Albatros camo

[Terry_Crisp]

I,m trying to interpret photos of Albatros camo patterns. Am I correct in my belief that the Dark green would read darkest, the chestnut brown the middle gray and the light green the palest? I'm pretty sure that the Green would read darker than the mauve because green reflects fewer wavelengths.
Additionally, were there standard patterns a la Spad or was it left to the man with the paint? Were they sprayed on or brushed?
Thanks in advance,
Terry

[Rick]

Terry I wouldn't even attempt to tread on Dan's turf, but I can, more-or-less, address the Spad question. There were a series of articles in the old C&C(US) a L-O-N-G time ago (and I'm to lazy to look them up) entitled. "Project Butterfly". In those the authors discussed the myriad designs of camoflauge produced by EACH maufactorer (a word I could never spell, and obviously still can't). If I recall correctly, each builder had their own pattern, which is how you can tell which
firm built a particular Spad. Forum: Am I remembering all this correctly?? Rick

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Terry Crisp:
That is correct Terry. I have the RFC report on Ltn Georg Simon's Alb D.III 2015/16. It gives the colors on a drawing and from that I was able to determine from the photographs which grey was which color. Darkest grey= dark olive green, middle grey= rust or venetian red, and the very light grey is pale whiteish brunswick green. This color is very light, compare it to the white border on the cross. Some illustrations have it much too dark. Hope this helps.
Blue skies,
Dan-San Abbott

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Gentlemen:
I had an E-mail today regarding the Albatros 3 color camouflage scheme. I am going to add some relative data to this thread.
1.All Albatros built Alb.D.II and Alb.D.III machines were camouflaged in a 3 color upper scheme of dark olive green, pale whitish green and venetian red (rust) from: Alb.D.II 472-521/16 and on thru D,1799/16.
Alb.D.III 1910-2309/16,
Alb. D.III 600-649/17,(ordered in Feb.1917) and Alb. D.III 750-799/17(ordered in March 1917) were camouflaged in dark olive green and pale whitish green on the upper surfaces.
The directive from Idflieg was sent out to the aircraft manufacturers in April 1917which eliminated the red, or red brown from the camouflage schemes and substituted lilac.
Lilac and mauve are NOT purple, they are pale pink tinged with greyish blue.they are PINK!
Lilac or mauve did not appear until the Alb.D.V production order D,1000 - 1199/17 which was ordered April 1917.
Almost all german aicraft manufactures employed a three color camouflage scheme of dark and light green and reddish brown. These included Albatros, Aviatik, DFW, OAW, LVG, BFW, Linke-Hoffmann and Rumpler. Those that used two color shemes of dark green and brown were: AEG, Fokker, LFG Roland and AGO to name a few.
Lilac and mauve did not appear in camouflage until June 1917 or later depending on the date of the Idflieg order. I have been able to identify all Albatros scheme from Alb. C.III thru the Alb. J.I and including the license built machine by OAW, BFW, LVG, LFG Rol., and Linke-Hoffmann. Also all the DFW C.V schemes, Aviatik, LVG and DFW. All the Rumpler schemes. All of these by S/N.
blue skies,
Dan-San Abbott