Painting World War Two Romanians

By Kreighton Long

The backbone of the World War Two Romanian army was the humble riflemen. Romania lacked the quality and quantity in armor of their German or Soviet peers and the heavy artillery that rained destruction on their victims on the Eastern Front was sorely lacking in Romanian arsenals. Without powerful armor formations or heavy guns the Romanian military was forced to rely on manpower rather than firepower.

The average Romanian rifleman was equipped in fairly simple, but functional, gear. Color photographs of Romanians from the war are hard to come by but illustrations from Osprey Publishing and photographs of contemporary reenactors helped to guide my color choices. The Romanian soldier wore a cotton tunic during the summer which bleached in the sun. During the winter the Romanian soldier wore woolen tunics which retained their darker khaki color. Woolen trousers were worn year round and maintained their color like the woolen tunic.

The cotton uniform was a dark khaki though the exact shade of khaki is subjective due to fading from extended exposure to the sun especially on the open spaces of the Eastern Front.

Contemporary reenactors displaying Romanian (first, second, and fifth from left), German (third from left), and Soviet (fourth from left) uniforms and equipment. Reenactors typically take great care with the accuracy of their kit and provide a useful reference when painting historical miniatures. Photo used with permission from photographer, Thomas T.

I decided to paint my Romanian uniforms primarily with the Khaki Grey color, erring on the side of faded fabric. The bags carried by the soldiers appear to be a variation of green and finding an appropriate shade that was visibly green but didn’t contrast too much with the khaki took some experimenting. Again, hoping to give my infantry a more experienced appearance I went with a softer, more bleached, shade.

The softer green also worked well in that it clashed with the khaki less than darker greens did. The miniature here is from Tsuba Miniatures with a green stuff armband added before priming. Romanian soldiers sometimes wore yellow armbands to help differentiate themselves from the similarly khaki-uniformed Soviets and I made sure to add a few armbands to my army to reflect this fun little detail. Overall I was pretty pleased with how my final test model turned out and wanted to share my paint scheme with you.

All colors used below are from Vallejo and the last three digits of the color number are included incase some of my paint bottles are old enough that the names have changed. The colors used are: Khaki Grey (880), Leather Brown (871), Buff (976), Cam. Olive Green (894), Russian Uniform (924), Black (950), Sand Yellow (916), White (951), Green Grey (886), and Flat Brown (984). The digits in brackets after each color combination below are the ratio I tried to stick with for consistency while painting my Romanian army in waves. For example “Khaki Grey/Leather Brown [2:1]” means mix two parts Khaki Grey with one part Leather Brown. A guide on how I base my miniatures is found .

Happy painting!