Camouflage Colours of the IAR-Brasov Made Bf 109G

I am wondering how did Mr. TLM reach the conclusion that the upper camouflage colours of the IAR-made '109Gs were dark green/grey?

Gen. Dénes

I think that the "green" is meant to be RLM74, which is quite greenish in hue.

Is it possible that the two colours were the same as the two colours used on the IAR80, i.e. "Dark Green" and "Dark Earth"? After all, they were made in the same factory. That would be a nice colour scheme. Just dreaming away here....

Radu

This is the never-ending problem of colour profiles: no matter how good the photos and the documentary evidence, there is always a risk area, mostly when the known records in what regards the actual colours employed in a given aircraft at a given data, are missing or unavailable. Sometimes, oral testimonies can be used, but this is also risky: after so many years - we are humans, after all - our memory can play tricks.

Dénes, do you think a combination of RLM 74 and 75 would have been more likely? Or local versions of those colours, perhaps?

Ruy

Radub, what you wrote makes sense, but here we return to the same old problem... the vast majority of old photos are of the black and white variety. The colours could easily have been the somehow "British" ones used on the IAR 80's or two shades of grey, a decidedly more German-like pattern after all.
Is there any indication about the origin of the paints used by IAR?

Ruy

Personally, I believe the colour shades followed the Luftwaffe pattern, as the aircraft type was assembled/manufactured under German licence. I know for sure that IAR-Brasov did order German paints from Germany in 1943/1944; therefore, personally I would generally follow the Luftwaffe pattern.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on March 01, 2006 09:57 pm

The IAR 80 was designed before the WWII when romanians were very much influenced by english and french in terms of "cammo". It was very similar with Hurricane cammo.
But starting with the year '43 romanians were using (as Denes said) the german cammo pattern for the G produced under licence. I believe were also convinced that was not need to change it with romanian old standard (not so perfect as german cammo was).
Ofcourse the question will remain for what type of paint they used -RLM green or romanian green (olive green), RLM grey or local combination between black and white paint and so on.

For me when I look to B&W pictures of "Brasov" G-6, I don't see any "Dark earth" color.



This post has been edited by Cantacuzino on March 02, 2006 08:04 am

Oh yeah, I was just dreaming "out loud" .

Yes Cantacuzino, you are right, the contrast between the two colours is too strong to indicate a DG/DE camo.

It is very possible that the planes were painted in the RLM 74/75/76 colours.

However, how about this? Can the dark colour be the "Romanian olive green" (which is similar to RLM71) and the lighter colour the "light grey" used overall on He112, or as part of splinter pattern on He111, some Savoias (which is similar to RLM 02)?
During BOB, some German aircraft were painted 02/71 and looking at those photos, the contrast between the two tones is quite similar to photos of Brasov 109s. These colours were available in Romania at the time.

Radu

Yes, Radu. This is also my opinion the green could be "olive green" (existing in large quantity in Brasov and ASAM factories) and the grey could be Ikarol used for He 112 (or mayby mixed black and white paint from existing stock).