German Uniforms WW2

Hi everyone

I'm going to make my first diorama with german soldier from WW2, but I have great difficulties in finding out the right colours. In some pictures their jackets are green and their trousers grey in other pictures all of the uniform is grey.

Wher do I find a useful guide about this.

Regards Per

The standard color of the German army in WWII is feldgrau or field grey. And that name is about all the standardization you'll get. There is no one single shade or hue of feldgrau that you can point at and say "that is the correct color for Germany army uniforms in WWII". The best you can do is pick an available bottle of field grey and subject to your tastes and the needs of the diorama, vary the shade and tint among the troops in your display.

The first and best thing you have to do is nail down when and where your diorama takes place. That will make things a lot less complicated when you start your research to iron out the details. In absence of that though, there are a few rules of thumb.

1) Feldgrau is indeed greenish looking in the early years. As the war progressed the name stayed the same but the color changed. Overall, the uniforms got less green and more grey. 2) The pants did not match the tunics at first. The color was stone grey or steingrau. Later on this was changed and the pants were cut from the same feldgrau as the tunics. 3) Initially collars and shoulder boards were dark green. This was later changed to feldgrau too. This does not include officers and NCOs. They made up their own rules. 4) Uniform construction was simplified. Pockets were initially pleated with scalloped flaps. They eventually became simple patch pockets with straight flaps. That's not a big deal if your building for yourself but knowing little details like that can save you an argument or two at the Nitpicker's Ball. 5) Helmets initially featured a national tricolor insignia on one side and the Nazi eagle insignia on the other. The troops soon began to rub out or paint over these. Eventually the factories stopped applying them altogether. Applying these decals to helmets in a late war diorama would generally be seen as a mistake. 6) The changes occured independently of each other. Your troops would most likely have a mixed appearance depending on how far into the war the diorama is portrayed. 7) The german soldier also wore a summer weight uniform cut from a reed green HBT. The cut is very similar to the standard uniform apart from an open collar. It is possible to confuse this uniform in pictures with the standard wool uniform. Especially when it is misidentified and that misinformation is then passed along to the reader 8) The calf riding dice shaker marching boots that are the Hollywood trademark of the soldaten were beginning to fade out of the picture in the later years of the war in favor of ankle length boots and gaiters.

The study of german uniforms can and does fill volumes. Just check Amazon and Barnes&Noble. The web is full of good re-enactment and hobbyist sites. I just Google seerched "german uniforms" and the hits that I scanned looked to have some good quality basic info there. One had even "lifted" quite a few pics from some of the uniform books that are available.

Happy Hunting.

WmB

To reply, get the HECK out of there snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net

Check with your local library. Ours has almost the complete set of Osprey's Men At Arms series as well as D&S and Profile works.

-- Chuck Ryan snipped-for-privacy@REMOVEearthlink.net Springfield OH