camouflage road wheels?

[Meliodas2019]

Hi All,

I have been looking at camouflage for a WW2 Panther Ausf A kit I have done,the thing I am struggling to find out is did the road wheels get camouflaged or left in the base colour?

I have seen pictures of both but a site I used for references shows most panthers with non camouflaged road wheels and wonder if anyone can confirm either way?

[ForbesHutton]

Panzers were shipped in dunkelgelb (yellow) and it was up to the unit to decide how much and how to use the other colours. Even with general guidelines from the unit it would be up to the units mechanics, or the individual tank's crew how to paint it. Some almost certainly would have been painted if someone wanted to make a day out of it, but there would be two main reasons' not to 1) mostly, it would be preferred to fight from a hull-down position to protect the weaker parts of armour and the tracks, so painting the wheels would be a waste of time. 2) motion catches the eye. almost anything painted onto the wheels would go "round and round" catching the eye as the tank moved, drawing the eye to it, and defeating the purpose of the camo (of course you would hope that you would see a TANK in motion anyway...). So. either way, but mostly not.

[TheNordus]

Road wheels might be completely painted in camouflage colours to avoid the issue of the pattern going round and round, e.g. one wheel painted green, the next one yellow, then brown, etc. Unfortunately I don't think there was a direct order relating to how road wheels should be painted so you just have to find an image of the exact tank you're painting or to at least a tank from the same unit in the same period.
Otherwise Forbes pretty well said it perfectly.

[Meliodas2019]

Panzers were shipped in dunkelgelb (yellow) and it was up to the unit to decide how much and how to use the other colours. Even with general guidelines from the unit it would be up to the units mechanics, or the individual tank's crew how to paint it. Some almost certainly would have been painted if someone wanted to make a day out of it, but there would be two main reasons' not to 1) mostly, it would be preferred to fight from a hull-down position to protect the weaker parts of armour and the tracks, so painting the wheels would be a waste of time. 2) motion catches the eye. almost anything painted onto the wheels would go "round and round" catching the eye as the tank moved, drawing the eye to it, and defeating the purpose of the camo (of course you would hope that you would see a TANK in motion anyway...). So. either way, but mostly not.

Road wheels might be completely painted in camouflage colours to avoid the issue of the pattern going round and round, e.g. one wheel painted green, the next one yellow, then brown, etc. Unfortunately I don't think there was a direct order relating to how road wheels should be painted so you just have to find an image of the exact tank you're painting or to at least a tank from the same unit in the same period.
Otherwise Forbes pretty well said it perfectly.

Forbes\Tommi, thank you both for your information, respect your knowledge and very grateful for your help

thank you

[Quax]

Agree with above, if you want a specific tank you'll need to hunt down images otherwise it would seem that most early and mid A's were dunkelgelb but it would seem that those that survived or were later ones had paint on the wheels like lots of G's and their Tiger cousins. For a "free" resource the Star Decal sheets you can find via Google images are quite useful.
Paul

[Meliodas2019]

Agree with above, if you want a specific tank you'll need to hunt down images otherwise it would seem that most early and mid A's were dunkelgelb but it would seem that those that survived or were later ones had paint on the wheels like lots of G's and their Tiger cousins. For a "free" resource the Star Decal sheets you can find via Google images are quite useful.
Paul

thanks Paul thats helpful all adds to my knowledge to not ask stupid questions in the future.
thats a good idea I was using a site called tank encyclopedia, had lots of info and camo images

[Quax]

No questions are ever stupid here, that's what makes this such a great forum! Ask away it's how we all learn stuff
Paul

[CygnusX1]

thanks Paul thats helpful all adds to my knowledge to not ask stupid questions in the future.
thats a good idea I was using a site called tank encyclopedia, had lots of info and camo images

No such thing as a stupid question mate; if you don't know, you don't know - simple as that.

Just my 2p...
If you're modelling a specific vehicle, then you should be guided by any pics/info of that specific vehicle.
If you're modelling a 'generic' vehicle then basically you can do what you want.
Splotches of camo (so you'd have 2 or 3 colours per wheel) generally aren't seen (although, as with everything, there are exceptions) and mostly the wheels would be kept a single colour for the reasons already mentioned.

A good reference site is: https://www.worldwarphotos.info/
They've broken down their archives into: country / vehicle type / specific vehicle types
When I say 'vehicle type' I mean categories like softskins, half tracks, tanks etc and have about 500 pics of Panthers over there.

[Meliodas2019]

thanks Paul thats helpful all adds to my knowledge to not ask stupid questions in the future.
thats a good idea I was using a site called tank encyclopedia, had lots of info and camo images

No such thing as a stupid question mate; if you don't know, you don't know - simple as that.

Just my 2p...
If you're modelling a specific vehicle, then you should be guided by any pics/info of that specific vehicle.
If you're modelling a 'generic' vehicle then basically you can do what you want.
Splotches of camo (so you'd have 2 or 3 colours per wheel) generally aren't seen (although, as with everything, there are exceptions) and mostly the wheels would be kept a single colour for the reasons already mentioned.

A good reference site is: https://www.worldwarphotos.info/
They've broken down their archives into: country / vehicle type / specific vehicle types
When I say 'vehicle type' I mean categories like softskins, half tracks, tanks etc and have about 500 pics of Panthers over there.

thank you Cygnus, thats a very true statement

your 2p is very welcome, thank you so much and for the reference site, that will come in very useful no more so when I get brave enough to tackle my 1/16 trumpeter king tiger