Here is a question about German artillery camouflage patterns. Attached is a photograph of the builder's model of the 42cm Big Bertha at Les Invalides, Paris. Are the pattern and colors fantasy? Or do they reflect a real camouflage pattern used by the foot artillery during the war?
Agree to Pzkpfw-e, this definitely looks more like Reichswehr (late 1920ies - early 1930ies) or post-1942. - Especially the use of ochre/sand as base colour would be highly unusual for WW1; - at least for all German forces not belonging to Army Group F in Palestine.
The colours seen on the model, however, were in use in WW1: ochre, green, mustard yellow - but the composition would look different. Nevertheless, such 'cloudy' patterns were in use sometimes (but are extremely difficult to spot on monochrome pictures), although the majority of pieces camouflaged seems to have been painted either in the dapple pattern discussed in the Lanz tractor thread or - in mid- to end-1918 - in the Buntfarben combination.
What one would expect is a dull base colour (the famous/infamous feldgrau - which may be grey, grey-green, grey-brown, bluish grey, etc.) - and either another dull colour applied in clouds or bands (e.g. red-brown on mouse-grey) or a multi-colour dapple pattern - or a disruptive Buntfarben pattern with 3 to 4 different hues (but now without feldgrau) and possibly black dividing lines.
But again: no official supply of camouflage colours, the troops used what was on hand, nothing is outright impossible - only less probable than the often seen combinations explained above.
-- Edited by mad zeppelin on Wednesday 24th of October 2012 04:56:59 PM
