanzer 38t, StuG IV and Tiger II. Photos of Panzer IVs in this scheme are very rare.

Late model Panzer IVs exhibited a wide variety of camouflage patterns, depending on the unit they formed part of. For instance, most of 12th SS Panzer's Panzer IVs were very sloppily painted in a 3-colour scheme. These schemes were normally spray-painted, but there are photos of vehicles painted with a brush, either with a hard edge or a rough (obviously more hurried) edge. In 15mm, you can get away with a hard edged camo scheme, because the 'feathering' that is noticable on a spray-painted vehicle in a large scale will be far less obvious on a small scale vehicle. It won't look as good as one of Big P's masterpieces, but it will be perfectly acceptable - especially if you soften the edges of the camo with some weathering (e.g. drybrushing with dark yellow over the camo pattern).

Anything built after the August 1944 order to deliver all vehicles in camouflage to the troops would have received a camo finish from the factory. This order put into effect a practice that had already started early to speed up vehicle replacement time.

Of course units still repainted and modified schemes as required and to suit local conditions.

But, yes, Panzer IVs would have arrived at units in a three tone scheme applied at the factory.

Big P wrote:
But, yes, Panzer IVs would have arrived at units in a three tone scheme applied at the factory.

But what was the pattern applied to Panzer IVs?

Not sure what you mean. Factories were suppossed to spray vehicles in three tone, then from later that year in Ambush scheme.

They were sprayed in three tone certainly at factories, and some also in Ambush scheme too...

After reading this thread I then saw this video with a contrasting opinion (well, technically on the Panther, but it seemed to still contrast sharply):



The entire video and related series is fairly interesting for armor buffs as well, as is his lecture on myths of US Armor if you haven't seen it before.

I'm not sure who to back in a battle of the experts. On the one hand Big P is usually right, but on the other Chieftain regularly travels to archives and examines primary source materials for the US stuff at least. I'm not sure how much he's done with the German archives though or if it's mostly through talking to people who have been there and he's often gotten things slightly off in the past as humans tend to do (and we all know that Big P isn't human; nobody can paint things that small ).

It would seem they're both Irish though, and nothing bad has ever resulted from two Irishmen not agreeing.

Sadly I cant see the video on my work PC, will have to watch it later. What is it that he says in regards the Panther?

My comments on paint schemes are based purely on the German 'best practice' based upon their official orders with regards applications of camouflage schemes.

This could, and did, vary of course and a variety of patterns existed in reality, and although tanks were factory camouflaged late in the war, field painting of tanks also continued as and when required. Tanks needed repainting and they also needed repainting to suit local enviroments.

But the Germans orders in regards camouflage patterns at least give us a basis from which to offer a 'likely' scheme for certain vehicles depending on the time period.

But anomalies happen quite frequently in war time with regards painting of vehicles. There is always evidence to disprove any 'rule' but general questions require a general answer. The German orders for the painting of vehicles gives us that generalised baseline.

If asked specifics, then answers can be more specific too... If asked what colour Panzerjager-Abteilung 657's three R35 tanks were that attacked the Duke of Wellington regiment in Arnhem in April 1945, I'd say Panzer Grey, but as a generalisation, you wont go far wrong painting a German tank for late war in some sort of three tone camo scheme.

Basically that Panther went to the field painted yellow and the units added brown and green until September '44 when they went out in red oxide primer and the field units would do all three colors. A marked departure in viewpoint, though the line is fairly throwaway in the context of the video; it was just somewhat jarring to watch literally after reading this thread. It's not like one of his public lectures where flubbing a minor detail can be forgiven in the moment of talking to the crowd; this is a staged and scripted production.

I have to say that Chieftain's claim doesn't quite make sense compared to applying paint at the factory; the logistics don't add up when you think about taking time to make sure paint made it to the front lines when German infrastructure couldn't get actually needed supplies to the front. At the same time, German leadership often said a lot of things in official documents to have completely the opposite being done in reality.

I know the Panther at Bovington had (a little) paint applied at the factory, but given that it was built under British supervision and at basically the end of the war all that really proves is the factories did indeed have paint on hand.

I think he might be misinterpreting the German order in September 1944 that followed the August order for Ambush scheme.

The September order specified using the Red Oxide (Oxidrot RAL 3009) as the base coat and limited amounts of olive-green and/or red-brown (Olivgrün & Rotbraun) applied over this at the factory. This seems to have been done due to a momentary shortage in Dunkelgelb and in order to speed up the delivery process, the same reason that zimmerit had also been got rid off (that and the fact the Germans were the only ones with magnetic mines...).

This order was then supplanted by the October 1944 order which expanded the factory applied colours to dark yellow, olive green and red brown (Dunkelgelb, Olivgrün and Rotbraun) applied in limited amounts over the red primer.

The October order was then changed again in December with vehicles ordered to be painted with a base coat of olive green (Olivgrün) with the presumption of a hard-edged pattern of red brown (Rotbraun) and dark yellow (Dunkelgelb).

In regards Panthers, Heeres Waffenamt example patterns for the application of camouflage were issued and some factories adhered to them, and others didn't. It is possible to identify a vehicles origin by its camouflage scheme.

Certainly in September 1944, Panther Ausf. Gs by MAN were leaving one of their factories in a three-tone scheme that did not match the application patterns and did not match the September 1944 orders. By the end of September though they seem to have largely moved to the standardised patterns that they would used on productions vehicles through October. Daimler-Benz were still producing Hinterhalt type schemes.

However in October, both MAN and Daimler-Benz seem to have adhered to the paint examples designed by the official-Waffenamt Heeres. This has a distinctive wavy yellow band along the turret, with a wavy edge on Daimler-Benz produced vehicles that misses the gun mantlet, while MAN vehicles have a smoother edge to the lines and often reach the mantlet.

From November both producers start to vary the patterns, often bearing little resembalance to the prescribed patterns. Three tone factory finished examples of Ausf. G Panthers by MAN in December 1944 bear little in common with the examples produced in the previous October.

Hard edge patterns then appear on both manufacturers, though no specific Heer order has been found that specified it. Indeed the H.V. 1945 Nr. 52b directive still specified the three tone should be composed of green, brown and dark yellow patches with no remarks as to a hard edge application.

Then we have Panthers by MNH that vary again in schemes... but are known for the narrow Dunkelgelb bands.


But the key point of my rambling is that from August 1944, Panthers would have rolled out of the factories with a camouflage paint scheme, most likely a three-tone example.

It certainly could be that their research into that didn't dive as deeply as it should since they're examining a restored German tank in California (and who wouldn't want to get right to climbing around on the thing?); it's not like they would have copies of German war archives readily accessible out there. It is an amusing contrast to how he's often diving into research and battling misconceptions based on interpretations of things that are kind-of-but-not-really true.

Thanks for the detailed response, especially as I'm painting up a "what-if" formation of the German armor for the September/October '44 timeframe in Ambush. It's nice to know that outside of the "never happened" aspect of the formation that it'd at least be correct for the hypothetical timeframe. Chieftain did get his present job by going up to his now-employers at a meet-up in a museum where he was a docent and saying "You made a great game but here's all the things you got wrong" and it seems to have panned out pretty well for him. You should give that strategy a go Big P; they have an EU branch.

Chieftain does also post really interesting articles to read on a large number of armor-related topics:

http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/pc-browser/21/

Though that's starting to stray well off-topic.

Lord no...

Im no expert on such things! Just an interested amateur.

Big P wrote:
Lord no...

Im no expert on such things! Just an interested amateur.

Still, an interesting and informative discussion. The whole WWII German camo issue is challenging just because of how many different styles were used depending on theater, year and even unit. I had not actually heard of any factory applied camo on German tanks, other than the famous late war "Ambush" pattern before this. Since I am currently working on some Panthers and StuG Gs for my late war FOW forces, I'm grateful for this information.