German AFV in Africa paint set

The desert vehicles of the Afrikakorps

German tanks and armored cars arrived in Libya in the gray they had worn in Europe, and only on the spot were they given a finish adapted to the desert. These six follow the whole change: from the dark gray base through the first desert pair to the later, markedly lighter combination.

Two generations of desert camouflage

• RAL 7021 Panzer Dunkelgrau was the base color from the middle of 1937 and from the middle of 1940 the overall color.
• RAL 8000 Gelbbraun and RAL 7008 Graugrün made up the first African pattern, used from roughly the beginning of 1941 to the beginning of 1942.
• RAL 8020 Afrika Braun and RAL 7027 Afrika Grau replaced them from the beginning of 1942 and also appeared on Crete.
• RAL 9001 Cremeweiss belongs inside the vehicles, because a light interior made it easier for the crew to find their way in an enclosed space.

The difference between the two patterns matters for a model. The date of a particular vehicle therefore decides directly which pair of bottles a modeler reaches for, and a mix-up puts the result a whole year out.

How to work with the paint

The base of the paint is a solvent lacquer; mixing it with water curdles the pigment. On the real vehicles the desert shades faded quickly in the sun and the sand, so a slight lightening of the upper surfaces is historically supported and does a model good. In photographs of the day the original gray also shows through here and there under a scuffed desert finish, mainly on the edges of hatches and at the places the crew climbed in.