Boris Gudenuf
Deity
German vehicles were issued from the factory in dark gray up to 1943, then in dark yellow. 'Desert Yellow' paint was issued to units deploying to Africa, but they had to paint the vehicles themselves (and sometimes didn't get anything to repaint, so that the 5th Panzer Division, originally scheduled for Afrika Korps, went into the Battle of Moscow in 1941 with its vehicles still painted in Desert Yellow, which did them no good at all against the dark Russian forests!). White paint was issued as it was available (and sometimes was 'procured' by units using unofficial means) for winter camouflage, but again was applied by the units themselves.
Camouflage patterns were standardized by early 1943, but were applied in the field. Most of the panzer units seem to have been issued spray apparatus to apply these, but the exact colors used seem to have varied considerably depending on what was available - frequently it was only a single dark green, brown, gray, or even black color applied irregularly over the dark yellow base. In late 1944 an elaborate 'ambush pattern' of camouflage involving several base colors and dotted over-pattern was introduced, but only a few units seem to have gotten all the materials needed to apply it.
