Recent content by Beejay

That's a lot of ifs, buts, maybes, linear reasoning, rolls of dice and navy and army topics to get to the one plane you feel turned the tide of war, the SBD. Your argument should then be extended to its inevitable outcome however: the plane that gave the US its headstart at Midway, the...

Judging by the numbers built (36,000+ during the war and another 6,000+ after) and how long it was used as a front line combat aircraft (1941-1972), the Ilyushin Il-2 (& -10) Shturmovik ('attack aircraft') surely is "the airplane that did the most to turn the tide of the war"?

It seems not. And not all 109Gs had them. An update from Bulgaria: - the switch from yellow ID to white ID coincided with the switch from being an ally of Germany to ally of the USSR, Sept 1944. - D520s were repainted in Bulgaria. Beejay

Hi Wurger, The D520s did share bases with others, like Karlovo, where D520s, 109Es, 109Gs and all kinds of trainers were stationed. So somewhere there should be some pics. But where? Hi Sagittario64, In 1943 they managed an even match-up, but in 1944, they had to fight 10+ odds, a couple of...

I waited a couple of days before replying in the hope that someone I know in Bulgaria would find a solution, but but so far no luck. You could be right about the recognition bands. The best thing would be a photo of an operational Bulgarian D520 next to an operational earlier type, so we can...

Finally got it, sorry for the delay. As you can see from the code, these weren't fighters. Btw, the same book presents the clean D520s without any markings (that you show above) as "after being camouflaged in the field workshop" (p 13). So according to him they were camouflaged in Bulgaria...

Thanks Wurger. On the other hand ... I think Mushoom's book says the thing about the trainers. Anyway, there's the photo of the just arrived German 520s which carry non-fighter Luftwaffe codes on the fuselage (very unfortunately you can't see the unit code!). And if you repaint almost half of...

Thanks! Do you have the exact details about the change from white to yellow? I know about the challenges with B&W pics. I do not believe that the machines weren't repainted. For one, the German 520s were from training units, so had yellow under sides. For another, there're pics with neat and...

Thanks. The thing is that the same photos are interpreted by one as grays and by another as greens, the same bands as yellow by one and white by another (btw, on their Me-109Gs they're always interpreted as being yellow). It seems some of the Bulgarians were ex Luftwaffe (trainers), while...

Hi, Bulgarian Dewoitine 520's are depicted with gray schemes, green schemes, yellow wing tips and fuselage bands or white (even both). And they all depict the same machines. I've read all the English stuff I could find (Mushroom's book, Nedialkov's books, Ospreys), but no-one says anything...