Equipment painted RAL 7028 how many different shades exist ?

[90th Light]

How many different shades of RAL 7028 "Dunkelgelb" were used on German equipment during WW2 ?



Joseph R. Zrodlowski on the subject of this WW2 German paint code wrote;

"Take a look at the chart included in Tomas Chory's CAMOUFLAGE COLORS-Wehrmacht-Heer, 1939-1945:

He provides chips for five different versions of Dunkelgelb. The first color, "Dunkelgelb nach Muster" (Dark Yellow according to standard) was used between Feb-Apr 43 and wasn't assigned an RAL number. Here is an RAL color card snowing RAL 7028 Ausgabe 1944, which is referred to in H.M.'s:


Chory's book is an excellent resource. It's difficult to find, "



Chris

[90th Light]

Bruce Culver wrote on this subject

"for RAL 7028 ausgabe 1944, and it shows the much darker and distinctly greener version of Dark Yellow type 1944 compared to the 1943 standard. One of Chory's Dunkelgelb color chips is pretty close to this and quite possibly represents an example of RAL 7028 ausgabe 1944. There are also a number of color photos that show what is very likely this color, or variations of it, but were not labeled as such. The end of 1944 was the beginning of the disintegration of Germany's transportation network and the eventual decline of manufacturing, as raw materials disappeared and supplies could not be easily transported from one area of Germany to another. Since paints were made in several areas of the country, they were often used in their own region with other paint manufacturers serving other parts of the country. It is no wonder that there was as much variation as there was, but again, we are not talking about completely different colors, but just different shades of a paint color that still would be recognizable as the shade it was supposed to be."


Chris

[90th Light]

Does the shade of RAL 7028 used tell us something about where in the Reich and when i.e. 1943 verses 1944 verses 1945 the item was made ?

Bruce Culver also wrote;

"when it was standardized as RAL 7028. The first shade was a pre-war color widely used for agricultural equipment, like Caterpillar yellow or John Deere green. In the depictions I have seen, it does appear to have been a brighter color with a greenish-mustard cast that probably was not that great as a camouflage color to represent earth. Later in the war when the Germans were going to a darker camouflage system, Dunkelgelb 7028 was sometimes regarded as being too light to use as a base color in a largely green, temperate Europe, but in the factory painting schemes it seems to be used more as an accent color rather than the base, in which case the lighter shade does serve as a nice contrast to the areas of olive green and red-brown."

Chris

[90th Light]

Does the shade of RAL 7028 used tell us something about where in the Reich and when i.e. 1943 verses 1944 verses 1945 the item was made ?

Chris i

[90th Light]

Does the shade of RAL 7028 used tell us something about where in the Reich and when i.e. 1943 verses 1944 verses 1945 the item was made ?

Chris ii

[90th Light]

Does the shade of RAL 7028 used tell us something about where in the Reich and when i.e. 1943 verses 1944 verses 1945 the item was made ?

Chris iii

[90th Light]

Does the shade of RAL 7028 used tell us something about where in the Reich and when i.e. 1943 verses 1944 verses 1945 the item was made ?

Chris iv

[90th Light]

Does the shade of RAL 7028 used tell us something about where in the Reich and when i.e. 1943 verses 1944 verses 1945 the item was made ?

Chris v

[90th Light]

Does the shade of RAL 7028 used tell us something about where in the Reich and when i.e. 1943 verses 1944 verses 1945 the item was made ?

Chris vi

[90th Light]

Does the shade of RAL 7028 used tell us something about where in the Reich and when i.e. 1943 verses 1944 verses 1945 the item was made ?

Chris vii

[CWP]

The RAL system is still in use today, correct?

Is it possible that other armies also used the same RAL paint colors after the war, perhaps in some areas occupied by the Germans or that had been considered Germany during the war?

Could there have been stocks of Wehrmacht paint left over after the war that could have been used later? Would paint or pigments made in 1945 still have been usable in 1946, 1950, 1955? We know that armies of various nations including France and Czechoslovakia made and issued equipment using wartime German materials, in the post-war years. Why not paint?

After unknown amounts of exposure plus 70 years of storage in widely varying conditions, to what extent has original wartime paint color shifted today? Is it possible, even likely, that objects that may have appeared identical in 1944 but were stored differently for decades may appear today to be markedly different shades?

Is this thread really about equipment at all or is this just a thinly-veiled attempt to revive the played-out and questionable efforts to legitimize the factory tan painted helmets widely regarded as postwar painted?

[Patty D]

Is this thread really about equipment at all or is this just a thinly-veiled attempt to revive the played-out and questionable efforts to legitimize the factory tan painted helmets widely regarded as postwar painted?

I think that's the key question here! Not again, surely

[90th Light]

The RAL system is still in use today, correct?

Is it possible that other armies also used the same RAL paint colors after the war, perhaps in some areas occupied by the Germans or that had been considered Germany during the war?

Could there have been stocks of Wehrmacht paint left over after the war that could have been used later? Would paint or pigments made in 1945 still have been usable in 1946, 1950, 1955? We know that armies of various nations including France and Czechoslovakia made and issued equipment using wartime German materials, in the post-war years. Why not paint?

After unknown amounts of exposure plus 70 years of storage in widely varying conditions, to what extent has original wartime paint color shifted today? Is it possible, even likely, that objects that may have appeared identical in 1944 but were stored differently for decades may appear today to be markedly different shades?

Is this thread really about equipment at all or is this just a thinly-veiled attempt to revive the played-out and questionable efforts to legitimize the factory tan painted helmets widely regarded as postwar painted?

Thank you for your reply CWP,

putting the whole helmet issue to one side and ignoring that. I am now intrigued by this paint code RAL 7028. I had not realised that there was such a range of shades and such a discussion of this historical question of paint spectrum.

What really got me interested was this this New Zealand brought back belt and buckle. This was picked up in Italy at the end of the war and the buckle is clearly painted a Khaki shade of RAL 7028.

Then I started to study other items of equipment in my collection which I will add images of when I take them. I have the full range of shades on various items as per "Chory's" 5 sample chart shown in post number 1,

Chris

[90th Light]

In terms of buckles, often the question is asked if these shades of RAL 7028 are Afrika or later tropical as this current thread shows;

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=778442

The answer at this stage the answer appears to be late war. However are certain shades 1942-43 and other shades clearly 1943-45 ?

Chris

[90th Light]

The Afrika/ tropical connection is rejected by many buckle collectors.

So lets look at it from the late war prospective. Are there differences between 1943 vs 1944 vs 1945 ?

These buckles are dated 1942 but when were they painted 1942, 43, 44 ?

I know I have seen a buckle made by "CTD" dated 1943

Chris