Did the german soldiers camo paint their guns?

[WAZUP13579]

Hi guys, I noticed in this video of some Fallschirmjäger reenactors in Northern Ireland and I noticed they had painted their Mp40s and Mg42 and I was wondering if they actually did this during WW2?
I have only seen a Mp40 painted white for blending in with the snow during winther and panzerschrecks and bigger weapons with the «Normandy» paint scheme

About 13:40 in the video you see them on the ground here:

Im sure it did happen to some extent. Painting gear was common everywhere. Ammo cans and helmets probably being the most common. As far as weapons Germans did paint panzerschrek tubes pretty regularly. But painting small arms in general wasnt common.

It seems the little that did get painted was in North Africa and Italy/Sicily.

White washing was a little more common. People here on the forum have a few k98k’s that have signs of white wash in the fibers of the wood and other small cracks and gaps. There was a MG-42 that went up for sale at Morphies last year that had a bit of white washing still on it. It was or was allegedly captured in Dec 44/Jan 45 in the Bulge.

Lot Detail - (N) VETERAN ALL ORIGINAL GERMAN WWII MG-42 MACHINE GUN WITH REMNANTS OF ORIGINAL WHITE PAINT CAMOUFLAGE (CURIO & RELIC).

 

[Scharf]

This is the problem with collecting camo stuff in my opinion. Everything you just said is subjective. Just your experience and opinion, nothing factual. Please don't take this as an attack. I just don't like collecting something so open ended and subjective. People should collect what they like but with this in mind I don't understand why camo helmets bring as much as they do when no one can agree on them.

No offense taken. It's subjective, of course, but that does not mean you cannot formulate an educated opinion using a well thought out analysis. That's why I talked about knowing examples that were sourced with trusted and backed up provenance (I am not talking about dealers or anything related to the "market") from items you actually find or know where they were found from honest sources. Since we do not know every paint composition nor do we (unless you have access to a lab) have the necessary instruments to perform IR spectrophotometry, we have to reason from specific cases and then build a reference population to know which attribute surface the most, from there, you can build a model of what to expect from the real stuff. To be honest, so far so good for me, I can say with 100% confidence that the camouflaged stuff I'm showing above is legit. Most of them I know where they came from, none come from dealers and they share similitudes. The more you observe, the more you find the real ones, the more you know what they're supposed to look like. Experience matters, as in every other field. My two cents.

 

[Scharf]

I'm not trying to be argumentative and take this from a guy who does not collect helmets or uniforms but aren't there patterns to some camo items? IIRC FJ and regular helmets with consistent camo paints and patterns have come from US vets and are traced back to Normandy.

Most camos I have found in Normandy, personnally or from friends were in fact two tones. I am not convinced that the 3 tone patterns are specific to Normandy, at meast, that's from my scope of what we (my friends and I) have found out there.

 

[Scharf]

Im sure it did happen to some extent. Painting gear was common everywhere. Ammo cans and helmets probably being the most common. As far as weapons Germans did paint panzerschrek tubes pretty regularly. But painting small arms in general wasnt common.

It seems the little that did get painted was in North Africa and Italy/Sicily.

White washing was a little more common. People here on the forum have a few k98k’s that have signs of white wash in the fibers of the wood and other small cracks and gaps. There was a MG-42 that went up for sale at Morphies last year that had a bit of white washing still on it. It was or was allegedly captured in Dec 44/Jan 45 in the Bulge.

Lot Detail - (N) VETERAN ALL ORIGINAL GERMAN WWII MG-42 MACHINE GUN WITH REMNANTS OF ORIGINAL WHITE PAINT CAMOUFLAGE (CURIO & RELIC).

The Germans painted everything, not all to the same amount but I've seen most field gear pieces with camos. Some are scarce, others, common like helmets.

Mind you, not all winter white painted items are lime wash, lime is thin and tends to become grey/silverish over time. While paste thinned with gasoline will see its pigment yellow amongst other things as far as I've seen.

 

[Colonelhogan]

Heres some snow painted weapons. From my brief research. Most weapons that were painted seem to me, were white washed for the eastern front mostly Gebirgsjager or in Normandy with the Fj's. Seems like a unit dependent thing later that in the war.