German Maultier halftrack

Hi everyone.

I am modeling the german Maultier halftrack and I would to know the most precise camouflage pattern used in Europe. I have seen a few photos but, most of them are from models and very different from each others.

Thanks for your help!

 

The vehicle would be delivered to the unit overall dark yellow (dunkel gleb). The vehicle would come with tins of red brown and green pigment that could be applied to the vehicle by the unit itself, as desired or required. These pigments were thinned with paint thinner, gasoline, kerosene, etc., and could vary in exact tint quite a bit as a result.
Therefore, just about any camouflage scheme you want to put over a dark yellow base is going to be reasonably accurate. I would recommend against anything complex like the "ambush" scheme with the yellow dots in the other colors but rather going with something simple like wide bands or swirls of green and or brown.

This would be typical: Note the mistake the restorer made painting the shipping info (the black rectangle) over the camo. This would have been painted on at the factory and partially obliterated when the unit added the camo to the vehicle.

 

That restored vehicle appears to have the suspension from a universal carrier

 

Sorry for the delay and thanks for your help and the photo. When I began building this model, I had to choose between building an Opel Blitz truck or a Maultier half-track. I chose the Maultier. Here is my progress so far. I painted the seat some kind of beige but I really don’t know if this was the real color.

 

Yea, I noticed that. It could be original and some field unit just took an available carrier and used the suspension to build it. Given the number and almost bewildering variety of German field-built vehicles, that's entirely possible. Or it could be a factory version. The truck looks like a Ford, not the Opel version.

Additional:

Looking it up some more, it appears that's an original Ford Maultier. Ford used that suspension configuration on their variant of the truck.

 

It's a recreation by an American reenactment group. They had a few 'bitsa' vehicles.
'Second Panzer Division Association'.
Sure there used to be a website with stuff on the Frankentruck coming together of Axis & Allied (or just allied, depending where they sourced the lorry), but Can't find one now.
Looks like they may now lurk on FriendFace. Some familiar-looking machines and a very similar name, but can't see the 'Maultier'. Quite possible someone realised the UC running gear might have been worth more removed from the truck.

 

Doing some limited research (if i err, do correct me!) it seems that 'proper' Maultiers began with a suspension based on the Pz1, using paired wheels with leaf springs, but then changed to the horstmann type just like a Universal Carrier, although the drive sprocket, idler and tracks were still based on those of the Pz1.

So yes, the photo is definitely a 'kit bash' not a full original, but damn close

 

There's several variants of Maultier suspension:

The Pz I variant



The Horstmann variant:



The Pz II variant



An unidentified variant

 

The one listed there as Pz.I is the 'simplified' Opel project. Intended to ease fitting the tracks to any appropriate lorry.
Instead of the gear being bolted to the frame it fitted to the existing rear springs with the front held via new springs to the transverse. Could be done by even very basically equipped werkstatte without special tools or intrusive work on the truck donor.

'Unidentified' is a 4½ ton Daimler/Beussing similarly simplified project Intended to take over their version since Pz.II running gear production had completely ended (Daimler/Beussing system had been intended to tow PaK43, but found wanting and declared 'supply' instead. Allied marked 'Pz.II' above is the plain Daimler style). Only a handful of the simplified variant built at Guggenau.

Spielberger's book on German Halftracked vehicles not bad on Maultier. Most of the images you'll see of them in 'workshop display' or development mode have been taken from there.



I'm always mildly impressed with the Mules, and their refreshing simplicity, but then have to remind myself what a retrograde step they really represent.
Work that had already been done across Europe in the 20s & 30s with basic conversions. Not something they wanted to do, but something they found themselves forced to do,
They likely wished they'd thought of the SWS earlier...