Late war Fw 190 D-9 camouflage colours ... ?

Er, should be: RLM 74 Gray Green or RLM 71 Dark Green ???

I'd use two different colours on the wings and the fuselage from the different cans the factory workers mixed up from the cans they had left after the last air raid!

Hope this helps, Peter

According to Jerry Crandall, he's never seen a Fw-190D in both late war colors of Olivegrun and Braunviollett. They were usually painted in 83 Olivegrun and

75 Grauviollett with 76 Lichtblau undersides. Mottling could be whatever they had in the paint shop from the 70, 71 era or 74, 75 era with 02 in for good measure. Look at a photo and take your best shot. hth

The Keeper (of too much crap!)

Was 71 still in use that late?I know 70 was used on things like props.But even it was allowed to be substituted with 66 or even flat black. Also wouldn't 02 have been used as a light overspray to dull down the 76 before adding the 75/83/whatever mottling?

Let's look at it this way, it's December 1944, you've got some leftover 71 Dunkelgrun and none of the new 83 Olivegrun. What do you do? While the two colors were different they were very close. If you're working from a black & white photo use your best judgement.

I've yet to see any hard and fast rules on 02 either. There's a color picture of one of the Horten brothers standing in front of his Me-109E; it's got a high

65 line but the sides have been dirtied up with (probably) 02. Late war color photos show little of that practice but of course there's also that elusive 84 color. If you're working from a photo, see if there's a demarcation line on the bottom corner. hth

The Keeper (of too much crap!)

Yeah, they just gave up on that whole "German thoroughness" thing ...

Thanks! But, um ... I have one question: Did you mean to write RLM 83 Dark Green? Olive green is listed as RLM 80.

Well ... From looking at photos I'd say the most common late-war camo would be RLM Soot, RLM Grime, and RLM Dirt ... :-P

I've seen the late war darker green variously referred to as 82 and 83, dunkelgrun and olivegrun and there may be something else as well. When you discuss the early war greens with the late war greens I use the olivegrun to cut down on confusion. I've seen 76 referred to as lichtblau and weissblau. Luftwaffe camouflage-never a dull moment!

LOL! Cheers,

The Keeper (of too much crap!)

Descriptives are next to useless with RLM paint colors. 'Light blue' [I'll leave the German terms to others] can be either 63, 64 or 76. 'Yellow can be either 04 or 27. 'Olive green' can be 67, 68 or 80. 'Gray-green' can be either 02 or 74. There are also 'greens': 25, 62,

71 (dark), 72 (darker), 73 (lighter), 82 (bright) and 83 (dark)--and with regard to the last two colors, there is controversy as to which is which, matching color to number. At least with 82 and 83, the saving grace is that the two colors 'usually' appeared together as top colors, but apparently not always. Nevertheless, painting by the number (if you can figure out what the number is) makes a lot more sense than trying to divine correct color from the descriptives. This might explain suggestions that there was a 71/82 scheme, when 82/83 would have the same decriptors. As always, if you have photographic evidence of the prototype's paint configuration, that will have to control over speculation about what the colors ought to be. And given that almost all such photos are grayscale, there is a lot of leeway by way of interpreation. I.e., do what seems right to you based on the available evidence, and don't sweat the uncertainty.

Mark Schynert

I don't know if it helps, but Hasegawa has the JV 44 plane painted in Licht Grün/Dunkel Grün splinter, with Hell Blau undersides and fuselage sides. The sides are covered with Licht Grün mottle (And the undersurfaces with dark red with white stripes showing the blue in worn areas).. ;^)

Thanks. I originally intended to purchase the Tamiya JV44 D-9 but ended up with the "old" non-JV44 D-9 since Rainbow 10 didn't have it in stock when I placed the order. Of course, I found out later that Tamiya allegedly has spiffed up some of the parts for the new release since the old one -- the one I bought -- allegedly had some accuracy issues ... :-P

So I'll *try* to just build it for fun and write down whatever lessons I learn for later -- Like how to get the mottle camo to look good.

Oh, I see what you mean. On a related note I'd be nice to know exactly what the "hell" in hellblau and hellgrun really means. "Hellblau" is translated as "light blue" on Babelfish, but so is "lichtblau" ...

The more I read on the subject, the more confused I get ... :-P

[snipped for brevity]

I'll follow that advice. Thanks! :-)

"Hell" translates literally as "bright," rather than "light."

Charles Metz

And then too,lichtblau (RLM76) is also sometimes said to be a pale grey or even off white.I sometimes think it would actually be more accurate to mix them by hand for every project,just to get that slight difference.

Did they fix the wing? What else? tia

The Keeper (of too much crap!)

Sorry, can't remember where I read it and what Tamiya supposedly had done to it. I just remember seeing it mentioned a couple of places that they had quietly reworked some of the parts for the new(er) JV44 release -- like they did for their new Op. Telic Challenger II.

** STOP THE PRESS ** STOP THE PRESS ** STOP THE PRESS **

As I was about to hit send just now, it occurred to me that maybe I at least should do a quick search on Google first, so I did and found the following page where some guy named Floyd Werner has converted the old Tamiya D-9 into a D-13:

"The Tamiya kit is typical Tamiya, molded in light grey plastic with excellent detail. One thing that Tamiya did wrong was they patterned the D-9 after the Air Force Museum's FW-190D-9 which had the wrong lower wing. The wing actually belonged to the D-13 at that time in the Champlin Fighter Collection. This actually works out for you as you will want the single chute ejection port for the D-13. Tamiya fixed the area on the JV44 issue, which has the correct D-9 center wing section. One thing that is incorrect on both kits is the wheel well area."

Ahah! Thanks, that's good to know. As I remember Yellow 10 (the Champlin bird) has the wing that belongs on the AFM D-9. Guess this means I should sell my early issue D-9. I wonder what he meant by the wheel wells... Cheers,

The Keeper (of too much crap!)

Evidently the wheel wells in a D-9 are supposed to be see through and you can see the engine compartment. Now, I wouldn't expect a model company to reproduce this effect. I can hear the reviews now: "Eww, you can see right into the empty fuselage."

Cheers,

The Keeper (of too much crap!)