Haha it always makes me chuckle, imagining the German army or airforce was some kind of hippie commune!
The idea that vehicles were painted by individual crews "in the field" has become so oft-repeated that it's become accepted fact.
The truth is that like any totalitarian state, the individual played very much second fiddle to the needs of the state. Paint codes & production of paint was very strictly regulated.
For German vehicles, paint supplies were allocated on a divisional basis & then passed down the supply chain by regiment to the various companies.
Almost invariably, painting took place at field workshops, usually by a dedicated crew or crews. I remember reading a first-hand account of a Panzer IV crew who had to repaint all the tanks in their company not long after being transferred from Russia to Italy. Camouflage patterns did vary from tank to tank, but not by much. Often the company commander would specify the overall scheme.
After the major change in August 1943 from Dunkelgrau to Dunkelgelb, vehicles could still be seen in the old colour until they were cycled to a field workshop.
One of the reasons that we often think all German vehicles had different schemes is because generally only one example of each scheme appears in books. So a Panther from one particular division might well look very different from another of a different division. But most likely, all the Panthers in their respective units looked much the same.
Even now, different brands of (supposedly) the same colour are different. Look at these swatches of RLM 83 - 5 different shades from as many different brands!
No wonder modelling can be an expensive hobby!
