German He-115 Colors used in Norway

Topisde was probably a two color splinter--RLM 72/73 was typical for Luftwaffe maritime aircraft, and this is more likely in 1942, but it may have been right for 1940 also. Underside probably RLM 65. I haven't seen yellow bands on the aft fuselage of any He 115, which leads me to believe they didn't have yellow underside wingtips either.

Mark Schynert

Mark Schynert wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news6.west.earthlink.net:

I have a refernce somewhere (unpacking now but oh such a mess) that

72/73/65 was standard overwater camo at least early in the war.

I would go with that.

BTW, I can't believe AMT had an He-115. Had to be the Frog. That makes 3 kits of the beastie, Matchbox, Revell and now Frog. I'm pretty sure I have the Revell and possubly the Matchbox one, too.

I have the AMT kit--it is a Matchbox reissue. The Revell is distinctly different--haven't seen the Frog kit.

Mark Schynert

FWIW I believe the Revell kit is the old Frog molds.

Bill Shuey

The Revell kit is indeed the FROG mould. The 2 kits represent different sub-types and were both fairly good builds but lacking in detail. I also recall the FROG/Revell kit as being a bit finer in detail than the Matchbox kit, especially around the float struts.

The Matchbox kit had a decal option of an aircraft in Arctic camouflage but I don't have any details to hand. One of the upper surface colours was overpainted with white, and looked very smart.

John

FWIW The 115's Glory days were the early days of the Murmansk convoys. They were used as torpedo bombers and were very effective. Later, when the convoy escorts got a better handle on the anti-aircraft part of the job, the He-111 and JU-88 took over.

Bill Shuey

I've got the Matchbox kit in my "to do" pile, so I've been looking into this myself. There's a lot on the He-115 in "Warplanes of the Luftwaffe", ed. David Donald, ISBN 1 874023 28 X (UK ed),

1-880588-04-8 (US ed), including a large colour 3-view profile, two side profiles, six b/w and one colour photo. The latter clearly shows a dark green splinter pattern on the upper surfaces, which is probably RLM72/73 although it's hard to tell. The profiles all have yellow theatre markings on the fuselage and wingtips, but the fuselage band is only on the underside, and in fact connects, and lines up exactly with, the bottom arms of the fuselage crosses - one of the b/w photos shows this quite clearly, although it comes out as a dark band. AFAIK the yellow theatre markings weren't introduced until late Spring 1941, though, so a Norway based He-115 before this time wouldn't have them. None of the photos show any discernible interior detail, unfortunately, so I'm currently at a loss to know what to put under that massive greenhouse - can anybody suggest any sources for interior shots?

Dave Rogers

--snip--

Dave,

Although it probably won't meet your needs completely, some He 115 cockpit detail can be found in the following books:

Cohausz: 'Deutsche Flugzeugcockpits und Instrumentenbretter Zweiter Weltkrieg: Focke-Achgelis - Heinkel' (Cockpit Profile series, No. 5; Flugzeug Publikations [Germany], 1999; in German and English; 51 pages; US$14.95) -- page 42

Dabrowski: 'Heinkel He 115' (Schiffer Military History series [unnumbered]; Schiffer [USA], 1994; 48 pages; US$9.95) -- page 27

Lalak: 'Heinkel He 115' (Profile Lotnicze series, No. 5; Pegaz [Poland],

1999; in Polish and English; 65 pages; US$15) -- page 13

Charles Metz

In Germany there is a series published just on German WWII cockpits, named "Cockpit Profiles". I thought maybe I could help but a superficial glance over Nos. 5&6 suggests that the authors have completely missed the 115 in the Heinkel sections. I can't recommend a supplier as my copies came from a former poster here.

I did hunt up a "Scale Models" with an Ian Huntley column on 72/73 colours. All aircraft involved in maritime activities were 'supposed' to be painted in the 72/73 over 65 scheme. Exceptions noted were those land-based aircraft on TDY or where the stocks of 72/73 were low and then 70/71 could be substituted. One other exception was those aircraft involved in night activities wore 22 schwarz undersides.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

There are three kits of the He-115, but Revell's seems to be the best choice; Airmodel's 1972 vacuform is a non-starter and Matchbox's 1975 kit (later issued by AMT) suffers from the heavy-handed Matchbox detailing of that era. The Revell kit (H-241 original issue, 4342 current issue) is, of course, the Frog mold (F418) that never made it beyond the test shot phase before the 1977 collapse. The original issue used the Frog boxart and decals. According to Burns, the kit has been issued by Revell Germany and by Revell subsidiaries in Britain, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, and Japan. To my knowledge, it has never been released by Revell USA. I have the original late 70s release and the 1993 release, both by Revell Germany, and the Tsukuda issue (kit # P7) from the late 80s (Satake box art); I have never seen any other issue.

One of the main irritants with the Frog/Revell release is figuring out which sub-type the kit depicts. The box art for both the 1977 and

1993 releases identifies the sub-type as an He-115C-1. The instruction sheet, however, gives no clue as to sub-type. This is most frustrating as alternative parts are provided for two nose configurations; they are differentiated only as "standard" production and "late" production aircraft. Take your pick.

The Matchbox offering is also something of a mystery. No sub-type is indicated on the box art, markings guide, or instruction sheet. One option on the decal sheet, however, provides markings for a Finnish aircraft, which identifies the sub-type as an He-115A-2. This was one of the export aircraft produced for Norway. At the end of hostilities following the German invasion of Norway in April 1940, one of the Norwegian He-115A-2 aircraft was flown to Finland and subsequently taken over by that government. Assigned to HeLv 46, this lone aircraft represents a rather obscure choice for depiction in kit form.

The original kit number has since been responsible for a certain degree of confusion resulting from Revell's annoying practice of duplicating kit numbers for different kits. H-241 was originally assigned in 1956 to the "S" kit of the Douglas A3D Skywarrior. It was later assigned to the SE-210 Caravelle jetliner in SAS markings. Not content with this duplication, Revell/Lodela used it for the Lufthansa Boeing 727. The He-115 is thus at least the fourth Revell kit to bear the number H-241.

I know...more than you ever wanted to know.

Cheers,

Matt Mattingley

snipped-for-privacy@moinc.com (Matt Mattingley) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

Main diff is the Cs have the big gondola like under nose structure with a

20mm cannon. The Bs had an MG 17 in the position with a much snaller structure there. The Revell kit has a "football" type attenna on the B which I can see on one picture I have. The shape of the Revell one is questionable.

The other differences were internal and not readily visible.

Does that help?

Frank

Yes, and I believe they re-configured the bombbay on that one. Another oddity is that four of them from Norway made it to England. One was even ferried to Malta (!) and was used for reconnaisance and picked up a couple of British agents in Tripoli harbor while painted in German colors. The only other aircraft to fly under both German and British color that I can think of is the Fokker TVIII. Cheers,

Keeper (of too much crap)

Others flown in both sets of markings during the war and not just for evaluation or joy-riding: Gloster Gladiator (Germans used captured Baltic states examples as fighter trainers) NA-16 variants (Captured French examples used as trainers by Germans) DC-3/C-47 variants (Captured Czech airliners were used by Germany) The Avro Rota and Focke Wulf license-built Cierva C.30 were virtually identical autogyros. Messerschmitt Bf 108 (four impressed by the British for liaison work)

Mark Schynert