Beutepanzer colours

[Kingsman]

I read somewhere (can't remember where) the suggestion that at least some Beutepanzer may have been re-painted in railway colours, on the basis that the facility set up by the Germans to refurbish them was in a former railway works. Intrigued, I set out to see if I could prove or disprove the idea. I thought this might be of interest to other people.

There are variations in Beutepanzer colours used by modellers, not helped by a complete lack of original colour photographs. Most modellers seem to agree on a grey, brown and green scheme similar to other German camouflage schemes. There are some card models available printed in really strange colours, including very bright green and very reddish brown.

Below is the only colour photo of a Beutepanzer I have found. I can't tell for certain if it's original or colourised, but the green blotches on the image make it untrustworthy in either case. Note also the bluish discolouration of the white hatch interiors. I can't find a matching BW pic for this one, but the other "colour" photos on the same site do have BW versions, supporting the idea that it's colourised.

For a moment I thought it supported a brighter green colour than is commonly used on models, but the green blotches are all over the darker parts of the picture. All it really shows is 3 camouflage colours, which is already well known. However, notice what appears to be the original British markings (a name?) visible behind the German ones. This suggests that the overpainting was thin, or possibly that the original base colour may have been retained

Returning to the railway colour idea, the repair facility for Beutepanzer was indeed set up in a former railway works: SA Ateliers Germain. This was a private company not directly associated with any of the Belgian railway companies who manufactured rolling stock for a wide range of railway companies across Europe. They might therefore have had a very wide range of paint colours in stock.

I contacted a number of Belgian railway museums, preservation societies, railway modelling shops and a couple of experts I was referred on to. However, the results were inconclusive at best. The few things I learned were:

• No-one could say what colours SA AG may have held, but black and browns would certainly have featured
• There are no matches of any Belgian railway colours of the time to any current colour standards such as FS or RAL. Even the national museum and preservation societies are apparently uncertain as to exact shades for the period, preserved equipment having been repainted during former restorations
• In common with all paints of the day, mixing was inconsistent between batches and colours and weathering varied
• No-one makes any specific modelling paints for Belgian railway colours
• It is likely that anything portable and useful at the SA AG facility, including paint, was looted back to Germany in common with most Belgian industrial facilities overrun by Germany
• This lends weight to the idea that Beutepanzer were in fact re-painted in standard German Army colours and is perhaps the most telling debunk of the railway colour idea.

So I've concluded that it seems highly unlikely that any Beutepanzer were repainted in railway colours.

​But assuming for a moment that Belgian railway company colours might actually have been used, for which I can find no evidence, the descriptions I was given of the colours used by the several railway companies at the time are:

• Black
• Chocolate Brown
• light Chocolate Brown with a reddish hue
• Red
• Yellow
• Chrome Yellow
• Dark Olive Green
• Emerald Green
• Light Grey

Which means that railway colours could conceivably have been used for schemes using grey, brown, green and yellow-green. However I imagine that railway paints would most likely have been gloss finish. I guess we'll never know for certain. Unless anyone else knows better .......

[Chris B]

The Tankograd Beute-Tanks vol 1 by Rainer Strasheim suggests that the Beutes were finished in "what was at hand in the workshop of the former Societe Anonyme Germain, which at Monceau-sur-Sambre had mainly produced rail wagons: railcar green, rail wagon red-brown and ivory and amber for interior surfaces of passenger railcars."

He quotes from a diary entry of a chap who practised with Abt.11 and 12 that they were "painted clay yellow, green and reddish brown"

[The original Kit Builder]

I wouldn't rule out the possibility of glossy finishes to some degree on anything.

Paints then were all mineral based and paint technology in respect of flat finishes was still a bit hit and miss.

I have seen published period colour images of newly delivered and captured equipment belonging to the allies and what stood out in many of them was the relatively high sheen of the finishing. In particulat, a newly delivered mk iv male parked next to a new field ambulance in the same finish, showed a glossy khaki brown akin to Humbrol 26.

Images of naval vessels of the time also show this sheen on newly painted ships.

[Kingsman]

Chris B quotes what I recall to be the text I saw, but I didn't see it in that book. Sounds like one I need to get hold of. I actually had no intention of making a Beutepanzer until I saw the Takom MkIV Female box art. Then I read about the possible railway connection and quite fancied the idea of a MkIV painted in slightly gaudy colours, which is why I did a bit of digging. Not that the Takom box art isn't gaudy enough.

The colours described in Tankograd could very well be railway colours from the list I obtained. Clay Yellow couldn't be Chrome Yellow but the exact shade of the other Yellow, used by the Malines Terneuzen company, seems to be unknown. The Reddish Brown could be the red-hued light Chocolate, and there are 2 greens mentioned. Of course there could have been mixing. My colour list came from a Matti Thomaes and covers external colours of the 5 railway companies active in Belgium before WW1. Without knowing all the other customers of the company, it is impossible to know the exact palette of other colours they may have kept.

But it's hard to be definitive. The Tankograd descriptions could also be standard German Army camouflage colours.

Mr Wim de Ridder of the Belgian Association for Railway Heritage and Tourism told me "The SA Ateliers Germain was not a railway workshop, but a private company that build locomotives and cars for railway companies all over the world. As such, they would have a large collection of paint in stock. It is however more likeley that the German army took over the workshop and used imported paint from Germany since, at the beginning of the war, most Belgian factories were looted by the Germans and everything of value was send to Germany."

This in itself is speculative and inconclusive, but it's about as definitive as it gets. We don't know what the company had and we don't what - if anything - was looted. For such an apparently-august company they seem to have disappeared into obscurity after dabbling with motor cars in the 1920's. With increasing amalgamation and nationalisation of railways perhaps there was no room in the market for independents. Perhaps as Mr Ridder suggests their factory was indeed looted, and they could not recover.

What the Tankograd witness says is interesting, as many modellers - and the Takom box art - use a blueish grey on Beutepanzer. The Malines Terneuzen company did apparently use a dove-ish grey on their water tank wagons, but I can't discover if these were built by Ateliers Germain.

[Chris B]

I can thoroughly recommend the 2 Tankograds on the Beute tanks - Tankograd No.1003 and 1004. I bought both when I made the Takom MkIV female as a Beute. I later bought their A7V book - Tankograd 1001 when making the A7V.

All 3 books have around 90 -100 pages and include a large number of excellently reproduced large photos some of which are full A4 page size.

If one has any interest in the German's use of tanks in WW1 IMHO these are worth the money for the photos alone, although as a non German speaker, thankfully the text is in English.

Chris ( NO connection with Tankograd bar having bought these books)

[Kingsman]

I'm just baulking at £75 for the pair of books on Amazon as research for 1 model that cost not much more than half that! I only intend to do the one Beute.

My outline plan is a MkIV Female re-armed with Zebrano resin MG08 in the front casemates and Lewis in the rear ones. The photos I've seen don't show what was mounted in the front plate. I understand that the idea of re-arming with MG08 was largely overtaken by retaining the Lewis either using captured 0.303" ammunition or modified for 7.92x57 as there seems to have been a plentiful supply of captured Lewis, also used by German infantry to supplant the limited number of Madsens available. Must have been British guns as the Belgians had very few and the Liege factory equipment was moved to Birmingham before the invasion.

[Chris B]

£75 !!! I certainly didn't pay that much. I see from a sticker inside the A7V book that I paid £22 for that.

I remember that I went to the Tankograd site which I see still refers you to their UK stockist - http://www.bookworldws.co.uk/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=tankograd&search_in_description=1&sort=2a&page=6&listing=1000 - and I may have ordered from them.

You'll see that the 2 Beute books are each £21.99. I think that would have been around what I paid.

Here's a pic of my Mark IV

Chris

[Kingsman]

Thanks for the tip. Yes much cheaper at that site, still £21.99 ea. I wanted a couple of other titles which were cheaper here too, so I'll save over 40% compared to Amazon.

Just goes to prove that Amazon isn't always the right answer. Tankograd do seem to have some books priced in the £30 and £45 ranges, but not these titles. The Amazon sellers seem to have hiked the price a bit. Thought I might find a 2nd hand copy on eBay but nothing doing at the moment.

Nice Tank, BTW! That's what I'm talking about ....... Hope I can do mine the same justice whenever I can get round to it.

[KRK4m]

Perhaps I'm trying to break down the door that's already open, but M.Filipiuk at Batailles & Blindes in 2008 has portrayed one of the F Battalion Mark IV female tanks (the F.7 - one that after the Cambrai capture became the well known "Hanni" Beutepanzer) wearing the French-style four-colour camouflage of sand, chestnut brown, blue grey and pale green.

https://www.pinterest.es/pin/534380312032369458/

We all know this camouflage as applied by the Germans in some Belgian railway workshop, but here the F.7 is said to wear such a camouflage BEFORE the 1917 Cambrai attack.

Is this really an opportunity to build a multi-colour landship in British markings or the artist simply has misinterpreted the history?

Michael 

[Kingsman]

You have the opportunity to finish a Mk I in a Solomon multi-colour scheme, as many initially were until it was realised that it was useless once mud covered everything.

 

I do not believe there is any evidence to support British use of camouflage painting on any tanks after the Mk I and possibly the few Mk IIs deployed.  Almost certainly not after Arras.  By the time the Mk IV arrived it was already known to be useless and Solomon J Solomon had moved on to other work in the Camouflage Directorate.

 

"Some Belgian railway workshop" was Ateliers Germain (ironic, eh?) in a Charleroi suburb.  An independent manufacturer of railway locomotives and rolling stock and licence producer of several car marques before the Germans overran and looted the place and sent anything of use back to Germany.  The stripped premises were later taken over by Bayerischer Armee Kraftwagen Park 20 as a repair facility for captured tanks, mostly (all?) Mk IVs.  As I'm sure you know, the "German" army in WW1 was actually composed of the state armies of Bavaria, Prussia, Saxony and Wurttemburg under federal command and units retained their state titles.

 

As for the true colours of Buntfarbenanstrich, the simple truth is that no-one knows.  If they say they do, they don't.  Paint in those times was not codified and did not come pre-mixed in cans.  There is no known surviving original vehicle Buntfarbenanstrich.  Surviving helmets painted in Buntfarbenanstrich display a wide variety of shades of green, sand/yellow and brown/red.  The instructions permitted colours to be varied according to the location.  So it is entirely likely that vehicle colours and shades varied too.  Do not trust any "colour"photos as they will be colourised. 

 

Equally, the true Solomon colours are similarly unknown for the same reasons.  The Mk I at Bovington is as good a muse as any.

[KRK4m]

Thank you for the above explanation. I have seen many pictures of Mark Is wearing the S J Solomon camouflage as well as several Mark IV Beutepanzers sporting another one, applied in Belgium after capture. Although you haven't said it expressis verbis, somewhere between the lines I read that we can easily consider the M Filipiuk 2008 "art work" as pure fiction. I understand that the only British multi-colour camouflage on the landships was the abovementioned Solomon one and that all the Mark IVs fighting in 1918 (usually sporting the white and red stripes) were simply plain Khaki Brown overall. 

The model I'm working on is the 1/72 Emhar Mark IV (with the infamous rear fuel tank fault to be corrected) that - when finished in something close to Humbrol 26 - will make interesting contrast with the colourful French FT and the similarly picturesque German A7V.

Cheers

Michael