Graham Boak Posted August 22, 2020 Share Posted August 22, 2020 Last week I picked up half a dozen recent Aero Journals, partly to re-oil my rusty aeronautical French. (Much easier than reading Le Figaro or Les Recherches etc.) One has a Chris Goss article about the introduction of the fighter-bomber during the Battle of Britain. Good stuff, lovely photos, and some grand profiles. But I have a query. They are all in the greys. I would expected that at least the early ones, converted from E-1s and E-4s, to be in the earlier 71/02/65 scheme. To my knowledge the grey scheme was standardised by early 1941, and there were trials of (possibly different) greys in the Channel Front units during the BoB. But for the LG.2 use of E-7s, we are talking about October. The actual examples shown are Bf 190E-1/B Yellow 10 6/JG51 early 1941 Bf 109E-4/B Black H 5(S)/LG2 October 1940 Bf 109E-7 White 1 7/JG2 early 1941 plus Bf 110D-0 S9+CK 2/Erp.Gr. 210 August 1940 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vonbraun Posted August 22, 2020 Share Posted August 22, 2020 The standard Luftwaffe fighter camouflage was RLM 02 Gray/ 71 Dark Green over 65 Blue during this period. The first deliveries of the Bf 109 F and the Fw 190 A arrived in this scheme. But there is documented use of grays from the summer of 1940 until the adoption of the official RLM 74/75/76 scheme in November of 1941. I suspect that these grays were created at unit level. JG 51, JG 26 and 54 have a history of experimentation with camouflage schemes and colors during this period, while other units like JG 2 seem to have kept the official stipulated colors. There were color photographs taken of the Bf 110 D-0 S9+CK, during its examination at Vultee Aircraft in the USA, and it appears to be in the factory applied 02/71/65 scheme. I have also seen color stills from a motion picture taken of this same machine and it appears to be painted in in distinctive grey tones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Boak Posted August 22, 2020 Author Share Posted August 22, 2020 I treat stories of experimentation invented at the unit level with a significant dose of salt. Not so much for patterns, which clearly did vary to the extent of being able to identify individual units, but surely not for colours? The possibility of experimentation guided at higher levels is more convincing to me, and appears rather more in line with the traditional discipline of the Germany Army and the downright elitism of the Nazi regime. Given that at least one report of a grey 109 belongs to the early Battle of France tends to support this approach, as there would be no possibility of using French paints, as has been suggested for the BoB. However, I don't see this as any objection to some Jabos in greys, but all of them? I was biased towards suspecting this on the new-build E-7s, but as these would be contemporary with the Fs then perhaps not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wulfman Posted August 22, 2020 Share Posted August 22, 2020 I’m curious , why no possibility of using French paints? After all they used French aircraft. Wulfman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Boak Posted August 22, 2020 Author Share Posted August 22, 2020 But they already have perfectly good German paints. The thought of just picking up some examples of French paint that were just lying around doesn't ring true, it sound more like an explanation made up by a later writer. Plus the French did not have three different shades of grey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vonbraun Posted August 22, 2020 Share Posted August 22, 2020 (edited) My use of the word experimentation above was a poor choice, perhaps field expedient is more appropriate. As far as formal experiments of color on combat aircraft, I do not think it is really feasible. The RLM had the facilities to test camouflage paint without having to resort to what would amount to large scale field testing in a combat environment. Just compiling your test results would be would very haphazard due to attrition and combat losses. Also if field testing did occur why the variation in schemes and why was the application left to the field units. Too many uncontrollable variables for any meaningful testing. If RLM 74/75 and 76 were available for field testing is the summer of 1940 why the delay until the winter of 1941 in getting them in full scale use. Edited August 23, 2020 by Vonbraun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troy Smith Posted August 22, 2020 Share Posted August 22, 2020 1 hour ago, Graham Boak said: Plus the French did not have three different shades of grey. Apologies if this is 'stating the blinkin' obvious" But they had two, Gris Bleu Fonce and Gris Blue Clair, and it is the two colour uppers we are discussing seen here of a D.520 As stated below, they could be mixed, but if you have some ready mixed grey on the base from the previous occupants... There are reports of grey used in RAF crash reports. http://109lair.hobbyvista.com/articles/camo/bob/bob_camo.htm " Grey Camouflage? Although often totally destroyed, all enemy aircraft that came down in the British Isles during the Second World War were thoroughly examined by intelligence teams from the Air Ministry and RAF. The reports created from these examinations were known as Crashed Enemy Aircraft Reports, and recorded such information as Werk Nummer, engine type, armament, additional or special equipment and often, markings and colours. However, and to the disappointment of many post-war researchers, there were no set guidelines in these reports for describing the shades of the colours found on these downed aircraft. Generally, any examination of the paint was confined to an evaluation of the type of finish and occasionally, some undamaged panels would be tested for paint durability. By mid-August, the first uses of greys and blue-greys as an upper camouflage colour were making their appearance in these reports, appearing with increasing frequency as the battle progressed. ‘light navy grey’, ‘two shades of grey’, ‘light grey with dark grey mottling’, ‘Battleship grey’, ‘mottled greys’ and ‘camouflage grey’ were some of the descriptions given, along with mention of varying shades of green-grey and blue-grey. Were these an indication of the earliest use of the greys 74[9] and 75[10] that would become the standard fighter camouflage the following year or, as recent research and correspondence indicates, that they were colours originally created at unit level? Since the appearance of the original version of this article I have received written confirmation from two former Jagdwaffe ground personnel confirming that on occasion, various grey shades were mixed and applied to some aircraft in an attempt to find suitable concealment when flying above the waters of the English Channel. Confirmation that this occurred ties in with known practices carried out on Luftwaffe aircraft where a new paint or colour was applied to selected parts of an airframe to test its viability under operational conditions. It can be found that the mixing of various combinations and percentages of the colours 02, 65, 66, 70 and 71, or similar colours in contemporary paints will produce a variety of grey and blue-grey shades. Most, if not all of these ‘grey schemes’ would have been suitable for use in the prevailing situation on the Channel Front in the latter half of 1940. It is reasonable to assume therefore that some of these shades were no doubt almost identical to the later 74/75 greys thus leading to the belief in some quarters that this series of colours had been applied to Bf 109s in the summer of 1940. However, as the use of 74/75/76 was not officially promulgated until the November 1941 issue of L.Dv 521/1[11], it is a wholly convincing possibility that the various greys used during 1940 were those from which they were developed." The above was written by Dave Wadman, on here as @tango98 who maybe able to shed a little more info on this. HTH 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Boak Posted August 23, 2020 Author Share Posted August 23, 2020 As Dave says, the Luftwaffe common practice was to experiment with new colours in the field. This should be sufficient explanation for the appearance of a number of examples in the summer of 1940. As to why it should be delayed until 1941, this could be a matter of the necessary preparations for mass production and distribution, these things do take time. But it could also be the case that the colours were introduced in advance of the earliest known instruction to this effect. Which is why I raised the discussion in the first place - could it be that this did occur and these Jabos were a sign of this? Is there a source showing grey on these Jabos and/or sources showing the earlier scheme being present? Individual examples or standard? As for anecdotal evidence of mixing paints as a field initiative: can I interest you in funding a search mission for some Spitfires buried under a Burmese runway? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jure Miljevic Posted August 23, 2020 Share Posted August 23, 2020 Hello Peter Scott and Gary Madgwick mention in The battle of Britain - camouflage & markings 1940 (On target) that some Luftwaffe units experimented with greys as early as July/August 1940. (I vaguely remember reading somewhere that the earliest field experiments dated to as early as the beginning of the battle of France.) According to Scott and Madgwick paints had been prepared by mixing (in various proportions) of RLM 70/71 with RLM 02/66/65, but they do not exclude possible use of French paints. They also mention a colour photo of a Bf 109 E-7, still marked with production codes, produced in August 1940, which appears to be in factory applied grey colours. Scott and Madgwick also provide several colour profiles of Bf 109s in grey scheme, among them a well-know Adolf Galland's Bf 109 E-4/N (W. Nr. 5819). I understand late production E-7s had been painted with grey paints (last Bf 109, issued to but never flown by Reinhard Heydrich, was in RLM 74/75/76 camouflage scheme, according to ancient number of HPM magazine), however I was under impression these had been either field repaints, either end-of-the-line examples, produced far too late to participate in the battle of Britain. I still believe that gray painted JaBos were a distinct minority (as late as September 1940 Epr. Gr 210 still flew some Bf 110s in RLM 70/71/65). However, at least for earlier conversions (E-1/B, E-3/B, E-4/B) this depends of whether they had been modified in their units or sent back to factories. I always thought these had been field conversions, but I could be wrong. Cheers Jure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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