Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => The Second World War => Topic started by: westwaller on March 15, 2015, 12:17:26 AM
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Just a quickie folks, I have seen a quite a few fallshirmjager minis for Northern Europe with Ochre painted helmets.
It looks good and I can see that in Normandy summer '44 it might have been a more appropriate colour than dark grey/blue grey however the books that I have on FJs don't mention anything about this, so I wondered is this just a wargamers fancy, or is there some historical background to this?
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....there some historical background to this?
The Fj helm was issued green grey, seen below on the left & right.
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AP-rb774dmQ/SOH7QSS9QZI/AAAAAAAADns/yrGt4wID37Y/S1600-R/Fallschirmj%C3%A4ger+Group.jpg)
Late war it was often covered in a splinter cover as below.
(http://ww2today.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-587-2253-17_Normandie_Fallschirmj%C3%A4ger_mit_MG_42.jpg)
or sprayed in a random variety of the typical green/yellow/red you'll see on late war vehicles
(http://www.worldwar2aces.com/store/images/dml6127b.jpg)
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-28aV4uXpawk/UharTHDkBAI/AAAAAAAAAQY/jx_bdVHiMcs/s640/FJR13.jpg)
(http://www.ww2incolor.com/d/256339-2/Fallschirmjager-07)
When I get around to painting up my late war FJ, I'll do mostly splinter camo cover, some painted camo and a few green grey thrown in for fun.
Have fun and I look forward to seeing yours.
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FJ helm was apple green predominantly although there were some Luftwaffe blue early war and tan issue in the Med. Remember that the FJ were great at improvising camo however and would take quite a bit of license using the same spray paints that were used to improv camo on armor in the field (vs factory camo) and natural camo. Also remember that due to transfers youd wind up with troops on the continent who were still lugging around their Mediterranean gear, so it may be that their kit was a holdover more so than that they were being issued tan kit for Normandy. You can pretty much get away with a fairly motley set of colors for field kit late war, which is one of the reason they are so fun to paint. I'd recommend Volker's book Lions of Carentan for a good reference in the FJs kit in Normandy
Ax
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One thing to bear in mind was that, typically, FJ would leave the left hand side Luftwaffe decal un-painted, even if a lot of colour (and at times texture) has been applied. I've seen everything from a very neat triangle left clear, painting right up to the edge of the decal and thus the same shape or sometimes something a lot rougher.
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Thank You for your replies, gentlemen :) @Axabrax, I might well get hold of that book sometime, thanks for the recommendation.