Panzer Grey, still in use at Normandy?

geoffsteer · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jan 24, 2006 Posts: 114

Hi Guys-
Looking at the review of the On Track Models kit of the Panzer I Ausf.C (VK 601) over on the panzermodels-faun site:
www.panzer-modell.de/
I see the kit was painted in panzer grey. The Panzer I Ausf.C was used at Normandy, would it still have been finished in panzer grey at that time? I've seen one photo of a Panzer I Ausf. C with what appears to be at least two different colours on it.
This is not intended to question the accuracy of the paint scheme seen on the panzermodels-faun site as panzer grey would have been used when the VK601 first came out and the kit may not be meant to represent a vehicle in use on 6 June, '44. On the other hand, depending on the answer to my question, maby it is!
Thanks-
Geoff Steer [;-{/)

JohnPrigent

Hi Geoff

There was at least one Pz IV short-gun still in grey in Normandy, June/July 1944. I saw it myself a year or so later, halfway through a hedge on the Cotentin peninsula somewhere between Cherbourg and the Breton border. I was only 6 but it was th first tank I'd ever seen so the memory stayed with me. Later on the same journey I saw a Panther in 3-colour camo down in the dry moat of a chateau, though I've no idea how it got down there because I saw no ramp for access. That memory has also stayed with me, though I didn't know for years afterwards what those tanks actually were!

Cheers

John

mike_Duplessis · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jan 24, 2006 Posts: 236

As for Panzer grey, I'm also thinking of all those old captured French tanks in German service that had been turned over for policing duties and used for airfield defense. A couple of those grey-painted vehicles might've escaped the net too. There are several pictures of French tanks in German service in Paris just before it fell. Anybody recall, grey or yellow?

I figure if its front-line troops the chance of the vehicle staying grey drops sharply, simply because a year and a half had gone by since the yellow basecoat order had gone down. At some point some officer wandering by some French storage shed in late '43 would've seen it sitting there, and ordered it repainted just to give his men something to pass the time!