One of the things I am frustrated over is trying to be accurate (within reason) when I paint a unit.
In the spring/summer of 1943 the Germans issued some new directives about camouflaging their armored vehicles. Kursk takes place right in the middle of this (July 1943). One would come to the logical conclusion that all the tanks would be painted in the new three color camouflage? I will avoid the diatribe on how things don't work out like that and move on.
Tigers
Working with black and white pictures can present a problem. I have seen some nice pictures of Das Reich Tigers with two color camouflage. The base appears to be dark yellow, but the contrasting patches are darker, so olive green or red brown? I have read a couple descriptions of the Kursk area being very green during the battle, so a dark yellow base with green patches would seem to be the order of the day. I went to look online and find two images of the same Tiger tank from Das Reich, S33, one shows the contrasting patches in green, the other in brown. Argh! I have seen lots of prints of Kursk, some have the grass brown, others green. In fact the cover of the FoW supplement (Hitler's Fire Brigade?) has two Panthers advancing at Kursk through a sea of green grass (they are identified as Das Reich Panthers, which were NOT at Kursk) so what the hell, I get to pick...green it is!
The Tigers were assigned to the 8th company, SS-Panzer regiment 2. Normally this would yield company numbers of 800, 801, 810 etc. This was true in the run up to Kursk. Just prior Das Reich switched to using the letter 'S' (schwere or heavy) in place of the company number. So 800 becomes S00; 810 becomes S10 and so on. Trouble is this numbering was done in white outline numbers, no decals exist that I can find that will work for this. I loathe the idea of trying this by hand so I am not sure what to do here.
Panzer IV's
I have also noticed that most of Das Reich's Panzer IV's hull schürzen are missing, while they carry it on the turrets. I haven't been able to discover why, but I have two ideas.
* When the tanks were shipped, the turret schürzen were installed and the hull mounting brackets and hull plates had to be installed in the field. So first idea, is perhaps time did not permit installation of the hull skirts.
* Second thought, the initial model of the hull skirts had a very poor mounting system. The skirts were easily damaged or torn off. So maybe they weren't installed or removed because of this?
In any case I am modeling my Pz IV's without side skirts, but with the turret skirts. I have seen a few pictures of Das Reich Pz IV's carrying turret skirts with zimmerit on them. I sanded the zimmerit off most of the turret skirts and left it on some for variety.
I also don't see any real evidence of more than a dark yellow base on the Pz IV's so I have left them dark yellow. Company markings also seem to be missing, the only marking showing on the turret skirts is the national Balkan cross.
To further complicate things, it appears that Leibstandarte and Totenkopf had photographers embedded with them during the battle, while Das Reich, did not. Or perhaps his photos didn't survive.
Tim, frustrated they call him...
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