I am leaving these notes here. I pulled what I could find from the often unreliable internet with the caveat that I would revise the notes either partially or completely after other members here weigh in with their thoughts.
RAL COLOR SYSTEM
RAL is a government commission, and their task since 1927 is to create standard colors used on government equipment, vehicles, plates and signs. Their scope of work includes all government organisations, such as Army, postal service, the railways and police. The general intention is to ensure a standard for all colors used.
RAL works with a four digit item number, the first digit stand for a basic color direction, so a 3XXX should be kind of red, while 6xxx is more a green, the second digit is still the zero, and the last two digits simply show the chronologic registration order and no shade order of a color.
Since the system is a standard in Germany, you can go into any good paint shop and they will be able to mix a gallon or two of the RAL number paint you want.
In 1927 RAL registered forty colors in the basic 840 register. Due to the large number of camouflage colors used by the military, the register grew to 120 in 1945.
However we should be careful with using the Bundesheer RAL colors as reference. The names, numbers and colors are different from the Wehrmacht colors.
DAK COLORS
The Deutsche Afrika Korps vehicles were painted with four RAL colors: 8000 and 7008 until March of 1942; 8020 and 7008 after March of 1942. Additionally, the base color of Panzer Grey 7021 was exposed by field applications of camouflage colors.
The RAL combinations used were:
- RAL 7021 Schwarzgrau
RAL 7021 and RAL 8000 Grünbraun
RAL 8000/RAL 7008 Khakigrau
RAL 8000/RAL 8020 Gelbbraun
RAL 8020 Gelbbraun
RAL 8020/RAL 7027 Sandgrau
Some sources identified the Tigers as being painted Olive Drab. However, recent research identifies the paint as RAL 8020, but in a more greenish shade than usual.
Mud, dust, dirt and rain, water, moisture and friction quickly "color-sand" a vehicle in the field after a short time and make most paints much flatter, so the contrast "dissolves.”
GREIF
Study good b/w photos of the vehicle and look for signs of hand prints or scuffs; grey under dirt and dust. A case in point is Rommel’s command car: his GREIF was either grey/sand, brown/sand and green/sand. Whatever the permutations it was still largely covered in Sahara dust.
Rommel’s vehicle was gray over painted with a pattern of a light shade of sand more like the British interpretation—definitely not the Africa Dk yellow of later vehicles. In most photos it had a healthy coat of dust almost obscuring the camouflage pattern. The base was grey with a coat of dust then it was overpainted in a British-like sand.
