1/48 Tamiya FW190D-9 White 11 of IV/JG51

[stona]

This is indeed a quagmire.

Just to clarify Mr Crandall's position. My initial post was for his opinion of the 213xxx series generally. For 213007,"White 11", he is even more non-commital for the wing upper surfaces.

"upper wings may be Light Grey or RLM 74/RLM 75 Dark Grey or Light Grey or RLM 75/RLM 83 in combination."

Now that's confusing!I'm not sure I know exactly what he means

JaPo's profile notes read.

"Close scrutiny of the wing upper surface reveals a pattern almost identical to the last of the 219xxx series D-9s,ie a scheme composed of RLM 83/76 or possibly even RLM 81/76".

My favourite is still RLM 83/76 but it's just an opinion. I don't believe that there is enough evidence to be any more specific than that.

As a personal preference I usually prefer Crandall's profiles to the JaPo ones but in this case they are so similar that there is nothing in it.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Wayne Little]

I'm still not convinced of the use of the 76 in this case, there should be a distinct difference between the 83? and 76 but the tonal difference or contrast in one of the pics is minimal indicating to me at least that the 2 colours are close ie. 83/82, also the pic was not taken on a sunny day it appears overcast this does help in the fact that any glare or refection etc. can be ruled out in manipulating the appearance of the colours.
Note the cowl area where we know for a fact that the cowling was 83/76, note the distinct tonal difference of the 2 colours, this is not the same as the wing area!

The greens give consistency to middle and later Focke Wulf produced D series right through to the D-11 which also has 83/82 low contrast wings.

Photo reference, Eagle Editions or JaPo Dora volumes they have the same pic.

 

[stona]

The greens give consistency to middle and later Focke Wulf produced D series right through to the D-11 which also has 83/82 low contrast wings.

I don't agree that there was any consistency in late war wing colours as they came from the various different sub-contarctors. There is some consistency by series/factory,and they did all move towards an 82/83 standard (Sorau,Marienberg,Cottbus seem to have managed this in the end) but not all the sub contractors got there.
The following is distilled from Crandall/JaPo for the wings only.

210xxx (Sorau) early 75/83
late 82/83 but some later ones 81/82

211xxx (Marienberg) early 75/83
late 82/83

212xxx (Cottbus) 82/83

213xxx (Factory/Assembly unknown) Light Grey,maybe RLM 76/RLM 75 or RLM 83.
This is of course the subject of our speculation. There are only two examples known from this work block,"White 11,213007,and "White 1",213084,so our options are very limited!

400-401xxx (Nordenham and Lemwerder) 75/83

500xxx (Mimetall) "Light Grey" possibly a version of RLM 75/83

600-601xxx (Fiesler) early 74/75
late 82/83,some had a transitional 75/83.

The D-11s do seem to have been produced in 82/83,but then they all came out of Sorau IIRC.

Don't even get us going on the undersides! JaPo have their own interesting theory about that

As a slight aside a November 1944 diagram for the Ta 152 camouflage has the upper surface in 81/82,but that didn't happen either.

It's this complexity and diversity which makes it so difficult to be certain and also what makes the subject fun.

Cheers
Steve

 

[sturmbock44]

I agree i with wayne in the sense that the pictures that i seen didnt appear to be 76 on the wings. it just didnt look light enough. Im not as well versed as you guys with the work numbers and factories though. Steve sounds like hes got it down.
I have a few pictures in mind Andy that i want to send you that may help you make a decision about 190s that have been modified in the field or possibly in the factory. sometimes i like get other pictures of planes where you are pretty sure what the RLM color is and try to compare them closely to your subject, lastly i even take color pics of my models and grayscale them to see if i can see how each color reacts as black and white pics ( i know thats not 100% accurate but i feel its worth a try) my Fw-190 F-8 as a wide variety of colors on it if you grayscale the pics you can see what i mean. i compared it to pics of the real plane and it led me to other ideas rather than the popular interpretations on yellow 14.

Its my guess the wings would be 75 , 82 light green.darker color on the fuselage appears to have the darker hue green 83 than the wings. the dark color on the fuselage could be 81 too ... thats why the wings seem light enough to say either 75 82, 75 83, or 82 83 for wings.

some 190s i have seen appear to be a mix of two or three 82 83 and maybe 81 added in the field? 76 sometimes being the third color shot over the two . ill email you a few links that i find helpful . Also guys whats the deal with linking to articles from other modeling sites ... is that helpful or frowned upon here? also pics if pictures are readily available on google from multiple sources do you think its ok to post them? hell some of them i think are hosted on this site.

 

[stona]

I'd like to emphasise that I don't know what colour is on those wings!
I've had a quick look for pictures of the other known aircraft in that series to no avail. I'll have more time tomorrow!
Two things stand out. First is we don't know where that aircraft was assembled or where the wings came from. Secondly both Crandall and the JaPo boys are in agreement that there was a light grey colour on the top of those wings. I've had issues with some of the JaPo interpretations in the past but Crandall's arguments have usually convinced me.
Cheers
Steve

 

[Crimea_River]

Great info guys - keep it coming. No-one has mentioned RLM 77 as a possible candidate for lighter gray which I've seen offered up in some other discussions. Comments?

Also, need to know what you think about the wheel wells as I need to squirt some paint on those very soon.

 

[fubar57]

Knowing absolutely nothing on Luftwaffe colors and never having built an Eduards kit, how trust worthy are they normally on their color call-outs? I kinda like the 76/81 scheme.

Geo

 

[Crimea_River]

Eduard has attempted to stay current with their profiles and are better than most manufacturers.

 

[stona]

I thought I did mention RLM 77....maybe not,might be my age

It was a colour certainly used on late Bf 109s but I'm not aware of anyone claiming it on Focke Wulf aircraft. It might be a possibility. The problem is that we know that the Germans were struggling to maintain paint consistency right at the end. They'd done amazingly well to maintain it for as long as they did,but material shortages did have an effect in the last few months of the war. That light grey might have been a lighter version of RLM 75 for instance,I don't know and am happy to admit it!

Some time ago I made a little vignette (1/72) based on this picture from Rodeicke's mighty Focke Wulf reference. Sorry about the bad scan!

What is that lighter grey colour on the wings? I have no idea. For my model I used Medium Sea Grey !

It's just a model

Cheers

Steve

 

[Crimea_River]

Good one Steve. And I think you did mention 77, sorry. Any thoughts on the wheel well colour? I'm tending toward bare metal.

 

[stona]

Any thoughts on the wheel well colour? I'm tending toward bare metal.

Another toss up. Bare metal willlook nice on the model

Steve

 

[Crimea_River]

Talk about non committal!

 

[stona]

Talk about non committal!

That's me

Off the top of my head (I'll check later) this production block was very late (February/March '45 ?) so just about anything was possible. For some reason the same GIs who stood infront of werknummern and kennziffer also omitted to take detailed photographs of wheel wells and other details vital to us 70 years later

More seriously it is very difficult to be certain about such details so late in the war without a lucky reference.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Lucky13]

How rude and insensitive of them GI's, eh?

 

[Crimea_River]

Indeed. Though their foresight might have made them a lot of bucks for their retirement.

Anyhoo, more work on the wheel wells is summarized below. To start, I had a hell of a lot of trimming to do on the resin engine plug but to get it to sit deep enough in the fuselage and forward enough to have the ejection chutes of the MG131 cartridges line up with the openings on the lower wing half. The below two pics show the insert and line up before final gluing.

The lower wing half dry-fitted to check the plug line-up:

To attach the resin wheel well, I thought it best to glue the upper wing halves to the fuselage first, thereby also ensuring there would be no gap when seen from the top. Here are two pics showing this process.

Note that a dry fit showed a visible gap between the rear wheel well walls and the lower wing half. To remedy this, I added pllstic card spacers, seen in white. Finally, the resin wheel well detail was added and glued in with CA with the result as shown below.

With this done, I'll add a few more details and set about painting the lot, probably in bare aluminum unless anyone has objections! Thanks for the great input so far and keep it coming guys.

 

[sturmbock44]

Go with the bare metal , If some 262s had bare metal im sure wurgers would have had been rushed out. The beauty of late war no one can prove you wrong whatever you chose. Now i feel bad i have a Tamiya 190 D-9 and i wasnt even going to correct the issues with the wheel bays... now i dont know what to do.

 

[Crimea_River]

Sell it and get an Eduard one!

 

[sturmbock44]

Lol I have their d 11 . and Aires 1/48 superdetail set which has a jumo 213 I could use to correct it , but dont know when ill feel doing that. Looking good sir.

 

[Wayne Little]

I don't agree that there was any consistency in late war wing colours as they came from the various different sub-contarctors. There is some consistency by series/factory,and they did all move towards an 82/83 standard (Sorau,Marienberg,Cottbus seem to have managed this in the end) but not all the sub contractors got there.
The following is distilled from Crandall/JaPo for the wings only.

210xxx (Sorau) early 75/83
late 82/83 but some later ones 81/82

211xxx (Marienberg) early 75/83
late 82/83

212xxx (Cottbus) 82/83

213xxx (Factory/Assembly unknown) Light Grey,maybe RLM 76/RLM 75 or RLM 83.
This is of course the subject of our speculation. There are only two examples known from this work block,"White 11,213007,and "White 1",213084,so our options are very limited!

400-401xxx (Nordenham and Lemwerder) 75/83

500xxx (Mimetall) "Light Grey" possibly a version of RLM 75/83

600-601xxx (Fiesler) early 74/75
late 82/83,some had a transitional 75/83.

The D-11s do seem to have been produced in 82/83,but then they all came out of Sorau IIRC.

Don't even get us going on the undersides! JaPo have their own interesting theory about that

As a slight aside a November 1944 diagram for the Ta 152 camouflage has the upper surface in 81/82,but that didn't happen either.

It's this complexity and diversity which makes it so difficult to be certain and also what makes the subject fun.

Cheers
Steve

I should clarify my comment further Steve, I was mainly refering to the 21XXXX series where there seemed to be a reasonable amount of consistency after the early application of 75/83, from a lot of what we've seen and been told, the 400, 500 and 600 series are another kettle of fish entirely with documented variations all over the place.

 

[stona]

That's true enough. The 210,211,212 series all came out of the "main" Focke-Wulf facilities and I agree that they were more successful in moving towards the 82/83 camouflage. I think it is reasonable to assume that this was the intended standard across all production but that circumstances,particularly in the last three or four months of the war made this very difficult to achieve,particularly at what we might call satellite facilities.

Of course our intrepid modeller,CrimeaRiver,has chosen a subject from a block for which only two examples are known and we don't even know where they were built! Oh,the madness of it

Cheers

Steve