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46. Switching Box and Shield for Motorcycle’s Headlight

The BOSCH switching box (on the left) is dark gray – Dunkelgrau RAL 7021 with semi-gloss finish. The hue exactly matches the register RAL-K5. Dunkelgrau is similarly used on the very rare shield for the motorcycle’s headlight (on the right), but in this case, it is slightly darker and more matte.

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52. Steel Helmet

This is a textbook example of the use of the camouflaging pattern from 1943–1944. The helmet, originally gray-green (Feldgrau RAL 6006), was painted over with the Dunkelgelb color, with soft-sprayed green and brown patches added. The brown perfectly matches the standard Rotbraun RAL 8017. The green is not the official Olivgrün but again the Grün RAL 6007.

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53. Headlight of the NSU Half-track Motorcycle

On this exceptionally well-preserved BOSCH headlight, we can track, in the overlapping layers, the development of camouflage paints during a period of several years. The first layer is formed by a uniform layer of a semi-gloss dark gray color (Dunkelgrau RAL 7021), corresponding to register RAL-K5 and placing the origin of this headlight between 1940–1942 (NSU Kettenrad was manufactured from 1940 on). It is over-sprayed with a peculiar yellow color, which is slightly lighter than Gelbbraun RAL 8000. This second layer was applied carefully as some parts have been disassembled before the spraying – clearly a factory job. On the yellow-orange color are applied gray-beige camouflage patches, whose hue is grayer than the RAL 7008 color. This camouflage scheme strongly suggests the “African” scheme from 1941. On the other hand, it could be a case when the “European” vehicles were camouflaged with remnants of paints originally destined for the African battlefield. In the last and final phase the headlight was sprayed with semi-gloss brown and green patches. The brown color exactly matches the hue Braun RAL 8017; the light green is sharp and does not correspond to any of the official Army colors. It was probably a paint used in case of emergency from local stocks. In this last case, the patches were applied hastily without removing the covering canvas screen.

ARMY VEHICLES  |  CAMOUFLAGE COLORS IN ACTION  |  DEVELOPMENT OF GERMAN CAMOUFLAGE PATTERNS IN THE YEARS 1939–45   |  TABLE OF COLOR HUES