Schwarzgrau the base color for Das Reich Tigers at Kursk?

[Einsamer_Wolf]

SALUT!

In conjunction with my present modelling project, I have made a number of inquiries regarding the camouflage schemes as well as outfitting of various Tigers attached to SS Das Reich's Tiger Battalion up to and during Kursk. I had considered doing either S 24 or S 11, as both seemed to have interesting camouflage schemes that included or were limited to rotbraun--but also did not require substantial modification from the Tamiya kit.
I recently asked a mentor if he thought an interpretation of S 11 featuring both rotbraun and olivgrün in the camouflage patterns was historically accurate. He indicated that, based on his study of photographs, this and other Das Reich Tigers were painted schwarzgrau. At Kursk a camouflage pattern was applied, but the base color was not dunkelgelb, but schwarzgrau.

Some time early 43, maint.crews applied camo to the vehicles and the grey tanks where NOT painted yellow, but yellow was used as their camo! S34 or TIKI is the best example of this. You can see that the yellow was applied over the grey. Why was this the only one? I believe it's not and that the other 9 Tigers where done the same way.
If you look at pics of the tanks, you can see that some are a bright
yellow with dark lines of camo. But with others, they are a dark shade of
yellow and I don't think it has anything to do with the film, since the tanks
are on one roll. I think it is the light spraying of yellow over the grey
base. Plus you can see that with the newer tanks with bright yellow, the dark camo, green? is applied over the yellow, but by looking at the darker tanks, the camo doesn't look applied, but rather a lighter color is applied overthe darker one.

He concludes:

S02, S11, S13, S21, S22, S24, S33 & S34 are early grey
Tigers. There are pics of them and they are what is said to be the
inventory.

He further asserts that S32, S12, S14 S23 and S31--the newer Tigers, alone have the classical two-tone camouflage pattern over dunkelgelb. Any comments? Any pictures that anyone might have of these newer Tigers would be especially appreciated.

Einsamer Wolf

[Sdt]

Tigers before Kursk batlle but i don' t know theirs divisions





Hope it will help you

[Byrden]

According to Doyle and Jentz, all of the original Tigers issued to GD and the SS companies, were factory painted in a "tropical" scheme.
The photographic evidence, and the paint found on the Bovington vehicle, indicates that Henschel were still using the first "tropical" paints; RAL 8000 and RAL 7008. Therefore the original DR Tigers were green. However they were apparently all whitewashed before arrival in Kharkiv.
Photos of the new Tigers received by DR in April suggest that they were green also.
Before Kursk, the tanks were all repainted. It's not clear what colours were used. It's not clear if the whitewash was removed or painted over. What is clear, is that the DR tanks got a variety of paint styles, so we cannot extrapolate from examples.