FW190 Colour Help

[VectorDancer]

Hey Everyone,

 

I am new to Britmodeller but require some assistance. I would like to paint my FW190 in the attached colour scheme but I’m unsure what colours to use.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

 

Chris

[mick]

looks very much like rlm 76 light blue, 81 brown, 83 green.

[Troy Smith]

4 minutes ago, VectorDancer said:

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

 

Note my signature line re profiles.

I can't read the details of the caption, I presume it's meant to be a late war JG1 plane,  in the late war brown/ green defensive scheme, over the standard undersuface...  but the profile is just an opinion usually 

 

These are usually referred to by RLM numbers, brown 81, green 82 pale blue grey 76.

But late war luftwaffe Colours are very complex, much debated and fuzzy round the edges.

An example is

Just now, mick said:

83 green

Which is now thought to be a blue, used for over sea use... the dark green is now thought to be a variation of 81....

 

If you don't want your brain to melt.. just eyeball off the profile, or look for rlm 76, a dark brown 81 and grass green 82 or 83.... 

I , and many others on here can go into much greater depth.  

@SafetyDad may know the ref pic though. 

[VectorDancer]

Troy & Mick, Thankyou so much! 
 

Vallejo RLM 76 looks so blue compared haha

Edited November 10, 2023 by VectorDancer

[Troy Smith]

53 minutes ago, VectorDancer said:

Vallejo RLM 76 looks so blue compared haha

Vallejo and what they claim a colour is not usually reliable...  

Late war RLM 76 varied as well!

You might be better off saying your preferred paint brand and ask for matches in that.

@Casey has done extensive work on Vallejo model Air, but not Model Color.

 

[VectorDancer]

1 hour ago, Troy Smith said:

Vallejo and what they claim a colour is not usually reliable...  

Late war RLM 76 varied as well!

You might be better off saying your preferred paint brand and ask for matches in that.

@Casey has done extensive work on Vallejo model Air, but not Model Color.

 

So I have alot of Vallejo colours and tend to use them. Do you know what I could ad to vallejos 76 to make it slightly less blue and more towards the picture / real life.

 

what make of paints so you recommend?

Edited November 10, 2023 by VectorDancer

[tempestfan]

The brown above is much too brown for my taste, looking more like the tone JG 54 used extensively on the Eastern Front. My personal theory is that 81 was a dark olive that could turn out differently ("Braunviolett"), and 82 was a more grassy green. Re 83 - well, opinions differ. I read a series of posts on a German forum recently where one poster claimed 83 was initially blue (as the evidence found by Ullmann suggests), but was reassigned a year later to another green. Well - "some aircraft type numbers were reassigend, too". Why reassign a number (which may well cause confusion, especially if no call-out of the tone is appended) when there was lots of open space beyond 83, and war's end quite foreseeable even to optimists? And why have a third "late" green - mix and match with 81 or 82? Or for a three colour camou? Which is essentially what you need when your resources are strained well over the limits already and you have a transportation system that is about to collapse?

[Troy Smith]

54 minutes ago, VectorDancer said:

So I have alot of Vallejo colours and tend to use them. Do you know what I could ad to vallejos 76 to make it slightly less blue and more towards the picture / real life.

Model color or Model Air? Number?

There maybe reasonable Vallejo match,  but I'd need to do some searching.  

 

54 minutes ago, VectorDancer said:

 

what make of paints so you recommend?

 

Loaded question.  It depends on what like paint wise,  and what paints you can get.

I use a lot of Vallejo Model Color, but also mix to match paint chips, which can be a right pain, and requires paint chips or references that have them...

It also depends on how bothered you are.  

I'll dig out @Casey Vallejo list later, I'm using a phone which is a pain for this.

 

[Troy Smith]

@VectorDancer

 

This post 

 

 

Which may help..

 

 

This gives RLM with various paint brands

 

Edited November 10, 2023 by Troy Smith
Add link

[Super Aereo]

3 hours ago, tempestfan said:

Re 83 - well, opinions differ. I read a series of posts on a German forum recently where one poster claimed 83 was initially blue (as the evidence found by Ullmann suggests), but was reassigned a year later to another green.

The "problem" (from their point of view) is that there is exactly zero evidence for this, but hey, whatever makes them happy, I guess... 😉

[Casey]

2 minutes ago, Super Aereo said:

The "problem" (from their point of view) is that there is exactly zero evidence for this, but hey, whatever makes them happy, I guess...

I went into that rabbit hole too

 

I've used the recipe that was published as follows:

 

3.754 kg Heliogenblau N.C.B.

7.509 kg Zinkelgelb rein 2325

7.509 kg Zinkweiss Weißsiegel Grillo 

81.228 kg Farbmahlung 7121.1.185 

10.000 kg Farblack f.Flieglack 7122

39.600 kg Kylol 

149.600 kg 

 

I've reproduced that paint from the recipe above (independently from the other vendors) and it turns out to  be closest to ANA607 (actually, it is almost exact shade).

 

Here is much more information:

 

Mind you I just reproduced the recipe and question if it is the only real true RLM83 or not I'd leave to history experts Recipe definitely ends up dark blue color.

[Werdna]

4 hours ago, VectorDancer said:

Do you know what I could ad to vallejos 76 to make it slightly less blue and more towards the picture / real life.

 

I usually add Vallejo 71.276 (USAF light grey) to their RLM 76, which takes a lot of the edge off the 'blue' tint.  As for colours which might match your image at the top - Vallejo's own RLM81 and 82 look light they would be a good start.  Vallejo RLM82 comes up quite dark (darker than I would normally be happy with), but looks a good match for that image above.  The caveat is that my monitor might be showing me different shades than someone else's..

[Casey]

@VectorDancer

 

I've published full tables in the FW190 GB reference thread:

 

In the same thread I've also added mixes for Golden Fluid Acrylics and Tamiya for those color (look for the spoiler sections, those are lenghty lists). I've also made FW190's using Golden Fluid Acrylics from those mixes so you can see in finished build how the colors ended up:

 

1:72 scale

And in 1:32 scale

 

[Troy Smith]

6 hours ago, VectorDancer said:

I would like to paint my FW190

and after a bit of hunting

Focke Wulf Fw 190A8 II.JG1 Red 1 Alfred Frische WNr 739269 crash landed Ghent Jan 1 1945

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://fw190.hobbyvista.com/werkn.htm

 

I was hoping this might give an approx manufacture date, which would give an idea of if the late war colours had come in.   It is possible that as it came down in Ghent there is an allied report on the airframe, and these do sometime note colours, 

it could just be in the mid war greys scheme

 

 

Period colour showing variations in 76

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

 

this is what a late war green scheme can look like, and from what can be seen in the B/W pics,  it's not dissimilar,  with a pretty dense mottle down the sides and fin, but there were an awful lot of Fw190 built late war....

 

as an economy measure, they were often partly painted underneath

 

etc etc.    as has been noted it's a   

[GiampieroSilvestri]

If this aircraft is werknummer 729369 "Rote 1" of II./JG1 Oesau where is the big badge that was painted on both sides of the cowling of Jagdgeschwader 1 aircraft?

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero

 

 

Edited November 10, 2023 by GiampieroSilvestri

[tempestfan]

8 minutes ago, GiampieroSilvestri said:

If this aircraft is werknummer 729369 "Rote 1" of II./JG1 Oesau where is the big badge that was painted on both sides of the cowling of Jagdgeschwader 1 aircraft?

 

Thank you very much

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero

 

 

Presumably on the Canary’s. Much nicer climate there on 1 January. Or possibly Azores, but that would be somewhat risky due to the Allied bases there.

[tempestfan]

1 hour ago, Super Aereo said:

The "problem" (from their point of view) is that there is exactly zero evidence for this, but hey, whatever makes them happy, I guess... 😉

Actually, I didn’t have the impression that poster had any problems with what he wrote. He went on writing something about AGO camou nets found some time ago, reported to be blue, explaining that the yellow component of a green vanishes first, leaving blue. Which may well be true but IMHO misses the point, and even contradicts his earlier statements to some extent, about the reassignment of #83. As I don’t think anyone claimed that late war fighters were in Dark Blue 83… or did someone? 
Anyway, some people go where no one has gone before, and if it pleases them… let them be happy. It’s a bit comparable I think to Creek/Smith‘s comment on the painting diagram for the 335, which IIRC is the only one surviving explicitly naming 81 and 82 as „green and green“, but being dismissed as 81 had been established ever since as brown-violet. Which probably is visible on surviving colour pics, but may be a declination of a (not very stable) Olive Green. 50 shades of Olive Drab? Maybe more, so this **may** explain varied appearances of 81. And then of course there is the explicit authorisation to use up stocks of 70/71 (is there anything similar re 72/73? Dornier likely would have had some stocks when 217 production was cancelled). And the fact/assumption that most plant managers would not have dared to tell the SS/Gestapo/SD supervisor „I am delighted to report we managed to complete 1.000 airframes this month. Regrettably, we couldn’t get even one to acceptance, as we lack supplies of the paints specified by RLM. We have plenty of stock of the older 70/71, and they look precisely the same, and do the same job, but heyho…! Adi has said there’s no retreat from 81 and 82, so it’s his wish.“ Likely? Not for me. My take is we have lots of combinations of existing colours/paints , not because anything goes, but because no one wanted to get shot for (not) applying the correct RLM shade.

[GiampieroSilvestri]

1 hour ago, tempestfan said:

Presumably on the Canary’s. Much nicer climate there on 1 January. Or possibly Azores, but that would be somewhat risky due to the Allied bases there.

I thought Mallorca.

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero

[Troy Smith]

2 hours ago, GiampieroSilvestri said:

If this aircraft is werknummer 729369 "Rote 1" of II./JG1

And why would it not be?  It was brought down over allied territory,  pic 4 show it being examined by British personnel and it was routine to collect information on downed enemy aircraft.    It was there long enough to have various pics taken  and bits stripped off.

2 hours ago, GiampieroSilvestri said:

 

Oesau where is the big badge that was painted on both sides of the cowling of Jagdgeschwader 1 aircraft?

er, have you not noticed that most Luftwaffe units in by late 44 no longer have these, possibly something to do with allied air superiority and constant attrition from post June 44 onwards.

Have an image hunt,  in the many photos of post war aircraft graveyards, what you don't see are these unit and staffel badges.

this would be a good place to start.

http://modelingmadness.com/scott/books/luft/jg13.htm

 

This is the third book in the trilogy of the expanded history of JG 1. The volume concentrates on the last years of the war, where things were not exactly going the way that the Luftwaffe had hoped. Though the group had success against Allied bombers and fighters in the first half of 1944, the numerical superiority of the Allies was starting to overwhelm JG 1. With the landings at Normandy, JG 1 was virtually unable to put up any resistance against the heavy concentration of Allied airpower over the invasion front, often having aircraft destroyed on the ground soon after delivery.

With the push back into Germany itself, the situation just got worse and was exacerbated by the loss of may seasoned pilots due to death or injury. Though capably led by men such as Heinz Bar, Walter Oesau, and Herbert Ihlefeld, there was little that could actually be done. JG1 was the only unit to receive the He-162 during the last months of the war, but the situation was so poor that it was never successfully used.

 

 

[GiampieroSilvestri]

12 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

And why would it not be?  It was brought down over allied territory,  pic 4 show it being examined by British personnel and it was routine to collect information on downed enemy aircraft.    It was there long enough to have various pics taken  and bits stripped off.

er, have you not noticed that most Luftwaffe units in by late 44 no longer have these, possibly something to do with allied air superiority and constant attrition from post June 44 onwards.

Have an image hunt,  in the many photos of post war aircraft graveyards, what you don't see are these unit and staffel badges.

this would be a good place to start.

http://modelingmadness.com/scott/books/luft/jg13.htm

 

This is the third book in the trilogy of the expanded history of JG 1. The volume concentrates on the last years of the war, where things were not exactly going the way that the Luftwaffe had hoped. Though the group had success against Allied bombers and fighters in the first half of 1944, the numerical superiority of the Allies was starting to overwhelm JG 1. With the landings at Normandy, JG 1 was virtually unable to put up any resistance against the heavy concentration of Allied airpower over the invasion front, often having aircraft destroyed on the ground soon after delivery.

With the push back into Germany itself, the situation just got worse and was exacerbated by the loss of may seasoned pilots due to death or injury. Though capably led by men such as Heinz Bar, Walter Oesau, and Herbert Ihlefeld, there was little that could actually be done. JG1 was the only unit to receive the He-162 during the last months of the war, but the situation was so poor that it was never successfully used.

 

 

For informations about Jagdgeschwader 1 I would recommend the three volume book by Jochen Prien and Peter Rodeike.

And please note that what I posted is a question where the badges are,not a claim that the aircraft is not from JG1.

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero

 

Edited November 11, 2023 by GiampieroSilvestri

[Troy Smith]

42 minutes ago, GiampieroSilvestri said:

note that what I posted is a question where the badges are,

Not applied due to short life of aircraft at that time I would suggest.

As I said, you generally no longer see unit and staffel badges late war.

[Super Aereo]

20 hours ago, tempestfan said:

Anyway, some people go where no one has gone before, and if it pleases them… let them be happy. It’s a bit comparable I think to Creek/Smith‘s comment on the painting diagram for the 335, which IIRC is the only one surviving explicitly naming 81 and 82 as „green and green“, but being dismissed as 81 had been established ever since as brown-violet. 

IIRC, recent research established the existence of at least three distinct but co-existing variants for both 81 and 83. German industry was widely dispersed by then and I would guess - as you pointed out - that maximising output was the main imperative...