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Me262/Arado 234 green camouflage colors


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This topic gives me a headache.  Me-262/Arado 234 upper surfaces camouflage: No problem with 'brown violet', RLM 81.  Now, confusion.  Is the complementary color dark green or light green?  Published sources have, depending on the source, identified light green as either RLM 82 or RLM 83 .  Same for dark green.  Contradictory kit painting instructions compound the confusion.  So....was the upper surface camouflage brown violet/light green or brown violet/dark green?  I can't parse whether the published art work depicts light or dark green or how dark is light...and I'm trying to get the colors appropriate without respecting what the manufacturers call them.

 

I need to pick one of the greens to paint my two projects (Me-262, Arado 234) and I feel like I've fallen down a rabbit hole.

 

Thanks!

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Assuming that RLM 82 refers to the bright green and RLM 83 to the darker olive green, the standard late war scheme for the Ar 234 was 81/82. For the Me 262, both 81/82 and 81/83 were used. I don't know which scheme was more common, but Messerschmitt is known to have used the 81/83 scheme on other late war aircraft including the Bf 109 K and the Me 163.

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You can spend hours (days?) reading up on this subject.   First off, I think it's pretty much agreed by most "experts" that there was no RLM 83.  Just 81 and varying shades of 82.

 

Also, regarding the Ar 234, on LSP, this came up a while back and there seemed to be pretty strong evidence that many (all?) of these jets were finished in early war 70/71.   The example in the NASM was said to be finished incorrectly.   

 

Good luck and have fun! 

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7 hours ago, 11bee said:

You can spend hours (days?) reading up on this subject.   First off, I think it's pretty much agreed by most "experts" that there was no RLM 83.  Just 81 and varying shades of 82.

 

Also, regarding the Ar 234, on LSP, this came up a while back and there seemed to be pretty strong evidence that many (all?) of these jets were finished in early war 70/71.   The example in the NASM was said to be finished incorrectly.   

 

Good luck and have fun! 

The current view is that 83 was a dark blue used on Ju 88s in the Mediterranean areas. Apparently a blue one also landed in Switzerland. 
 

I’ve read the same thing about most of the the Ar 234s being 70/71 and that the NASM painted theirs according to late war specs, rather than how it looked when they got it.


There are some fascinating discussions about 81/82/83 with links to more fascinating references over on Britmodeller, if you want to go down that rabbit hole.


Ben

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9 minutes ago, peter havriluk said:

Arado 234: 70/71.  Lucky for me I already have the paint.   So much for the topside.  How about the bottom?  Light blue (hellblau)? 

 

Thanks!

According to the Monogram Publication Close Up #23, the bottom could be either RLM 65 or RLM 76. RLM 65 was used until stocks ran out, then RLM 76 was used.

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