Frakking forum ate a post I was typing for 30 minutes...
EDIT: Let's try again...
If I'm brief it's because I don't want to retype EVERYTHING I just did, so if I'm unclear please let me know.
Sorry, no book on my end. I found that with a mere 2 minutes searching online the other day. What luck!
Hyperscale decal review:
http://www.hyperscale.com/2008/reviews/decals/iliad48017reviewse_1.htmHe doesn't say whether the photos come with the decals (would be worth it, if they did!) or if he pulled his own resources for the sake of review/comparison.
However, I don't think the color issue is as bad as you think. You can clearly tell there are color demarcations at work. You can then limit the color options to exsting RLM colors and LW precedents.
I disagree that there could be multiple configurations based on long-term overpainting. The 109F-2 was a short-term production model with limited service time. The 109F-4 replaced it very quickly. It would not have been around long enough to acquire long-term overpainting history, like end-of-war 190s (for example).
Instead, I think that like the multi-color MTO 109F/Gs, and like the early JG54 190As, the color scheme was mostly intentional and applied (or overpainted) at one period in time. The squiggles may or may not have come later, I'm not sure.
I think you can use it for a lot, just cannot use it for a color sample. Looking at the photo you can see something green, and something brownish/purplish tinted. I think the green is definitely a green. I think it would be a heavy over-painting of the other colors, as found on a number of MTO 190s and 109s.
As for the other color, I'm going to take another track. I am going to propose it is not brown, nor is it pruplish. I'm going to suggest it was a dark gray. I'm going to say the reddish tint doesn't look right, and rather resembles color bleedout, as if the photo aged and the red pigment came through, giving it a tint/shade that was not originally there, or that the early color photography light-sensitive film crystals were poorly made (common at the time, color photos were a new thing).
Now, bear with me! I had 2 trains of thought as to the underlying color...
A number of LW planes that flew over the wavetops had a grayish color. The Ar196, for example, used some gray shades for better over-water camouflague. Semi-recently I was doing a lot of research regarding the colors on the Ar196 (gray vs green debate). After probably a couple of months of looking and reading online debates (there is no debate green was used, the debate was whether the grays were all wrongly-identified greens!) I came to the conclusion, with the aid of a decent color WW2 photo, that grays were used.
So JG52 came to the same conclusion and found similar paints to blend in with the water, then over-painted that with green all over the upper surfaces.
ORJG52 is using the standard 109F gray/gray uppers camo... Or some variation thereof. The dark gray found on the upper surfaces of 109Fs also has an inherrent purplish tint. Over time this could bleed out a bit brownish or redish on poor quality film. The green is oversprayed so excessively (leaving gaps and shades, mind you) that the gray/gray demarcations go away, leaving only mostly gray/green patterns. JG54 had a similar white distemper paint scheme, albeit with white instead of green. The so-called "cow" pattern (IMO wrongly so, it was not black spots, it was the 2-tone gray camo underneath showing through). Here we have a dark color that helps blend in with the water, but the green breaks it up like the waves might look from a distance. The white squiggles came afterwards (wild guess on my part!) after they looked at it and said "it needs a little something more."
It could be either pattern. I'm going to suggest perhaps the second option is more likely, just for debate's sake. The problem with this is the low camo line on the fuselage sides. Not without precedent (see JG54 green camo lines, see later desert 109s with green sprayed all down the sides), but definitely requiring thought as to how the gray/gray pattern would extend underneath the green over-painting.
Here's a picture of a model just as example of what I mean when I say the 109F-2 in question has green overpainting:
http://hsfeatures.com/features04/images/Bf109G2_ICR5.jpgA model just as an example of the gray used on Ar196s:
http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL1312/4776356/9915355/227487738.jpgThe forum with a debate on the colors here:
http://airfixtributeforum.myfastforum.org/ftopic9455-0-asc-20.phpHow I chose to do my Ar196 after some careful thought:
http://www.nakatomitower.com/models/airfix196/ar196_painted_unmasked1a.jpgI cannot find the color photo online, but have saved it on my other computer.
This is probably a little disjointed, sorry. I was trying to re-create my thoughts on the matter and I KNOW I left out a chunk in the middle because I couldn't remember how I had typed it up.
[EDIT 2:] Forgive my terms when I say "gray/gray" etc... Working here, and can't look up RLM numbers or anything.
It all may very well be a winerot type of shade, or perhaps a violetbrun or some combination of brownish color, but I present the above ideas in the spirit of "getting it right" and trust the end result will be well informed, regardless of how it is done.