Correct Colour Schemes for Matchbox's Fw 190A3/4 Decals?

[3DStewart]

Please can you advise what the correct colour schemes are for decals that come with Matchbox's Fw-190 A3/A4?  I doubt very much that they had uniform green topsides which is what the box painting scheme advises.

The aircraft are claimed to be III Group JG 51 (red 10+1) and SG 1 (red H).  These relate to the original boxing before Matchbox revised the weapon parts.

 

Thanks

 

 

Edited September 26, 2021 by 3DStewart
Typos

[Graham Boak]

The colour scheme for pretty well all Fw.190As of this period (and later) was the three greys 74,75 and 76.  There was some controversy way beck when,  because poorish-quality photos of SG 1 fighter-bombers appeared to show a dark green instead of the darkest grey: this was repeated down the years in profiles (and probably still is) but I believe is incorrect.

 

At some stage 75 became known as Green-Grey, and some profiles showed mid-war German fighters painted to match RAF Day Fighter Scheme (Dark Green and Ocean Grey), but these should be ignored.

[JasonC]

JG51 operated on the Eastern Front, and some of its early mark 190's wore the 70/71 scheme on the topsides. These two greens were quite low contrast, and might have been mistaken for a single shade of green.

[Graham Boak]

Did any Fw.190s carry 70/71?  Other perhaps than prototypes?  This was replaced as a fighter camouflage before the Battle of France, long before the Fw.190 reached service.  There has been suggestions, which seem reasonable, that some of the early variants i.e. A-1 or A-2, carried 71/02 over 65, but the all-grey scheme was standard before the A-3/4 arrived.

[Troy Smith]

1 hour ago, Graham Boak said:

Did any Fw.190s carry 70/71?  Other perhaps than prototypes?  This was replaced as a fighter camouflage before the Battle of France, long before the Fw.190 reached service.  There has been suggestions, which seem reasonable, that some of the early variants i.e. A-1 or A-2, carried 71/02 over 65, but the all-grey scheme was standard before the A-3/4 arrived.

The 74/75/76 Grey scheme was not alway suited to the terrain. JG 54 had repaints, colours debated.  There is a colour pic of IIRC a JG 51 plane, which looks to be a repaint into 70/71.  

Let me see if I can find it....

Edit 

In field repaint, note pale patch behind swaztika.  

 

This is not what Matchbox were thinking of , this image became available many years later.

@3DStewart

[Seawinder]

2 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

The colour scheme for pretty well all Fw.190As of this period (and later) was the three greys 74,75 and 76.  There was some controversy way beck when,  because poorish-quality photos of SG 1 fighter-bombers appeared to show a dark green instead of the darkest grey: this was repeated down the years in profiles (and probably still is) but I believe is incorrect.

 

At some stage 75 became known as Green-Grey, and some profiles showed mid-war German fighters painted to match RAF Day Fighter Scheme (Dark Green and Ocean Grey), but these should be ignored.

You sure you don't mean 74? AFAIK 75 was always Grey-Violet.

[Troy Smith]

3 hours ago, 3DStewart said:

Please can you advise what the correct colour schemes are for decals that come with Matchbox's Fw-190 A3/A4?  I doubt very much that they had uniform green topsides which is what the box painting scheme advises.

The aircraft are claimed to be III Group JG 51 (red 10+1) and SG 1 (red H).  These relate to the original boxing before Matchbox revised the weapon parts.

 

Thanks

 

 

As suggested, the 74/75/76 greys are most likely, but when the kit was issued, mid 70's,  the prevailing thought on Luftwaffe camo was that of Karl Ries,  which was that black green/ dark green over light blue,  with some mottle, was how fighters were painted.   Think Airfix bagged 109G, Fw190D, etc,. And this what were in all the Aircraft In Profile monographs.  Given the kits age,  the schemes are either from well known pics, or, said profile series.  Let me have a search.  I'm using a tablet and it's not great for this.

 

This is the very very famous and off reproduced image of SG1

 

Often reproduced like this so the greys appear green.

 

The Few 190 A profile is scanned here

https://boxartden.com/reference/gallery/index.php/Aircraft-Profiles/Germany/WWII/Focke-Wulf-Fw190A

Note the profile colours. 

The other common source was the Aircam monographs.

https://boxartden.com/reference/gallery/index.php/Aircam-Aviation-Series/Focke-Wulf-Fw190A-F-G

 

A bit more searching, here's the kit profiles, originally from 1972!    Just standard issue Karl Reis schemes, as that was The Reference then....

 

Note, Karl Ries books were the first books on Luftwaffe camo and markings, from the early 1960's,. I first read of them in John Newman's Last of the Eagles,. and ended up with copies when I got a mates dad's Luftwaffe books to dispose of.  Like most older Luftwaffe books,  interesting for their historical place, woeful as a useable reference.

Let's see if I can find a pic of red 10.....

 

[Wulfman]

The colour on the cowling and fin suggest light blue 65, this would make the other colours dark green 71 and grey green 02, colours used on early 190’s.

 

Wulfman

[3DStewart]

8 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

As suggested, the 74/75/76 greys are most likely, but when the kit was issued, mid 70's,  the prevailing thought on Luftwaffe camo was that of Karl Ries,  which was that black green/ dark green over light blue,  with some mottle, was how fighters were painted.   Think Airfix bagged 109G, Fw190D, etc,. And this what were in all the Aircraft In Profile monographs.  Given the kits age,  the schemes are either from well known pics, or, said profile series.  Let me have a search.  I'm using a tablet and it's not great for this.

 

This is the very very famous and off reproduced image of SG1

 

 

As the whites and flesh aren't too far off, I'd be surprised if the colour shift was so bad that greys appear green.  Having said that the grass is an odd colour, so who knows from this!

[stevehnz]

Looking at the shadows, I think we may be looking at some late afternoon/evening light, so possibly a bit of reddish/golden light. Having said that, a lot of german colour photos I've seen on the net have a red brown colour cast to them, a bit like 1970s Fuji film .    I had a fiddle on my photo app, Irfunview in this case & taking what I've already said, I had no trouble coming up with something that looks a fair bit like 71/02/65 or 76 without producing anything that would cause me to doubt that.

Steve.

[Werdna]

I remember reading the RAF report on Armin Faber's A-3 (captured at Pembrey) - I can't find it now, but the report, as I recall, refers to the upper surface colours as dark green and something like 'olive grey' (can't remember the exact words).  But the scheme as described seemed to suggest 71/02 on the upper surfaces, as opposed to two greys.

[FalkeEins]

11 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

The colour scheme for pretty well all Fw.190As of this period (and later) was the three greys 74,75 and 76.  

 

At some stage 75 became known as Green-Grey, and some profiles showed mid-war German fighters painted to match RAF Day Fighter Scheme (Dark Green and Ocean Grey), but these should be ignored.

 

 ..as pointed out by 'seawinder', Farbton 74 is Graugrün (grey-green), Farbton 75 is Grauviolett and Farbton 76 Lichtblau....as for your last sentence, here's a piece of horizontal stabiliser from a JG 1 Fw 190 pulled out the ground in Normandy  - 40 years after crashing.. the bits that aren't 'light grey' look very green to me.. more so on the Fw than the Me

 

 

[Werdna]

20 minutes ago, FalkeEins said:

 ..as pointed out by 'seawinder', Farbton 74 is Graugrün (grey-green), Farbton 75 is Grauviolett and Farbton 76 Lichtblau....as for your last sentence, here's a piece of horizontal stabiliser from a JG 1 Fw 190 pulled out the ground in Normandy  - 40 years after crashing.. the bits that aren't 'light grey' look very green to me.. more so on the Fw than the Me

 

I'm not necessarily disagreeing - but....

 

The colours are what they are (after being in the earth for 40 years - although that's another issue).  But is there any confirmation that the colours there are indeed 74 and 75..?  I only ask because other dark greens (RLM81, for example) were in use later in the war.

[Graham Boak]

In one of the earlier go-arounds of this on the internet, Ken Merrick commented that if you looked very closely at fresh 74 (sorry about the earlier typo, but fortunately most of you knew what was meant anyway) you could just about make out a faint tinge of green, but it soon faded.  For every colour photo looking green, there are lots looking grey.

 

Re the stabiliser, the other colour looks far too light to be 75 - or indeed 02, should anyone be considering that for 1944.  So how reliable is it?  Acidic soils or alkaline, and what could be the effect on the paint?

 

On perhaps a side track, when I was young 74 was referred to as Dunkelgrau.  Only later decades has  it been termed Graugrun.  Which may mean superior information, but I also recall comments that the RLM didn't name these colours anyway, so every name you see is/was unofficial anyway.  Or does that only apply to 81+?  Looked at from here, the modern use of Graugrun appears more like a  fashion trend and positively misleading.  But then, colour names can be misleading - Dark Slate Grey and Sky spring to mind, for this UK citizen.

 

Re the description of the colours on Faber's A-3, these do suggests 71/02 to me too, and perhaps this did continue later than I suggested.  However in view of the imaginative range of colour names given to crashed aircraft in the BoB, clearly RAF Intelligence officers were (understandably) generally not selected for their acute colour perceptions.

 

Modellers are drawn to the unusual, and this applies to profile artists too.  But production lines like standardisation, and this is generally what we see in the photographs.  All the more pleasure where the unusual does exist. and they do (or rather did) but not to the extent often portrayed.  The specific two examples requested don't appear to be among these exceptions.

[JasonC]

12 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

Did any Fw.190s carry 70/71?  Other perhaps than prototypes?  This was replaced as a fighter camouflage before the Battle of France, long before the Fw.190 reached service.  There has been suggestions, which seem reasonable, that some of the early variants i.e. A-1 or A-2, carried 71/02 over 65, but the all-grey scheme was standard before the A-3/4 arrived.

Returning to the Eastern Front, Eagalcals (usually quite reliable) sheets EC128 & EC129 show green camouflaged Fw190A-3's. Said aircraft from both JG51 and SchG.1, as per the OP. One supposes that these would have been re-painted rather than factory schemes.

 

   

 

Indeed, there was an earlier discussion here on this board that included a photo of the SchG.1 machine:

 

 

 

 

 

[Jochen Barett]

Please let me try to contribute my share to the confusion:

 

Found here https://www.pinterest.de/pin/346143921337174061/

 

 

No code letters (not yet applied or taken care of by the censor), differently painted wings' leading edges, no 65 on cowlings and tails and probably 74/75/76 in general.

 

In the first color pic of this ("same") lineup I see 76 on the fusealge sides and landing gear covers and wings' leading edges but 65 on tails (and no mottling) and engine cowlings. And in the first pic a few posts up I see RLM 66 canopy framing (don't ask, what kind of pills I'm takin'!)

 

Second plane in the row may have some kind of underwing pylon, first plane does not (maybe censorship maybe absent).

[Werdna]

16 minutes ago, JasonC said:

Returning to the Eastern Front, Eagalcals (usually quite reliable) sheets EC128 & EC129 show green camouflaged Fw190A-3's.

 

Going back to Graham's point about 'factory' names for the RLM chips - different factories seem to have had different 'names' for the RLM colours throughout the war, despite the colours themselves being basically the same (or as near as).  As far as I'm aware, the RLM, for its part, only ever used numbers and never seem to have used names in its colour references, so any references to 'graugrun', 'dunkelgrun', etc, were not official and would not necessarily have constituted an accurate description of the colour.  

 

In other words, it's possible that the green on those A-2s and A-3s in the decal sheets above might have been based purely on a misunderstanding of unofficial terminology, as opposed to any actual reference to RLM74 (for instance) actually being a dark green.  Alternatively, there may actually be some specific evidence of them being painted in this way.  Or I could be completely off the mark, which is entirely possible, as I have just hit the buffers in terms of the limit of my understanding here  

[tempestfan]

Not sure if I can add anything meaningful - but I am just plodding through Rodeike. On several occasions he states "is still wearing the three-tone works camouflage" (e.g. p.75, 128), which would (seem to) imply that repainting occurred (frequently?) to match conditions (or it may only relate to fuselage mottling?). To that effect, he shows a number of JG 51 A-3s (pp. 104-6) "that have been made to blend in with the surroundings of their area of action with their dark green camou" - similar in style to the Gruppenkommandeur kite from Eagle Cals, but I fail to see a 02(?) lower fuselage in the pics.

Re the SG 1 line up: The port wing leading edge of the first plane in the first photo appears to show a grey strip, but it looks uniform for the visible distance. Not sure if I'd take the 76 conclusion that @Jochen Barett chose, as it looks somewhat darker than the u/c cover of "F". What puzzles me is why to bother to spray the fuselage with a mottle so heavy that the base colour looks like a fairly darkish grey, but then having the nose and tail as real bright spots? Also interesting how the noses in the first pic look turquoise as compared to the u/c doors, while the 2nd pic shows something much more uniform.

[3DStewart]

Looking through the internet I found what I presume is one of the older profiles that supports the RLM 02/71/65 suggested above and possibly supported by the photo linked by Troy Smith.

I accept there are a lot of ifs, buts and maybes.

[G.R.Morrison]

As Mr. Barett said, "Please let me try to contribute my share to the confusion."

Regarding the decal sheets that JasonC posted (and the in-flight photo of "weiße A"), the Fw 190A-3 did not belong to the SchlG. 1, but rather it's Erganzungsgruppe (the equivalent of an RAF O.T.U.) in Poland, the unit emblem is similar-but-different to the 'Mickey Mouse' emblem seen in Post #7, but in this case 'Mickey' has a pencil and clipboard -- appropriate for a pupil.  There are numerous photos of this school's Fw 190s.

 

The JG 51 was earliest recipient of the Fw 190A in East; this made logistic sense as the 'C3' fuel that the BMW 801 required was already in JG 51's supply pipeline, for the Bf 109F-2s they had retained later than any other fighter units.  The color image of WNr.2278, "schwarze 2" was taken in September 1942, Uffz. Erwin Pflaum was wounded 29.Sept. 1942 in aerial combat near Ljuban in this one, the aircraft crashing.

 

There has been a tendency to repeat miscaptioned I/JG 54 photos as 'JG 51' -- the JG 51 never used yellow paint on the lower part of the rudder (despite the illustration of 'Gaudi' Krafft's WNr.0539).  Matchbox's offering contains several 'oopsies' -- their 8.Staffel used black numbers, not red, and the III Gruppe vertical bar was invariably white in all Staffeln (they had a similar practice for their II/JG 51 Messerschmitts, with their unconventionally-placed horizontal bar, always white).  Many JG 51 Fw 190s had the upper part of the gelb Rumpfband overpainted in the camouflage color; usually it was in the rearmost position on the fuselage.

 

This is intended to provide light, not heat.

 

GRM

[Jochen Barett]

6 hours ago, G.R.Morrison said:

+++ This is intended to provide light, not heat.

GRM

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

 

Special thanks for enlightening me/us regarding the Ergänzungsgruppe and its emblem!

[Wulfman]

On the evidence of the second photo I would say the colours are 74/75/76, illustrating how colour photos can be very misleading !

 

Wulfman

[Troy Smith]

13 hours ago, 3DStewart said:

Looking through the internet I found what I presume is one of the older profiles that supports the RLM 02/71/65 suggested above and possibly supported by the photo linked by Troy Smith.

I accept there are a lot of ifs, buts and maybes.

 

Except it's a G-3,    IF there were any 71/02/65 Fw190's, they were very early A models.

And, my points on Matchbox,  none of the colour info posted in this thread was available,  AFAIK the references available were the ones I list, looking at late 60's /early 70's model mags,.  There is no mention of the grey schemes or use of 02 to replace 70.

The 74/75/76 was being discussed in the very late 60's by some of the IPMS,  and these and the late war greens were discussed in Beaman's Last of the Eagles.

This information had got to wider specialist model mags by the late 70's,. The 1978,May-August Scale Models Fw190 articles discuss these, as did the Dec 78 reviews of the Revell G-10.

A good indicator would be when Humbrol Authentics first issued 74/75/76 paints?   @John seems to be our paint archivist and maybe able to add more.

 

Anyway, the point of the above is Matchbox were using what was commonly known in 72, and that was wrong.  

 

The Pentland profile does not mention colours in the profile description,  but he was one of the researchers easing out those Luftwaffe colours.  @SafetyDad maybe able to identify the profile source.

 

[Graham Boak]

The profile appears in the Kookaburra monograph Focke-Wulf Fw190 & Ta152, part 2, published in 1969, by Geoffrey Pentland and Anthony Sherhan.  In the rear of this booklet is a discussion by Ken Merrick on camouflage schemes.   This seems to be the first suggestion of the 71/02 scheme, backed by the publisher's offer of a complete set of Kookaburra books to any reader proving otherwise and providing satisfactory and convincing evidence.  Merrick goes on to say that this scheme disappeared on the Western Front in favour of dark grey 74 and medium 75  during 1942., but does discuss the formation of the Schlachtgeschwaderen ..."in the familiar 71/02 scheme"... Incidentally, this is (to my belief) the first publication of the bright green seen on the Fw190D shot down on 2nd January, though he identifies it as Hellgrun 25.  Understandable enough at the time, there was still much awaiting to be uncovered.

 

Going back further, the greys scheme was in Karl Reis's books published in the mid 60s.  I was certainly using Humbrol Authentics paints by then.

[tempestfan]

As @Graham Boak said - my Markierungen & Tarnanstriche Vol. I and II are 1971 revised editions, but Vol. III is a 1967 first edition and includes 74/75/76.