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Fw 190D-9 wing upper surface colours


Vlad

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I have this 109 flap  in 74, been study this color on more relics and can say it is a chameleon colour , it can look more bluish or greener depending the light  and environment but not as green as many paint brands depict which look more often like dark green 81 variation 

Whats-App-Image-2022-01-21-at-12-27-54-2

IMG-20220224-172104.jpg

 

74-75-76.jpg

Edited by antonio argudo
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On 9/16/2022 at 11:25 AM, GiampieroSilvestri said:

This Junkers Ju 88 based in northern Italy was most probably painted in RLM83 blue.

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero

 

junkersju883dcuw.jpg

 

 

 

junkersju881xwe8b.jpg

 

 

 

 

Out of idle curiosity - how did you come to the conclusion that the base color on the aircraft in the B&W picture above is blue and not something else?   

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Please Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

let's keep "83=blue?" out of this as long as we are talking about FW 190 D (outside its role as a tropedo bomber or long range maritime patrol plane). It's a different :worms:

 

and please let's talk about color (or if you prefer about "colour") and not about us and our relationships.

 

 

On the other hand: Thanks-XXL for all the pictures of real life artifacts shown!

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5 hours ago, antonio argudo said:

Hi Thomas,  I personally doubt that horizontal stab has 74, I am inclined to think a variation of 81, here is some comparative with Monogram chips 

 

The colours of that piece of stab is clearly RLM 75 and RLM 83 dark green. This is a very well known colour scheme from a small window of time. 
 

BTW RLM 83 has always been green.

 

And another thing it has long been surmised that the end of war colours were in fact early war colours RLM 22/23 . Not a blue insight then……….      😉   

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1 hour ago, amos brierley said:

 

And another thing it has long been surmised that the end of war colours were in fact early war colours RLM 22/23

LDv521_1_1938.jpg

 

erm, RLM 22 and 23 are black and red....

 

61 and 62 have been postulated as being the basis for 81 and 82 though.  

 

1 hour ago, amos brierley said:

RLM 83 has always been green.

IIRC there is an RLM 83, but what it is open to debate,  it was presumed to be a late war colour,  (and has been described both as a dark and light green)  to account for the brown and green variations of RLM 81 discussed above. 

 

The real problem is that there are late war defensive colours, combined schemes, and in the end just using up what paint was available,  

239849556_10158427792670687_894495309652

 

 

this got posted up on farcebook... a late war Erla build, back to 74/75/76,  but note the undercowl....

 

 

Even the rare colour images are debatable...      

 

74/75? or 81/82?

 

30572752928_ce53e05650_c.jpgMe Bf 109 G Germany 1945 JEC 02357 by Jeffrey Ethell Collection, on Flickr

 

82/75?

29525597567_3bf6dd0fe3_c.jpgMe Bf 109 G-10 2./NAG 14 Duxford UK 1940s JEC 00114 Maker: R Woolner by Jeffrey Ethell Collection, on Flickr

 

44497660342_7d3e231d71_c.jpgFw 190 JEC 02425 by Jeffrey Ethell Collection, on Flickr

 

81/82?

43828906144_0712f8f1e5_c.jpgFw 190 Me Bf 109 Go 242 Glider JEC 00524 by Jeffrey Ethell Collection, on Flickr

 

the two '76's 

44497660472_b903f1da02_c.jpgFw 190 A-8 Gefr Walter Wagener 5 Sturm JG4 Saint Trond 01-01-1945 JEC 07075 by Jeffrey Ethell Collection, on Flickr

 

load more in the Flick I posted these from....  

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1 hour ago, amos brierley said:

BTW RLM 83 has always been green.

 

It was always green - right up to the point where new and compelling evidence emerged of it actually being blue....

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10 minutes ago, Werdna said:

 

It was always green - right up to the point where new and compelling evidence emerged of it actually being blue....

AFAIK no solid evidence has been presented. If it has, please lead me to it.

 

Jens

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My suggestion:

 

Discussion regarding "RLM 83 = blue y/n?" and eyesight and mental fitness in a different thread, here let's talk about:

65/76?

02 present?

74/75/76?

late war "bright green", "dark green", "braunviolett" "gee, to me it looks a lot like RAL 6014 in that color photograph"

late war greenish 76

a light rather light neutral grey that might be 77 or a primer but looks different (brighter and more netral) than 75 (maybe later about wether it is 77 or primer or something completely different)

unpainted natural metall?

is that yellow marking 04 or 27?

 

I do have a personal opinion about RLM 83 and I am willing to consider all kinds of evidence, but is does not help this thread to talk about it here, and it will even help less to confront each others here.

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56 minutes ago, Jens said:

AFAIK no solid evidence has been presented. If it has, please lead me to it.

 

Jens

From Michael Ullmann.

 

Test order E-2-45/31.

 

Development and verification of camouflage for the mediterranean sea.

 

Report August 1943.

Alongside RLM73 a Dunkelblau colour will be used.Flighttest in the near future.

 

Report September 1943.

Using the camouflage pattern "Land" and "See" with RLM73 and the Dunkelblau colour 300/III suggested for information.

 

Report November 1943.

Closed with report date 10.11.1943.Colour RLM83 Dunkelblau with RLM72 for Sea and RLM70 for land aircraft suggested for introduction.

 

Sammelmitteilung 2 from 15.August 1944.

On the dark shades RLM72,73,75,RLM81,82,83.

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero

 

 

Edited by GiampieroSilvestri
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Well, I'm happy with the idea that "White 12" of JG.301 should have a brown and light green fuselage top, with yellow-green-ish sides and belly, light-blue-grey tail and control surface undersides, metal underwings with a dark leading edge, and upper wings in dark green and light/medium grey. I will be using generic paints for this project that are not labelled or marketed as RLM anything, so there 😛

 

Why are people so adamant RLM 74 can't be green-ish? It's in the name and these colours were known to have variations. Those artifacts are photographed up close in harsh light, as well as being old which could modify the colour, possibily even selectively for some of the paints but not others. Even the RML 76 on those stabs looks blue and saturated, more like RLM 65, in some of the photos. That flap looks blue in the first picture but green in the third, as does the paint card it's photographed next to.

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18 minutes ago, Vlad said:

Why are people so adamant RLM 74 can't be green-ish?

 

There's various discussions about 74 having a green tint 'in certain lights' or 'when newer' - and some paint companies do seem to have really focused on that aspect, to the point where some mid-war Luftwaffe models in 74/75 are turned out in what seems more like RAF day fighter scheme.  I personally prefer just a plain dark grey for 74 (Mig Ammo's RLM74 is my current favourite), but that's just my personal opinion.. :) 

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32 minutes ago, Werdna said:

 

There's various discussions about 74 having a green tint 'in certain lights' or 'when newer' - and some paint companies do seem to have really focused on that aspect, to the point where some mid-war Luftwaffe models in 74/75 are turned out in what seems more like RAF day fighter scheme.  I personally prefer just a plain dark grey for 74 (Mig Ammo's RLM74 is my current favourite), but that's just my personal opinion.. :) 

 

Yeah, I got hit with this a bit when I posted some builds a while ago. I settled for a while on using Xtracrylix RLM 74/75/76 and I really like how they look on my shelf, but when photographed the 74 can come out surprisingly green. The trouble is you end up chasing perceptions of what a model should look like when a lot of people dull their colours for better visual effect. I'm currently testing some more neutral colours as well. Though less contentious in shade, getting that right very subtle purple tint to RLM 75 is arguably harder than getting a good looking 74. I can see 75 ending up looking like Ocean Grey.

Edited by Vlad
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13 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

 

The real problem is that there are late war defensive colours, combined schemes, and in the end just using up what paint was available,  

239849556_10158427792670687_894495309652

 

 

Even the rare colour images are debatable...      

 

 

Indeed.

 

When I was at work (as a University Lecturer in a science discipline) we used a 'Hierarchy of Evidence'. In other words, some evidence is strong and compelling, some less so.

 

Applying that idea here we might get this hierarchy from strong to weak evidence

 

1  The actual airframe in 1945 (not likely)

 

2  A preserved airframe in original camo stored out of the light (I believe the Bankstown 109G in Australia is this)

 

3  Colours found during a controlled restoration (eg the NASM)

 

4  Artefacts from digs  (these can be affected by ground water and soil chemistry)

 

5  Colour pictures (with all their problems as above)

 

6  Black and White pictures

 

7  Non-pictorial records (Squadron accounts and pilot logbooks)

 

8  Pilot recollections (Orange Ta152 anyone?)

 

So applying this to the original post,  the Australian preserved Bf 109G-6 has a whole plethora of hard-to-identify colours including an almost black, light grey on wing uppersurfaces and a blue on the cowl bulges that looks very like the colour you've posted above. These have been dismissed in the past as 'oh, it's been through a recycling centre'. Yes it had, but someone painted it - but with what? I know this aircraft is a little peripheral to the original post about Fw190Ds, but it offers a significant additional piece of evidence to our debate in my view - as a very rare airframe extensively photographed in its original paint, we struggle to account for the colours we find as they appear not to conform to our expectations.

 

NASM examination of their Me262 produced the light grey originally under debate (not any photographic interpretation but real paint on a real airframe). The NASM restoration of their Fw190F-8 produced this array of unexplained colours:

 

IMG_0191

 

 

and Hitchcock recorded these chips 

 

IMG_0192

 

 

Pictures from here

 

IMG_4754

 

I'm making two points here:

 

Late war colours seem (from the airframes we have access to) to employ some colours that lie outside of our current understanding of 'the rules', even allowing for colour shift, aging etc.

BTW, you judge how accurate the Monogram Painting Guide chips are compared to the artefacts posted above by @antonio argudo

 

Applying this to the original post - (quite right @Jochen Barett to keep us on track) we cannot be certain of anything without the machine in front of us. Simple.

I'm not suggesting that we abandon our current thinking and that 'anything goes' with late war colours. There is ample evidence of RLM guidance and colour application for these. However this guidance is ambiguous in places.

 

I am suggesting that we have an open mind to more colour variations than we might have expected because these variations do exist.

 

Second, I wholeheartedly agree that interpretation of photos (be they colour or B&W) is fraught with problems, and that too much is sometimes made of photos of poor or indeterminate quality.  Nevertheless pictures are often all we have, so they have a place in the debate (just not as definitive as is sometimes claimed), especially where there appears to be a significant number of examples available on film, accumulating as a body of evidence. Or there is other corroborating evidence, such as artefacts.

 

The picture of the Furth dump is both challenging and helpful because there are two Fw190Ds in the same exposure. One on the right conforms to our expectations (and 'the rules'). Black 4 on the left is apparently painted very differently, with the upperwings having a light grey colour applied together with dark green. Taking account of all of the issues around photo interpretation highlighted above by @Troy Smith, the right-hand machine provides an unusual and very useful and thought-provoking comparison in terms of colour shift, sunlight illumination and exposure. This picture deserves some measured consideration. And it's not just me that thinks so - that picture appears in publications by Hitchcock, Brown & Wadman and Crandall. All highlight the unusual grey on the upperwings. It's probably not 77, but I already said that primer was more likely than 77 in my earlier post.

 

So digging up the golf course at Furth would be really helpful!

 

Please feel free to challenge or contribute

 

HTH

 

SD

 

 

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I'm now leaning more towards the light grey on the upper wing surfaces being 75 but thinly applied and/or faded.

 

Firstly, this is because of how light the 75 looks on that horizontal stab posted earlier and the contrast it creates with the darker colour being much more than expected from the standard scheme.

 

Secondly, if, as Graham said earlier, there is no documentary evidence of RLM 77 being used on fighters, this "light" 75 may be the origin of that idea in profiles. It may photograph even lighter. There are different reproductions of that 109G-10 "black 12" at Furth and some show very bright sections on the fuselage spine. The MMP book goes with RLM 77 on this aircraft even though that doesn't seem the case from the darker rendition of the picture earlier in this thread.

 

There are also pictures of Hungarian 109G-10s that cause similar uncertainty:

 

spacer.png

 

This may be the updated standard scheme with dark green over thinly applied RLM 75, and so Fw 190s may be similar.

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59 minutes ago, Vlad said:

There are also pictures of Hungarian 109G-10s that cause similar uncertainty:

this is one of many photo taken at Neubiberg, when JG52 flew in to surrender to the west,  from different angles, on different cameras at different times,  (it was a popular backdrop for GI photos).... shame no-one was using color film but images keep creeping out from long forgotten albums....

Anyway, it's worth have a looking at mor to see how they appear.

2 hours ago, SafetyDad said:

Late war colours seem (from the airframes we have access to) to employ some colours that lie outside of our current understanding of 'the rules', even allowing for colour shift, aging etc.

 

This was posted in discussion for the colour image of the Erla G-10 or 14/AS I posted above, by Michael Ullman, noted German researcher

 

"RLM-Doktrin was always Never waste raw Material. Is obsolete Material like RLM 78 in 1943 (No longer a Need To produce Tropical Aircraft) available they Must used up the RLM 78 Stock before they can Order News paints. Documents That these deviations describes are Not discovered until now. The other 50% are the raw Material shortages. Everything what was available was used. To extend low Stocks I am realy shure that they Mixed paints To produce paints To fulfill there deliberiert obligations .

Under this circumstances it is possible that the Color photo showing Parts of the Aircraft painted in 79."

 

It's a private group about late war 109's, for those that are members, photo and discussion is here

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10158427792665687&set=g.2365011260188196

 

a good example of possible 'bitsa' subcontractor permutation is this

Bf 109K4R3 9.JG3 White 8 WNr 332884 Gabi

Messerschmitt-Bf-109K4R3-9.JG3-White-8-W

 

note the cowling is likely 75 and a light grey (maybe they unidentified primer, maybe using up 77)  the main fuselage maybe 81/82, with the 'greeny' 76,  the tail, subcontracted, 75/82 with a blue 76 just visible.  These tail colours were confirmed in the Monogram monograph on the Bf109 K, which had a relic of the wrk nummer of a another JG 3 K-4 which had been cut out and  kept. 

16%20Bf%20109K_Page_21-960.jpg?m=1608660

the page in the original book has a colour image of '334176'  the scan is B/W, 

 

Yes, I am aware it's like counting angles dancing on a pinhead,  but the sheer amount of information now widely available compared to when I was first interested as teenage school boy, 40 yeas back,  note, the Monogram monographs,  now available as scans, were pretty much the cutting edge of publically available research.   Note also the image of the K-4 with what look to be a very light uppersurface, this is a plane in the background of another one of the Neubiberg photos.

see here for a gallery of these

Neubiberg Bf 109's

 

see here to see how scarce K photos were back then

https://boxartden.com/reference/gallery/index.php/Monogram-Close-up/Messerschmitt-Bf-109K

 

 

If anyone reading this really wants to see how many changes there have been, this is a scan of the 1966 Aircraft in Profile Bf109G/K monograph

https://boxartden.com/reference/gallery/index.php/Aircraft-Profiles/Germany/WWII/Messerschmitt-Bf109G-Gustav

when there really was no idea what a 'refined cowl' G was, or what a K-4 looked like, or how to identify one. EG, the below, ANOTHER Neubiberg image, showing a G-14 as a K-4, and just visible by the lower prop tip... a K-4  quite possible the one in the blow up

Bf109G%20Gustav%20(113)_Page_14-960.jpg?

 

 

Messerschmitt-Bf-109G14-Erla-4.JG52-Whit

 

 

just to finish, a couple more late war 109s in colour

Messerschmitt-Bf-109G10-Erla-3.JG52-Yell

 

Messerschmitt-Bf-109K4-Bodenwohr-Mappach

 

this one? weird exposure, or wings in different colours, that starboard wing look pretty green in this....  

 

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

This was posted in discussion for the colour image of the Erla G-10 or 14/AS I posted above, by Michael Ullman, noted German researcher

 

"RLM-Doktrin was always Never waste raw Material. Is obsolete Material like RLM 78 in 1943 (No longer a Need To produce Tropical Aircraft) available they Must used up the RLM 78 Stock before they can Order News paints. Documents That these deviations describes are Not discovered until now. The other 50% are the raw Material shortages. Everything what was available was used. To extend low Stocks I am realy shure that they Mixed paints To produce paints To fulfill there deliberiert obligations .

Under this circumstances it is possible that the Color photo showing Parts of the Aircraft painted in 79."

 

It's a private group about late war 109's, for those that are members, photo and discussion is here

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10158427792665687&set=g.2365011260188196

 

 

Thanks for this Troy - I hadn't seen that text before. It certainly adds to the discussion here.

 

SD

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On 9/22/2022 at 2:10 PM, antonio argudo said:

information about the 81/82 and 83 colors from AK book

Screenshot-4966.png

 

 

 

I do not quite see the point of issuing three different formulae, of which one results in a notably different colour, and giving it the same nomenclature. Please don't get me wrong, this is neither critical of you nor of the publication you quote - but it sounds strange, unless RLM recognised that raw material shortages were imminent and started thinking in "ranges" for each Farbton, setting outer boundaries within which a Farbton could be produced and still be up to specification.

 

22 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

 

  

239849556_10158427792670687_894495309652

 

 

this got posted up on farcebook... a late war Erla build, back to 74/75/76,  but note the undercowl....

 

 

I wouldn't dare to guess whether that's 74/75 or 81/71, or a brown and a green 81 used together.

 

20 hours ago, Jochen Barett said:

Es ist alles so hoffnungslos.

 

Aber die stirbt doch zuletzt ... 🙂

 

6 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

This was posted in discussion for the colour image of the Erla G-10 or 14/AS I posted above, by Michael Ullman, noted German researcher

 

"RLM-Doktrin was always Never waste raw Material. Is obsolete Material like RLM 78 in 1943 (No longer a Need To produce Tropical Aircraft) available they Must used up the RLM 78 Stock before they can Order News paints. Documents That these deviations describes are Not discovered until now. The other 50% are the raw Material shortages. Everything what was available was used. To extend low Stocks I am realy shure that they Mixed paints To produce paints To fulfill there deliberiert obligations .

Under this circumstances it is possible that the Color photo showing Parts of the Aircraft painted in 79."

 

 

I think the order to use up stocks of at least 71 has been reported by Smith/Creek on several occasions, e.g. in the various incarnations of their 335 book (even though they state that Dornier got it wrong in their camou diagram in calling both 81 and 82 "Dunkelgrün", if I'm not mistaken...). That this was a general doctrine in new to me (which doesn't mean anything) but makes sense, considering that everything oil based would be precious after losing access to the Romanian oil fields in particular and that the petrochemical complex was subject to constant strategic bombing as well as the railway lines on which most of the paints would have been distributed. I do not propose "anything goes", but I also think there is not much merit in being dogmatic about paints used in the final year of the war (not directed at you @Troy Smith, it's just here because you quoted MU). I am pretty sure no Luftwaffe final inspector would have rejected a batch of G-10s or D-9s because they were not painted in the correct shades; I am equally sure no assembly plant would have rejected a batch of paint (at least when out of stock on that colour) because, due to e.g. shortage of one pigment, it was out of specifications. And I am even more sure that no one responsible at a plant would withhold a batch of planes because the specified shade was temporarily unavailable while an acceptable substitute was, either for still believing in the Endsieg, or simply for not wanting to come to and quick and painful end after becoming accused of sabotage of the war effort. And just another tiny aspect: IIRC the average life expectancy of an airframe in 1944 was something like 20 to 25 flying hours. Most of them were lost before Allied intelligence could note that the Germans were not painting their aircraft to their own specs, which may have hinted to a certain amount of problems...

In case anyone is interested, my own personal belief is that 82 is the rather light "grassy" green, that 81 in its brownish variations is similar to US OD and something like a "reverse Ford T" (in other words, anything apart from black), and that in many instances of 1944-built airframes the "green" dark green may well be from stocks of 71. In any event, I will paint my D-9 - soon to be seen in your neighbourhood theatre during the next decade - in what I think best matches what I see in the references I use.

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