Re: Lozenge Colours

Bill Shatzer (aw177@freenet.carleton.ca)
Thu, 1 Dec 1994 02:21:46 -0500

Well, ahem, (he said, climbing back up on this lozenge colored soapbox).
Yes, it would be possible to give a "range" of FS (or Mutheun or
Munsell or even *Sherman Williams*!) colors for WWI German lozenge
camouflage colors. But, it would be somewhat misleading. First,
a range of colors would imply that any of the colors within the
range would be equally acceptable. *But*, that would not be correct.
Just because there are surviving fabric samples of the "dull blue"
(for instance) in both "medium blue" and "dark blue" does not necessarily
mean that there was ever a "medium dark blue" color used. My own
personal opinion is that there was *not* a smooth range of colors
but rather a distinct set of individual colors which varied over
a quite wide range.

Secondly, just because surviving fabric samples of the pea green
(for instance) vary between Methuen 29 D 5 to 30 D 5 (to quote one
reference) *doesn't* mean that there wasn't a 28 D 5 or a 29 E 5 or
a 30 D 7. In other words, most lozenge colors were probably reasonably
close to the surviving samples but there is no assurance that they
were actually *within* the limits of the surviving samples

So, for you folks that are used to doing WWII and modern aircraft
where there are lots of paint chips and government specifications
available, welcome to the wonderful world of WWI where a whole
different set of rules apply. This is either a blessing or a
curse, depending on your personality. I find this quite refreshing,
knowing that "close is good enough" but if you're a perfectionist
(or anal retentive <gr>) you're going to find WWI colors quite
frustrating. (And, we haven't even discussed the fact that
WWI colors were much less color-fast and fade-resistant than
modern paints so .........)

-snip-

>
>Doug
>--------------------------------------------------
>'I am a traveler of | Douglas R. Jones
> both Time and Space' | IEX Corporation
> Led Zepplin | (214)301-1307
> | djones@iex.com
>--------------------------------------------------
>
And, am I taking up excessive bandwidth on this? Should I
climb down from my soapbox and confine my responses to e-mail?

Cheers, Bill

--




Bill Shatzer - bshatzer@ednet1.osl.or.gov - aw177@FreeNet.Carleton.ca