Mauve and green camouflage used in WWII?

[Romani]

Being accustomed to the idea of using green and mauve in the First World War, it seemed reasonable to me that the same scheme was used in the Second World War. Like in this boxtop picture



But I have been told that this mauve or rather violet color is a misrepresentation, the color was taken from existing machines in museums, but it is said the original pigment was actually brown, but changed into a purplish shade over time.

So, who knows?

[Hans]

The color "RLM 75" was called Grauviolett (Gray Violet). It's a grey shade with a bluish hue. The usual accompaning RLM 74 was called Graugrün (Gray Green) which in fact is a grey with a little green hue. But if viewed in daylight on a complete airframe both appears dark grey (74) and middle grey (75), both with a little tendency to blue.

The complete receipts and the pigments listings are known. Color charts which are exakt replicas of the original ones are available. And even the paints are still available (www.rlm-farben.de).

[Romani]

Originally Posted by Hans

The color "RLM 75" was called Grauviolett (Gray Violet). It's a grey shade with a bluish hue.

Danke schön! You are a very knowledgeable forumite and that was a very helpful answer!

So I understand artwork such as this and others that show a violet or purple shade to be a misunderstanding on the part of the artist of the meaning of Gray Violet? Kinda like the Soviet Brown Violet hasn't any violet in it. There are a lot of model pictures out there that sport the wrong color.

[Hans]

Romani, in 2000' years something like a "fashion" devoloped how to represent the both colors 74 and 75. I think this started in Japan with some box top paintings as you show us a sample. They took "gray.green" and "gray.violet" simply tooo literally. There are other samples too, where these two shades of gray where shown like that.