Camouflage Commentary #1

This particular publication is entitled an e-article by the publishers. It is 21 pages with a number of excellent period photos, several of them in full color.

Basically, there are two subjects in this article, both of them interleaved. The author is one of the world's renown experts on WWII Luftwaffe Camouflage. I dare say that he and his co-authors were the ones who first really started to unravel the mysteries of this particuilar subject, and as many of us know, this is an on-going process.

The first part of the article concerns the FW-190A-8 in the photo above. This aircraft was rather widely photographed by the Allies, yet there was conflict as to its exact identification. The author does an excellent job of providing his evidence for the conclusions that were reached.

The other part of the article concerns the color RLM 77. This is a light grey that was a lot more widely used than many know or are willing to admit. For instance, if you look at the above image, you will see a couple of interesting items. One is that the left wing has a large area of RLM 76 on it as it matches the small portions of the underside color that wrap up along the wing.

The second is that the lighter grey on the wings is not the same shade as the lighter grey on the fuselage. In the late war, planes were built from subassemblies that were often shipped to a single assembly area so having colors match on the plane was not all that common. This lighter grey on the wings is RLM 77, not simply faded RLM 74 as many have supposed. This aircraft was delivered and abandon in a period of about three weeks, not enough time for paint to fade.

The author provides a very convincing argument for his conclusions and I think that you'll agree with him as his research is superbly done. I know that the next time I paint a late war plane, I'll be looking at any extant photos for this lighter grey.

In all, a superb article and well worth the asking price. Air War Publications also does standard books and you should visit their website for more info.

Thanks to www.airwarpublications.com for the review article.

June 2015

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