GERMAN WAR TOYS 1930s (and CAMOUFLAGE MEA CULPA)

There is nothing more evocative of the late 1930s than the beautifully manufactured German War Toys of the era:

Hausser Elastolin Staff Car in Three Colour Camouflage

Lineol Staff car in Three Colour Camouflage pattern

Lineol Staff Car with slightly different Three Colour Camouflage

Lineol Panzers of the 1930s.

We've previously looked at German War Toys HERE and HERE - and that's made necessary the "Three Colour Camouflage Mea Culpa". It was previously suggested that "....It is somewhat of a curiosity that the German War Toy industry seems to have adopted three colour camouflage schemes (at least as an option) for scale Wehrmacht vehicles, well in advance of the actual German war industry for real vehicles..."

Wrong ! A schoolboy error brought about by "Panzergrau" memories, mental laziness and a childhood making too many late war armour kits:

Tamiya Kit. Unknown painter.

This Panzerworld Site clarifies the position - basically, between 1927 and 1937, the German Army DID use Three Colour Camouflage. It was only from as late as July 1937 that armour and vehicles were ordered to change to "Panzergrau" (in fact, officially, until July 1940, a two tone scheme of "dunkelgrau" and "dunkelbrun"), and then, from 1943, the familiar late war "three colour pattern". So the contemporary German toy manufacturers were not in advance of reality, but closely following it - it's well worth a visit to "Panzerworld" for the full detail. 

The only relevance of this, of course, is that it is rumoured within Herefordshire that a certain fat person who shall remain nameless for the moment has recently been as busy with his paintbrush as his train set....