**** DONE: 1/48 Fw190 D-9 "Blue 12" - Winter War / Eastern Front WWII

[JKim]

Username: JKim
First Name: John
Category: Intermediate
Scale: 1/48
Manufacturer: Hobby Boss
Model Type: Focke Wulf Fw 190 D-9
Aftermarket Addons: Maybe PE seatbelts and canopy masks

Black 12 of II/JG6

 

[JKim]

Reference Profiles:

Reference Photos:

Reference Photos posted by Wurger:

 

[fubar57]

All right John, number 3. In "Luftwaffe Camouflage and Markings", Vol. 1, by K.A. Merrick, it has the same color photo as yours and in the caption is states, "...but the 76 side surfaces had been toned down with a thin, sprayed coating of 02..."

Geo

 

[JKim]

Thanks George! Despite the amount of photo documentation that is available on this particular aircraft, interpretation of the exact color scheme seems to be arguable at best, which is not surprising given the state of Luftwaffe affairs towards the latter stages of the war. I found an interesting discussion of the camo pattern of WNr 500570 on another message board and the was most interested to see the comments posted by David E. Brown, who helped produce the Experten Decals book for the 190D-9 in 1993.

Gents,

I thought that I might add a few thoughts to the colour discussion of this aircraft.

By way of introduction, Dave Wadman and I did a detailed analysis of this aircraft (amongst others) for our first Experten Decals book (1993). This was based on a number of available photographs from Jim Crow and Tom Hitchcock's collections, and others, and of course, our knowledge of Luftwaffe camouflage and markings at the time. Since then, we have learned more about the subject and we shared our knowledge with fellow researchers Larger, Deboeck, and Poruba for their JaPo series.

With respect to "Blue 12", Werknummer 500570, of 8./II./JG 6 there are numerous photos of this aircraft, and most importantly, one in colour ( a Kodachrome slide from which I received a copy from the original). These 500000-series aircraft appear in a number of "hodgepodge" camouflage schemes, likely reflecting their manufacturing process of assembling various components built by widely dispersed subcontractors. The aircraft generally follows the Braunviolett 81 / Hellgrun 82 scheme.

On the fuselage, following a coat of green-blue (grunblau) shade of RLM 76 on the sides, Braunviolett 81 was along the fuselage spine up to and including the gun cowling cover. This was followed by Hellgrun 82 over-sprayed on the gun cowling on top of the 81, and forward of the rear fuselage insert up to the canopy. RLM 82 was applied to the spine over the RLM 81 from the base of the fine forward to the jacking point.

The Jumo engine "power-egg" was delivered as a complete component to the final assembly facility that completed this aircraft. It was most likely given a single coat of RLM 76. When attached to the aircraft, it too was given a coat of RLM 81 on its uppersurface, followed by a second coat of RLM 82, which appears darker given the darker underlying colour. In addition, a new photo of the port side of the cowling shows that the making "(E3)" is incorrect and is actually (and more appropriately) "(213)".

Our original interpretation was that Blue 12's upperwing colours were Grauviolett 75 and one of the primer grey colours, or Hellgrau 77. Re-interpretation of extant and new photos of Blue 12 and other aircraft permit a re-assessment. This is particularly based on photos of an Fw 190 D-9, White 16, WNr.500636 of 1./JG 6, that clearly reveals its upperwing camouflage scheme as a combination of Braunviolett 81 and the fuselage side and undersurface colour: the green-blue (grunblau) shade of RLM 76. Again, the best references for this are the photos of White 6.

The aircraft's underside colour is a combination of RLM on the forward half, and the remainer left in natural metal. The control surfaces were completed by a subcontractor and finished in RLM 76.The fuselage underside is in natural metal only from the wheel wells back to the tail. The rudder was another subcontracted part and was painted in RLM 75 with a mottle of RLM 76 applied. The fin was another subcontracted component given an overall coat of RLM 76 upon which was applied a dense fogging of RLM 81.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

David

 

[Crimea_River]

..and let the debate begin.....

I'll post what Crandall has to say about it when I get a minute. He does agree that the fuselage was the greenish version of RLM 76.

 

[Crimea_River]

So John, you asked about the red circle over the dash. That's the jacking point. The red circle is likely primer which seems to be liberally used on this aircraft.

 

[Slam]

Looking at that last B&W photo, you'd swear the power egg was a retrofit from another airframe. THe stencil just aft of the cowl flaps might bear this out.

Excellent choice of subjects! Looking forward to this.

 

[JKim]

What's a "power egg"? I've seen that term when browsing other Dora discussions. Something to do with the engine+fuselage sub-assembly?

 

[fubar57]

Wiki...

"Engines were typically delivered from BMW complete in their cowling, ready to be bolted to the front of the aircraft, since 1942 as Motoranlage (M) and 1944/1945 as Triebwerksanlage (T). The Motoranlage was the original form of the interchangeable Kraftei, or "power-egg", unitized powerplant installation concept used in many German wartime aircraft. It was most often used with twin and multi-engined designs, with some need for external add-ons, and the Triebwerksanlage was the Motoranlage plus some external mountings, such as exhaust pipes, as a completely interchangeable unit. Both M and T formats were also used with various inline engines, like the Daimler-Benz DB 603 used for both the inline-engined versions of the Do 217 and the enormous Bv 238 flying boat, and the Junkers Jumo 213 powerplants used for later marks of the Ju 88 multirole aircraft."

...kinda what I thought it was but couldn't properly explain it.

Geo

 

[Crimea_River]

Yes, "power egg" refers to the engine assembly complete with cowls that were shipped to the assembly plant. These were often painted at the subcontractor resulting in a mismatch of the green and blue demarcation at the junction with the rest of the fuselage. Doras were an assembly of many parts built at dispersed locations and hence the wide variety of colours and bare metal areas.

John, you can go out to town trying to get this one to be an exact match because of the variety of parts that may not be included in your kit so you can pick and chose what you want to do. Here's what Crandall says about this one:

- Blown canopy (like the one on both profiles. Hopefully your kit provides one vs the earlier straight-back type)
- All antennas intact (note that the D-9 did not have the retracting mechanism and that if you are posing the canopy open, the antenna will drape)
- Late 3 piece gun cowl with no bulges on rear but small flair on lower edge with corresponding half circle bulge on the engine cowl (yeah that's a mouthful but suffice to say there were several styles of gun cowl. The profiles above seem to show this correctly)
- Factory data plate under port fuselage cross (top profile has that)
- Undersurfaces were the light greenish RLM76 on fuselage, natural metal wings behind the main spar. Forward of spar including gear doors was RLM75. Gear doors were also lightly oversprayed with a darker colour. Some panels taped or puttied. (Basically agrees with Brown above)
- Fuselage sides are the greenish RLM76. Red oxide primer around lift hole and large area in middle of port cross. Rudder was the blue RLM 76 (like the second profile) with mottling
- Upper surfaces - engine cowling was 82 bright green/83 dark green. RLM81 Braun-Violet on gun cowl and spine behind canopy. (very different interpretation than Brown) Makes no comment about the wing uppers on this particular aircraft though suggests that aircraft in the 500 XXX series were manufactured by Mimettal carried a Light Grey/RLM83 Dark Green pattern with a possible mismatch on the elevators that could have been in 82/83

So welcome to the wonderful world of D-9 paint schemes and good luck!

 

[JKim]

Thanks for all of the information, George and Andy! It's really cool learning more about these planes. I'm not that exacting modeler that I'm driven to be 100% accurate on my builds. The top wing camo is a mystery to me so I'm not sure what I'll go with but this will be a model with lots of individual "character" that's for sure.

One thing I am contemplating on doing is paint chipping. It seems obvious that this aircraft is heavily weathered and I can see what appears to be paint chipping on the gun cowl. I've never been a big fan of paint chipping by applying silver paint over the camo... it rarely looked right in my eyes so I've never incorporated that into my builds. Now with these new methods (new to me at least) such as using hairspray and salt, the idea of exposing a natural metal finish that is UNDER the camo appeals to me. I have a test mule in the works (a little 1/72 Hien) to play around with both methods. I definitely want to see Andy's take on the hairspray strategy but I've seen enough Youtube videos of both methods to give it a shot myself.

 

[Crimea_River]

John, I'm new to the hairspray technique as well and am relying on U-TOOB jusy like you.

The top wing camo is a mystery to me so I'm not sure what I'll go with but this will be a model with lots of individual "character" that's for sure.

If it were me John, based on what I've read, I'd do the wings something like this:

 

[fubar57]

Good one Andy. John, in post#2, 6th photo down, you can just make out the camo as Andy's color sheet shows.

Geo

 

[JKim]

Thanks Andy... I will definitely use that as a reference for the pattern but I might deviate from those colors and try the 81/grunblau 76 that David E. Brown suggests because it would be a little different than most Dora schemes you see.

 

[Crimea_River]

The only thing, if you care, is that Brown's info is 20 years old. Crandall's is more recent.

 

[JKim]

In preparation for my Dora, I played around with both the hairspray and salt methods of paint chipping. Although there isn't extensive paint chipping on 500570 per the reference photos, there are some spots on the plane where it is obvious and I wanted to have at least a few options for depicting this outside of the traditional silver paint method. I had an old 1/72 Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien model that was partially built that I used as my test mule. Previously, I had tried another method of paint chipping that I had read about that involved thinning the exterior acrylic coat with water instead of isopropyl alcohol. That was an epic failure as the paint refused to be sprayed cleanly out of my brush. I ended up washing that mess off the Tony as much as I could, which was difficult as there were three layers (base gloss black, alclad aluminum and IJA Green).

So I sprayed repsrayed the aircraft in gloss black and Alclad White Aluminum. On one side, I applied salt (a mixture of table and rock salt, ground to taste using the butt end of X-Acto knife handle) on surfaces that were wetted with water. I pushed the salt crystals around with a toothpick in rough patterns around the panel lines and left it to dry. The other side was sprayed with aerosal hair spray decanted into a small cup and sprayed through an airbrush. The plane was then given a coat of IJA Green on the upper surfaces. An old toothbrush was used to scrape the salt off, revealing the metal finish underneath. Scraping the paint-encrusted chips off the model is a destructive process. I think this can be used to one's advantage but the potential for a mishap is also present. I was surprised at how much force it took to get some of the cyrstals off and in my haste, I damaged the finish in places I did not intend to mar.

The salt side was overdone, partly intentional but mostly out of ignorance of how this method works. The pattern itself is pretty realistic looking but I ended up spraying away much of the salt chipping on the wings to be redone later with the hairspray method. The big areas under the canopy and on the wing roots were left as an example of what the salt method looks like.

The other side was chipped sections at a time using a toothpick. Water applied to the green loosens the bond between the silver and green and allows it to be dislodged in small ares. Brushing the water continuously over the green will do the same but in much larger areas so you have to careful. The effect is noticeably different depending on the size/shape of the instrument you use to create the chips. Done carelessly, this can look quite artificial, so you have to be intent on creating random shapes. When dry, the bond between the green and hairspray is surprisingly good and it is very difficult to produce the chipping without adding water.

Although the chipping is obviously heavy-handed (not used to working in 1/72 scale), I liked the results of this test. Enough so that I decided to try and finish this model. Decals were applied. Since the chipping was so heavy, I had to apply silver paint on the decals to help them match the aircraft's finish. The canopy masks were left on during the rigorous scrubbing of the original finish. Parts are lifting off and I'm afraid that the canopy might be discolored underneath from solvent leaking under the masks... we'll have to see.

 

[Crimea_River]

A good experiment John. Looks like you have a solid basis to proceed.

 

[Wurger]

Agreed.

 

[JKim]

It's good to have more techniques "in the bag" in case they are needed. I am thinking about using the hairspray method of not only replicating the paint chipping but using it to expose the numerous reddish primer areas on 500570 as well. It would be definitely be easier to "scratch" out those shapes with a toothpick rather than using a traditional mask-and-paint approach.

 

[Crimea_River]

John, the patches of primer were painted over the camo as repairs. German aircraft used a 1 coat system with no primer underneath.