SafetyDad

Just like @galgos I've reviewed my references for you with little luck. A clearer version of the picture appears in the Classic Publications Nachtjager Pt 2 1943-45 but there is no additional information on markings I'm afraid. My personal view is that this might be a purely experimental fit of radar and guns - the Bf 110 was slow enough by 1943 compared to the bombers it was chasing to really not need the additional drag of the belly pod, let alone a double radar fit with the associated weight and drag. Especially not when Schräge Musik was readily available with increased efficiency of success and almost no associated additional drag. And also like Max, I would certainly go with the information he offers sourced from Wings of the Black Cross - it's as reliable a source as you'll find apart from a definitive photo. HTH SD

As others have already said, an excellent film clip. It's helpful that the weather seems to have been overcast, but bright, so the colours come across well (even allowing for some colour drift over 75 years). Great detail shots - the fit and finish of these late war aircraft is revealed in all of its (rather scary) glory. Thanks! SD

Excellent job there Pete SD

As if by magic... and There's a lot of pics available online of this show - well worth searching for. HTH SD

Ahhh, another Ju 290 lover! I too am fascinated by this show, and the pictures that were taken there. Here are a few of the Ju 290 for you - notice that the side info panel behind the name detailing the crew names for the fight across the Atlantic is missing Source for pics: Unlike me I haven't kept records of specific sources for these - I just know they were from online sources. Wouldn't you have loved to be there? You've got to love the inventiveness of whoever decided to use the front transparency as a mount for the show PA system ! SD

Zombie is also included here: where 2 of the pictures uploaded above appear: however notice that the bomb loading view shows more of the doors as the picture has not been cropped. Note that the serial is given as LL725 in the photo captions. Also the caption seems positive that Zombie did carry the ventral turret. They also include colour profile artwork to this effect. I need to have a more detailed sift through the text to see what, if any, evidence is offered to support the ventral turret. SD

Maybe. Maybe not. I've had a further foray into my references using this: Now, experience tells me to be careful here: this volume looks great but some of the picture captions are just awful and there's a rather annoying tendency to group the Ar234B and C models together in the text. That said, I found this: Now drawings (and profiles) sometimes need careful thought. Here though the draftsman is, as you can see, Gunter Sengfelder. He appears to show a recessed space beneath the aircraft fuselage. It's better seen in one of his models Yes, I know, we're using models as references now! . Still, in the absence of photographic evidence from the real thing, as a published Luftwaffe author and a nifty model maker, Gunter seems a credible source. I fully accept that I am making an unusual suggestion here, but I believe that conclusive photographic evidence may simply not exist. Perhaps it's possible that a variety of racks were/could have been fitted into the recess depending upon the intended role of the aircraft (much like the differing ETC racks beneath Fw190s for example?) HTH SD

Interesting question Chuck and not that easy to come up with a definitive answer. Checking through my references, I find this: This schematic is drawn from original Arado sources and gives you an idea of the camera installation and cross-section of your preferred recce variant of the 234C. Note the Rustsatz weapons fit under the fuselage- this is significant for two reasons. First it means that the the speculated rear-facing cannon were not fitted within the aft fuselage (but are here instead). Additionally the pack needs to be structurally supported and mounted, so this lends credence to the idea of a under-fuselage weapons point on the C version. Interestingly this drawing is one in a lengthy series of proposed weapons fits for the 234C making use of this underfuselage mounting - there's BT bombs and even a torpedo in other illustrations! The pics in this post all come from here: Smith J. R & Creek E (1993) Arado 234 Blitz Monogram Publications Boylston Mass Then there's this: Very similar. Photographic evidence is hard to pin down. There aren't that many pictures of the Ar 234C and I couldn't find any underside pics. I think what we are left with is some educated reasoning - namely that there were plans to mount weapons under the fuselage, that some of these weapons (e.g the midget fighter series) would have needed to be semi-recessed for ground clearance purposes, so it seems likely that a fuselage recess was present on this variant. In the absence of other information, it seems credible that the recess would have been similar to that used on the B variant. HTH SD

Yes. I have seen somewhere a wartime picture of an He 219 wheel with a Dunlop tyre mounted on it. Apparently they had a German factory... I'll see if I can find it - the logo wasn't highlighted in paint. SD

I think you are both correct - I too thought this was an 'D' as well and I still think it is (although I can no longer see the pictures). The OP @Andy G mentions that he can't find pics of 'O' and I think he's used this picture of 'D' to illustrate the marking practice and the unusual painting of 'A4'. HTH SD

I would agree with Andre - black and white pictures often don't easily reveal the low contrast between 70 and 71, making it seem as though a single dark green has been used. I've had a quick sift through various references for you. I haven't yet laid eyes on a photo of 5K+DP but I thought these factory camouflage diagrams might help Source: Merrick K. (2004) Luftwaffe Camouflage and Markings 1933-1945 Volume 1, Classic Publications - posted for the purpose of discussion and intentionally distorted Whilst these two diagrams are for the Ju88A/D (upper) and the Ju188 (lower), they neatly straddle the time period for your Ju88C (1940 to 1942) . You'll notice that the overall splinter patterns for the two different aircraft are similar with small detail differences such as single colour ailerons for the Ju188. So I think we can have confidence that the Ju88C would use the same distribution for 70/71, probably with the wing pattern and aileron painting taken from the Ju88A/D diagram as the C model used the same wing (and tail surfaces) as the A/D. HTH SD

An uppersurface finish of a single green for a Ju88C sounds suspect to me. Please hold off on opening the paint just yet - I'll go (back) down the Ju88C rabbithole for references and see what I can find. SD

Well, that was more difficult than I thought it might be! I've looked in a load of references for NJG2 Ju88Cs with very little luck. Finally I've found this The picture is from here I apologise for the quality of the picture - I've had to tweak the contrast and gamma factors to get to here - the code letters are clearly visible on the original (and you can just make out the R4 code here). But the snag is that you would expect a much greater contrast with RLM77 letters than you see here. Rosch captions the picture as the aircraft having red code letters and I can see why. Also notice that the aircraft letter H isn't white - gauging from the pictures below it just might be outlined in white. So I thought other NJG2 Ju88s might help as context. Two more pictures. The first is also from Rosch above: Again, a lower contrast in B&W than I would expect - might these also be red? And the partial picture of the Do215 R4+SN above seems to have a similar low contrast (although here Rosch believes these codes are Grey - I'm not so sure). Finally I found this from here I can make out 'R4+C-' from the picture (it's captioned as Rokker's aircraft crashlanded in Sicily). Again the code letters look red to me. So, in conclusion, I suggest that the codes are either a darker grey than 77 or red. On balance I'm inclined to settle for red but I'm not sure. I notice that @FalkeEins has some NJG2 pictures contemporary with these on his blog - I wonder what he makes of the colour of the code letters both in his posts and here? HTH SD

I believe you are correct - they should be RLM77 with an all-black-scheme. I'll see if I can find pictures of R4+BL or R4+HK and/or an authoritative source for code colours. I've already checked Merrick Vol. 2 that covers both Nightfighters and Codes but there's nothing there. SD

Indeed it does! As a teenager in the 70s, a friend finished his Revell 1/32 109F in this scheme - it looked excellent! This 'red-nosed' scheme hung around for a long time - in part I suspect as it was featured in the Profile publication on the 109F (as per your drawing here). It's a good example of the 'old knowledge' that influenced thinking perhaps past the point where it was appropriate. I would like to believe that things are a little more positive - we now have a number of authors and small publishers consistently producing specialist material which is and has advanced the current body of knowledge to a great extent. I'm thinking of people like Axel Urbanke, However, your point is valid about old ideas continuing to circulate and influence newcomers. Perhaps the real issue with any outdated thinking is having the capacity to sift through what's out there and being able to distinguish right from wrong (and I don't mean that to sound either arrogant or easy). Even those well-versed in Luftwaffe colours struggle and disagree over key issues - I well recall trying to make sense of the various sub-versions of the late Bf 109 from the material available. Not straightforward at all. With regards to your first point, it helps the reader significantly if posters are able to give the source of any evidence they offer - that allows for objective appraisal and checking. SD

Thanks for the shout @Troy Smithbut I can't really add anything to the comments above about older sources. But I do like the way that tempestfan has phrased this - I'm aware of profiles going back to the 50s that appeared in RAF Review mags and still make their way into contemporary mass-market publications. But earlier sincere writers, such as Ries, who published their interpretations of Luftwaffe colours have helped us get where we are today - the story may not yet be complete but without them we would perhaps not be where we are now. SD

Good thread - I too have looked for markings for operational C models with little success. As well as the sources listed above, perhaps the most comprehensive source is this JaPo publication. 'Comprehensive' is perhaps not the best term to use, as the information contained within is certainly not complete. Relevant text extracts are here: (Posted here solely for the purpose of discussion - in accordance with UK Copyright Law). There is no photographic evidence within of any 234C with tactical markings. No evidence either for Stammkenzeichen on fuselage or carried underwing - this is confirmed for 250006 as underwing pictures are available. You'll note both the mention of various units to which these aircraft were allocated, plus the conclusion of the authors that tactical markings were unlikely to have been applied to them. If you decide to go down the 'plausible guess' route for markings it's worth noting that Kommando Sperling tended to paint their T9 Gruppe marking in white characters (at this stage of the war they were 1/5 the size of the remaining letters aft of the fuselage cross). It's also worth noting that there's no confirmation here (either photographic or textual) of the aircraft profiled in the Valiant publication. Doesn't mean it's wrong... just not confirmed. In my view the JaPo authors have done remarkably well to amass this information - there is only evidence for 15 AR234Cs being produced at Alt Lonnewitz and this summary mentions 12 of them by my reading. Note that W.Nr 250001 seems to have been a little bit of a 234B/C hybrid, with the tail unit of a B carrying the larger Hakenkreuz and external counterbalances. There's also a bit of uncertainty about armament carried by these aircraft. W.Nr 250006 found at Riem certainly carried two forward facing cannon mounted beneath the cockpit - there's photographic evidence for that. Did they all? HTH SD

Astonishing work - really amazing! Great job SD

Back from holiday and just caught up with your build Johnny. Very impressive indeed! Like others here, I'm especially enjoying your weathering and step-by-step descriptions of your methods. Keep it going! SD

I didn't know he was a member here - thanks! SD

Not sure I would want to model that specific airframe Giampiero! That wave mottle might take a little time to pull off! SD

Quite correct. I was so absorbed in finding the colour picture that I rather overlooked that small point! SD

@RainierHooker You may want to have a look here https://robdebie.home.xs4all.nl/me163/capture05.htm I appreciate that colour pictures are not always easy to interpret or rely upon but 76 is suggested and looks possible? HTH SD

Just returning to this now that I'm back from France. I'm still looking for the railhead pictures I recall were taken at Furth, but in the meantime here's another 109 with a 3 digit code - also apparently taken at Furth. Picture is from here - a goldmine if you like end-of-war Luftwaffe wrecks SD

Thanks! I did wonder if that was the case. SD