WWII LUFTWAFFE TROPICAL COLORS

Sand and blue over North Africa

When the first German air units arrived in Libya in 1941, they were given a finish derived from the colors of the desert. The upper surfaces were covered by the sand yellow RLM 79, the undersides by the light blue RLM 78, and the irregular blotches were added in the olive RLM 80. There is a catch in this apparently simple regulation, though: the composition of the pigments shifted between 1941 and 1942.

That is exactly why the box holds both year-specific forms of RLM 79 and of RLM 78. The older tone is richer and cooler, the newer one lighter and more toward yellow. The difference shows clearly on a model and separates the machines of the fighting for Tobruk from those that flew over El Alamein. The sixth shade is the dark green RLM 83.

The set covers the Bf 109 F-4 trop, the Ju 87 D, the Bf 110 E, the He 111 and the Ju 88 A from Cyrenaica through Malta to Tunisia and Sicily. It also serves machines that were sprayed into African colors in the field, where the original European pattern showed through the new finish in places.

The six bottles of seventeen milliliters each hold acrylic paint with good coverage. It pays to lay down a light base, because sand tones lose their brightness over dark plastic and the builder then adds coat after coat for nothing.

Dust is an inseparable part of a desert subject. A fine layer of light pigment on the underside of the fuselage, on the landing gear covers and around the exhausts turns a plain spray job into a machine that has just touched down on a sandy airstrip trodden out in the desert. The paints in the box do not get in the way of that step at all; on the contrary, they lead into it, because a matte surface holds dust far better than a smooth gloss film.