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The Tigers of "Das Reich" were repainted in April 1943 and given new white turret numbers. This is the only known Tiger in the company whose old black digits from the previous winter remained visible. Why was this one treated differently?
The answer is found in earlier photos proving that this Tiger's whitewash was removed, revealing its original brown/green "tropical" colours, while the other Tigers were left in their whitewash. When the time came to repaint them, all the whitewashed tanks were completely repainted, obscuring their old black numbers; but in this case the old paint was used as a base for the new scheme, therefore the old numbers remained visible.
We believe that this tank is painted in a RAL 8000 / RAL 7008 pattern, with an overlying, new camouflage pattern of RAL 7028 (Dunkelgelb) and RAL 8017 (Rotbraun). There would have been no need to use RAL 6003 (Olivgrün) since the tank was green already.
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