WW2 German fighter paint
eivind...@my-deja.com
http://www.microsoft.com/games/combatfs2/livinglegends_sakai.asp
where he states that they usually did not use radios during combat,
because they usually didn`t work and it was impossible to identify a
single pilots aircraft while engaged anyway.
this would seem to be an disadvantage in combat, since they where
unable to warn fellow pilots of chasing enemies and sightings of new
ones.
but this got me wondering about the way german (and american, of
course) pilots often, usually on the eastern front, personalized their
aircraft with vivid colors and zigzag patterens (the nose of erich
hartmanns me109 springs to mind). where these paintschemes actually an
tactical advantage in combat, as they made it easy to recognise the
pilot?
and did they break any offical luftwaffe rules by painting their
aircrafts this way?
eivind
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Superdave
45 ( I'd have to look it up for the positive date). He spoke about this
several times in print. It looked stunning, but the Soviet pilots quickly
figured out who it was, and treated him accordingly. However, this design on
his Me-109G is by far his most famous plane. I think his wife's name was
almost always below the cockpit.
The only other one that sticks out in my mind is Hermann Graf's FW-190A with
the zig-zag pattern. I have several photo's of this plane in B+W, but not
color. Even battle weathered, it is a neat design.
Adolph Galland had personal insignia on his Me-109E during the BoB ( Mickey
Mouse character ) besides his Staffel markings. But that's it.
I haven't really seen many other customized Luftwaffe fighters. Nothing on
the scale of the scale of 8th Air Force nose art.
Dave Pawlikowski
supe...@samnet.net
www.cushdrive.com
" Trying is the first step towards failure "
Homer Simpson
Stephen Harding
> Hartmann's Black Tulip design was only used for a very short time in 44 or
> 45 ( I'd have to look it up for the positive date). He spoke about this
> several times in print. It looked stunning, but the Soviet pilots quickly
> figured out who it was, and treated him accordingly. However, this design on
> his Me-109G is by far his most famous plane. I think his wife's name was
> almost always below the cockpit.
>
> The only other one that sticks out in my mind is Hermann Graf's FW-190A with
> the zig-zag pattern. I have several photo's of this plane in B+W, but not
> color. Even battle weathered, it is a neat design.
>
> Adolph Galland had personal insignia on his Me-109E during the BoB ( Mickey
> Mouse character ) besides his Staffel markings. But that's it.
>
> I haven't really seen many other customized Luftwaffe fighters. Nothing on
> the scale of the scale of 8th Air Force nose art.
For that matter, the British didn't really seem to go in for nose art the
way the USAAF did. (US Navy and Marines were certainly subdued as well).
Were there explicity prohibitions in the Luftwaffe, IJN/IJA or RAF that
prohibited this sort of expression using fighter or bomber media?
It would certainly seem there had to be, or German/British/Japanese commanders
were remarkably uniform in what they would tolerate of the artistic expression
of their pilots!
Always wondered why USAAF fighters/bombers were where nose art seemed to reach
its greatest development.
SMH
Gordon
The main thing to remember is that *generally* Germans did not look at their
aircraft as personal objects, the way a US fighter pilot or bomber crew did.
When your total number of missions was relatively low (25-50 bomber missions
were typical and >50 fighter escort missions was normal), the crew and aircraft
could very easily complete their tours together. Was this possible for the
average German fighter or bomber pilot? Not very likely at all. Some careers
lasted more than five years in combat -- and such a pilot would concievably run
through dozens of aircraft in that time. Your average German veteran today can
only give the vaguest description of his aircraft from 60 years ago ("Uhh, it
was blue on the bottom, mottled on top. Number? I think I flew a 4, a 6, and
a 2. Does that help..?"), because to him, it was a tool to be used until it
was useless; pretty much the opposite of the American attitude of "this baby is
going to bring us all home!" that went along with christening a new bomber by
painting a nearly dressed sweetheart and a name on the side. Americans see
personalities in inanimate objects to a much greater extent than a lot of other
cultures.
In WWI, it was common practice for German fighter pilots to have their machines
painted in such a way that it was easy for other members in the formation to
tell who was where... That worked at 100 knots, but at 400mph, most of those
markings are a blur. The way that fighter leaders were identified in the air
was the chevron of a Staffelkapitaen, Kommandeur, or Kommodore, which actually
was relatively easy for your brain to register, even if the aircraft was
passing at speed.
For the most part, mechanics assigned to a particular pilot were allowed to
paint whatever they wished -- examples are Spaete's all-red Me-163B and
squiggle-pattern Bf-109s that cropped up from time to time, which were never
sanctioned by the upper echelon. Luftwaffe directives on painting were very
specific, but just as US Corsairs flew around with red-outlines on their
"stars&bars" long after they were ordered removed, it was not uncommon for
aircraft within a specific staffel to have a wide variety of paint schemes. It
became much worse toward the end as paint shortages and expediency made
uniformity of camouflage an impossible task.
v/r
Gordon
Lawrence Nyveen
<har...@hobart.cs.umass.edu> wrote:
> For that matter, the British didn't really seem to go in for nose art the
> way the USAAF did. (US Navy and Marines were certainly subdued as well).
>
> Were there explicity prohibitions in the Luftwaffe, IJN/IJA or RAF that
> prohibited this sort of expression using fighter or bomber media?
>
> It would certainly seem there had to be, or German/British/Japanese
> commanders
> were remarkably uniform in what they would tolerate of the artistic
> expression
> of their pilots!
>
> Always wondered why USAAF fighters/bombers were where nose art seemed to
> reach
> its greatest development.
Well, RAF bombers flew mainly at night, and so were mostly painted
black. Large colourful nose art, if not officially frowned upon, was
probably looked at as best as daft.
Spits had nose art, although it was generally small and tasteful.
--
Laurie Nyveen nyv...@videotron.canada
a.k.a. Webs, member of the WarBirds training staff
_________________________________________________________________________
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Cub driver
>i just read an interesting interview with japanese ace saburo sakai on
>http://www.microsoft.com/games/combatfs2/livinglegends_sakai.asp
>where he states that they usually did not use radios during combat,
>because they usually didn`t work and it was impossible to identify a
>single pilots aircraft while engaged anyway.
At that, the navy's planes were more reliable than the army's (and the
two services' were incompatible). The early model Nakajima Ki-43
Hayabusa (aka Oscar) was equipped with a radio. It didn't work, though
sometimes the men on the ground could hear the men in the air trying
to talk to one another. Figuring that vibration was the problem, the
64th Sentai mechs encased the radio in a net they called a spiderweb,
so as to suspend it free of the airframe. So they continued to use
visual signals: running lights, wing waggles, firing a burst, etc. And
they continued to fly in chutais based on three aircraft. This was in
1942; I presume but don't know that the radios improved later.
Japanese bombers at this time were still trailing a wire behind the
commander's aircraft for communication with the ground--not with one
another. Again, formation flying and visual signals took care of
formation discipline--e.g., a burst of mg fire from the commander's
plane was the signal to drop bombs at night. I believe the
trailing-wire antenna was CW, not voice.
all the best - Dan Ford
Annals of Military Aviation http://www.delphi.com/annals
Cub driver
>Were there explicity prohibitions in the Luftwaffe, IJN/IJA or RAF that
>prohibited this sort of expression using fighter or bomber media?
The Japanese military in WWII didn't tolerate individual expression of
any kind, nor did Japanese society produce individualists, at least
not at the level of combat pilots, who were preponderantly enlisted
men. The "ace" culture was unknown, and no individual scores were kept
for fighter pilots--one reason why accounts of Japanese aces are so
vague and even fantastical. There's a page on my website about this
phenomenon.
By way of example, it sometimes happened that an individual shot down
an Allied aircraft, or believed he did, then gave the gift of that
victory to his flight leader, as repayment of the "giri" he owed to
his superior. Fancy Pappy Boyington doing that!
Flight leaders, squadron leaders, and group (sentai) leaders did have
particular markings, and the planes of each squadron had a band of a
particular color around the fuselage aft of the cockpit, as aids to
forming up at a rendezvous point.
-- Dan Ford
Japan at War: http://danford.net/japan.htm
Stephen Harding
> The Japanese military in WWII didn't tolerate individual expression of
> any kind, nor did Japanese society produce individualists, at least
> not at the level of combat pilots, who were preponderantly enlisted
> men. The "ace" culture was unknown, and no individual scores were kept
> for fighter pilots--one reason why accounts of Japanese aces are so
> vague and even fantastical. There's a page on my website about this
> phenomenon.
Sakai states in his book that even the practice of giving out awards
to individuals for exceptional valor or accomplishment was not done
until very late in the war, and even then rarely. You were simply
doing your job and no "honorable mention" was required.
Sakai thought it was a poor practice IIRC.
SMH