Dan-San,
Well well well, fact finally emerges from theory but you immediately discredit it and choose to readily accept the opposite opinion without reference to the informations source.
I knew Dan-San had to be sitting on the combat reports and they provide the information I had expected. Dan-San do you have copies of the untranslated originals? Unfortunately I only have access to two of them, they are for 152/17, for the victory on the 18/3/18 and 425/17 for the 20/4/18. 425/17s simply states Roter Anstrich which google interprets as red paints whereas 152/17s states rotes oberes tragdeck, rote haube, rote laufräder, u.roter schwanz. My understanding of the latter is (any German speakers please translate accurately as mine is most probably atrocious, please see original document below), red upper-covers, red cowling, red wheel covers and red tail , compare this with Dan-San's
(It has it with thr red upper surface of the top wing, red engine hood, struts, wheel covers and empennage.). Richthofen's descriptions for 152/17 and 477/17 seem remarkably similar yet Dan-San assumes they must be incorrect as they do not fit his theory, the problem with this is the reports fit the photographic evidence.
What we can see from these reports is that 152/17, 161/17 were painted in the same style and 477/17 was very similar if not the same. It is quite possible that later in the life of 477/17 it was painted all-red (Dan-San is adamant that there was only one all-red Dr.Is at LeChelle, although evidence shows one with stacking pads on its wings and another without) but if this was the case it was certainly after the directive to change the national markings to the Balken cross and therefore cannot be the all-red aircraft at LeChelle with the old crosses.
Now Dan-San has fully endorsed Peter Kilduff's work and dismisses the translated copies of MvR's combat reports with
"It was these reports that suddenly appeared at the Public Records Office that everyone hung their hat on as being true translations without provendence", Dan-San can you clarify this statement with facts please? If these are not the true translations then please provide them!
I have no idea why but it seems Peter Kilduff decided to use aircraft descriptions that come from the theory Dan-San is promoting over the translated combat reports, I would like to ask Dan-San if this is his theory that 425/17 was painted all-dark-red and 477/17 all blood red because if it is he should be upset that he doesn't gain a mention in the sources for Kilduff's book. In the quotes above provided by Dave Watts we see
"looking like the apparition of red death in his first combat in the all-red Fokker Dr.I 477/17, ..." and after that I think there was the description "blood red". Now for the description of 425/17 on page 201 of his book we see "Richthofen in his all-dark-red Fokker Dr.I, 425/17" now where did he get this from? Contemporary reports on 425/17 state the aircraft was painted "blood red" (as are the samples I have seen) yet here we have it changed to Dan-San's "dark-red" and 477/17s description has been changed from the combat reports to Dan-San's all-red, blood red.
My feeling is that this wonderful book has been tainted by this theory. Kilduff mentions the Richthofen combat reports in his list of scourers, never once proclaiming them as unreliable yet has chosen this unsubstantiated theory over Richthofen's own - albeit translated - description. I submit the two combat reports for the readers consideration, as you can see these are copies of the originals, the translated copies would have been made from this type of document and so a reasonably competent translator should easily have been able to provide an accurate English rendition. Dan-San once again, do you have copies of the original documents to compare with the translated documents and if not how can you pronounce them as unreliable?
At this point I think it's timely that we discuss the aircraft, and why red on one should look different to that on another. For this I consult Allan Toelle's analytical study of the large piece of fabric that includes the port side fuselage cross from 425/17. One of his findings is the poor hiding quality of this vermilion paint. He mentions that this is evident when one considers the bright red colour where paint has been applied over the white cross field in comparison to the darker shade where the paint covers the bleached linen and the very dark shade where the paint has been applied over the under-surface blue.
Another of his findings is that the black particulate found in the paint was soot and Castor oil contamination. He states that the paint has never really dried and even now has a relative softness that at the time probably allowed this contamination to enter the surface. As you know from elsewhere above my theory is that the aircraft had a complete over-coat of paint when its markings were changed to the narrow bordered Iron Cross (which covered the various stencils that are still evident under a thin layer) and it is probable that at this stage the contaminants were mixed into the paint during application. Allan Toelle found this contamination to be progressively heavier, the closer you go to the bottom of the fuselage.
I find the idea that MvR had the red paint on 425/17 deliberately darkened to the point that Dan-San has described it as maroon as being unbelievable. This is a man who deliberately painted his aircraft to stand out. He named his book "the red air fighter" and I'm sure he would not have wanted a dark dirty red or to be known as the maroon air fighter. What we know from contemporary descriptions is that 425/17 was blood red (Toelle believes it is quite possible that the dark has become darker with time).
As noted by Allan Toelle the vermilion paint has poor hiding qualities, we know that 425/17 had its paint applied directly over bleached linen. His other triplanes had their paint applied over normal streaky camouflage, therefore we would expect them to look much darker than 425/17, probably at least as dark as the over-painted under-surfaces of 425/17.
Dan-San I do not think we need to go over the dates of the various aircraft use again, nobody is disputing the fact that 152/17 was MvR's main mount between 12-18th March and 477/17 took over this role until around the 20th April. These facts are undisputed and are known only because they can be found in the combat reports.
Langdon