"Luftwaffe Bomber Colors 1940?" Topic

I have been toying around with the idea of a Battle of Britain campaign. Poking around on line at the Wings Palette site, I noticed numerous German bombers in a light gray, dark gray splinter camouflage pattern. From everything I have seen before I thought the Luftwaffe splinter patterns were always in shades of green. Did the Wings Palette just render the colors incorrectly or did the Luftwaffe fly in shades of gray?

I have to say I always thought shades of green too. A light `green-grey with mid-dark green over it. Definitely not just greys. Just looked up film clips of battle britain to see if that helped (it doesn't)

For Battle of Britain no grays. RLM 65 (a light blue) for lower surfaces, RLM 70 & RLM 71 (both greens) in a splinter pattern for upper surfaces. I use Model Masters paints.

The grey scheme was only used on the ME109 late in the BoB not the bombers. The He111s in the BoB film seem to be incorrectly painted in the day fighter scheme not the correct colours that Highlandcatfrog lists above.

If you use the Vallejo conversions of the RLM codes you might find the black green isn't very contrasty and you may wish to add a bit more black to it.

I have a couple of photos of Ju88s and He111 painted with black undersides but being used for daylight ops, again late in BoB period. I also have an eye witness account stating that a german bomber he inspected once it had been shot down was only painted in one tone of green on the upper surfaces not in splinter.

Hi

70/71 are so close in tone that observers frequently see them as one color. And most period emulsions reinforce that by being unable to distingquish between them which leads to people "remembering" it that way.

Rocky

Of help may be:

1-991015 Scutts, Jerry LUFTWAFFE BOMBER UNITS, 1939-1941 OSPREY/AIRWAR #15, eight color plates, text. 1 vol, 48 pgs 2002 LONDON, OSPREY PUBLISH'G NEW-softcover $15.00 USD

Dennis from OMM
onmilitarymatters.com

"70/71 are so close in tone that observers frequently see them as one color. And most period emulsions reinforce that by being unable to distingquish between them which leads to people "remembering" it that way."

Rocky
Thanks for that – I agree that the most likely reasoning. I've used the Vallejo conversions of the RLM colours and as you write they are close tones. I like them like that as they look about right to me.