Quick Reference for German Cross markings?

[HMS Hajj]

Does anyone know of a quick reference out there for the crosses that were used to mark German planes. I know at some point they switched between the iron cross and the maltese cross. Where there any time periods where the crosses were different sizes or any thing as well?

The reason I am asking is that I'm looking at having a decal sheet made up for general German markings for WWI aircraft in 1/144 scale.

Thank you for any help,

Keith

[SCMc]

Hi Keith,

Eric Goedkoop wrote this "National Markings" article in 2005. It covers the official policies for markings by nation. It is not always accurate in practice, because of exceptions, such as Roland's iron crosses and Fokker's continued use of white fields, but it is a good starting point. The german markings start here.

Steve

[Laserlloyd]

I copied Eric article and refer back to it all the time to get my dates correct. The one thing I need to do is to add the Idflieg order number for each change. I know Dan-San as giving some of them in some older threads so I have to go back to them and update my copy.

Lloyd...

[HMS Hajj]

Thanks guys!

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Hi HMS Hajj:
In August 1914, shortly after the war started Idflieg specified crosses to be painted on both side of the wings, and rudder. The cross was to painted on a white square field. A short time later, Idflieg added crosses were also to be painted on both sides of the fuselage. There was no standard for,m. The units in the field as well as the manufacturers, had there own intrepretation of the Idflieg order. In 1916, Idflieg decided they would establish a standard Iron Cross that would be the uniform throughout the Fliegertruppe.

Standardize Iron Cross form.
Idflieg, Sekt.IIIa. B.No.44952 Kr.15, 25 Juli 1916.
H=1.0, B.=0.4H, R.=1.3H
H=1.0 500 600 700 1000 1200 1400
B=0.4H 200 240 280 400 480 560
R=1.3H 650 780 910 1300 1560 1820 To be painted on flat white square fields with matt black lacquer.

Standardize Iron Cross form with a 5cm wide white border.
Kommando der Prüfanstalt und werft der Fliegertruppen Abt.B.
Briefbuch Nr.310301. Charlottenburg, den 29 Oktober 1916.
Paint over the white cross fields on existing aircraft, and on new aircraft, standard black cross in matt black lacquer and 5 cm border in flat white paint.

Change from the Iron Cross to the balken (beam) cross to improve recognition
Idflieg, Kogenluft 41390 17 Marz 1918. The dimension of the balken cross was not specified result in very strange cross forms in the field and the white board was about 5cm wide.

IDflieg, 4077 /3.18. Flz. ZAK.2. 20 Marz 1918. Specifies the white board to be 15cm wide. The cross to be on the outer ends of the upper and lower wing
both side of the body. The fin and rudder are to be painted white with the balken cross painted on both sides. The dimension of the crosses are not specified.

Questions arose about the sizes of the crosses. On 10 April 1918 the sizes of the crosses were finally specified with 150 mm white borders, they were;
Fin/rudder fuselage wings.
A= length of the arm (H) 400 600 1000
B= width of the arm 100 150 250
As can be seen the the length to width of the cross arm was 4:1.

Cross form change from balken cross to Latin cross.
Kogenluft.
Nr.43132, Fl.III Gr.H.Qu. den 13.5.18.
The cross form ratio was change to: black vertical arm to black .horizontal arm; 5:4.
Width of the black vertical cross arm ratio 1:8
Width of the white border ratio to the black vertical arm; 1:4.
The white border shall not close the ends of the cross arms.
The black vertical arm shall be from leading edge to trailing edge on the wings.
the black vertical arm on the fuselage shall be from the upper longeron to the bottom longeron.
The fin and rudder shall be painted white with a black 5:4 cross.

Final cross form with a ratio of the vertical to the horizontal arms shall be 1:1.
Kogenluft, 43650 Fl.III 4.6.18.
The cross ratio of 5.4. of Nr.43132, Fl.III is superceded with 43650 Fl,III of 4 .6.18. The ratio of the length of the horizontal cross arm to the vertical arm shall be 1 : 1. All other ratios shall remain the same as Nr.43132.

There is the whole history relative to the German cross.
Merry Christmas,
Dan-San