Re: Latest WW1 Aero

JimMaas@aol.com
Tue, 7 Nov 1995 18:48:52 -0500

Matt Bitner wrote:
>Stand-outs in this issue [of WWI Aero] include:
......
>Albatros D.II colors by Dan San Abott....

I would suggest that that article, along with the most recent issue of Cross
and Cockade, have turned a lot of the WWI 'basics' upside down.

The C&C article 'Goodbye to All that Red' by Alan Toelle makes a convincing
case that many of the authentic samples of German fabric, from which stem all
those wonderful '27D-E7' Methuen references, are fake. At this point, we may
have more demonstrably authentic Austro-Hungarian sampl;es (I _know_ where
Marty got his stuff) than German.

The WWI article by Abbott suggests that the initial camouflage pattern for
Albatros fighters was not reddish-brown/green over light blue, but
reddish-brown/dark green/light grey-green over light blue. This possibility
was hinted at in Greg van W's book on JG I, where he shows a documented D.III
in this scheme. Abbott has gone back and shown a series of patterns of the
three colors applicable to D.II's.

In one way, this helps. I always wondered why the Methuen references for the
German green, quoted in most of the German-subject Datafiles, fell into two
families: a dark green or green-olive, and a light grey-green ('feldgrau'?).
It seemed odd there would be that much variation. The idea that there
_were_ two greens makes sense of those references [of course, how many came
from swatches trashed in Toelle's article?!?].

On the other hand, I've gone over my references and have found some D.II's
that don't seem to match Abbott's findings. On the other other hand, a
number of other aircraft which may indeed exhibit a three-color scheme - like
a Roland C.II.

The next question is - what happened when the mauve was introduced. Mauve
and dark green? Mauve and light green? Mauve and both greens?

Any comments? - Jim