[WWI] Why change markings?

[J.R. Boye]

      Well, there were certainly a lot of cases of friendly fire casualties, especially from the ground. Against a bright sky markings are difficult to make out, so making identification as obvious as possible was important. Ground troops were well known for shooting at anything in the air in the early stages of the war.
       This was the reason for the invasion stripes on Allied planes in WW II-only on the lower surfaces. Pilots were expected to recognise silhouettes at a distance.
      If I prop up two of my 1/72 models, one with eiserns kreuzen and another with British roundels, I can't distinguish the markings from 20 feet or so, but I can still see the outlines of the models clearly. Conditions in the sky are usually not ideal, especially when you need to tell friend from foe fast.

                                     J.R. Boye

----- Original Message ----
From: james dickie <jamesdickie82 at yahoo.com>
To: World War I Modeling Mailing List <wwi at wwi-models.org>
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2007 2:40:08 PM
Subject: Re: [WWI] Why change markings?


...I have my odd theory...very odd. True, apparently no documents seem to have survived as to why, so anyones guess is probably good as gold. So...is it possible the Germans took their lead from their Austro Hungarian allies? At about that time the Germans had sent numerous technical teams to inspect Austro Hungarian aviation (and vice versa). Some of the Austro Hungarian fleks at that time were using very simplified balken cross patterns (perhaps from a stretched war economy and haphazard infrastructure?)...did the Germans in their zealous compulsion for standardization feel a need to adopt the same pattern to avoid problems with air recognition, as at about that time large German field divisions were sent south to help bolster the failing Austro Hungarians in their costly war of attrition against the Italians? Simplified: did German pilots, ground troops, AA units, artillery spotters, etc who were serving alongside Austro Hungarian forces perhaps need
 a standardized
 recognition, and if so, did the Germans decide to copy/change to avoid friendly fire casualties? During WWII the Germans quickly copied the Italian recognition markings of white/yellow theatre fuselage bands for the same reason, so it's not unheard of for Germany to have adopted aircraft recognition markings from their southern allies. Yes, a strange theory...but who knows? And perhaps I put way too much thought into this!  :)


Why did the German air servide change from the Iron Cross to the Balken Cross?  We know when but not why.  Any points to documents would be appreciated

MrT

RKA  (really known as)
Tom Solinski

 
      
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