ATOM Luftwaffe WWII Early Colors

The early shades of the Luftwaffe

Before German machines broke up into a varied mixture of late tones at the end of the war, there was order on their upper surfaces. A pair of dark greens formed a splinter pattern on the wings and fuselages of bombers and of the first fighters, the undersides carried a light blue, and the interiors and parts of the airframe a gray shade that the factories used across the board. That is exactly the combination this set of four covers.

Inside there is a gray for interiors and transition areas, a light blue for the undersides, a dark black-green and a second dark green, which together create the typical splinter pattern with sharp edges on the upper surfaces. With this palette you can complete the camouflage of machines from the period of the Spanish involvement through the Battle of Britain and the first year of the campaign in the east.

The paints belong to the water-thinnable acrylic range, so a brush and an airbrush both handle them. For the upper surfaces a template or a compound for shaping edges is useful, because the early patterns called for a boundary with no overspray. The blue on the underside, by contrast, should be let onto the sides softly, the way the factory painters carried it over.

So which subject should you reach for? The set of four suits the twin-engine bombers of the early fighting, the dive bombers and the first production single-engine fighters, that is, the period when a single factory specification still applied and the ground crews did not rework the finish to their own taste.

Anyone building later-production machines usually also needs a lighter gray-blue tone, and that one is not inside. The set is put together as a closed basis for one particular period, not as a palette covering the whole war, and that is precisely why it is quick to work with and leaves no hesitation over the choice.