Author Topic: Silver doped Junker JU 88.  (Read 2009 times)

Offline lyric1

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Silver doped Junker JU 88.
« on: August 15, 2015, 04:07:23 PM »
Digging about for more information on silver doped JU 88's. Found these same two images of the same plane. Anyone who knows some more about this rare Luftwaffe practice I would appreciate it. Also have a silver doped Dornier photo I found on EBay don't know anymore about it either. At least it seems the Germans did paint some of the aircraft like this.






Offline Krusty

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Re: Silver doped Junker JU 88.
« Reply #1 on: August 15, 2015, 07:18:55 PM »
Those are two HEAVILY color shifted pictures, and the first looks artificially colorized. The second is the same picture, but looks much more like a unicolor paint scheme, similar to that found on Spanish airframes early on and pre-war.


Either the plane is a factory test bed prototype or more likely it's a light blue or light grey paint scheme for some kind of testing/use. It's not for high alt recce, since it has the standard engines and cockpit.


As for the Dornier, it's most likely just a polished monocolor as well. It doesn't look like it's silver. I would say it most likely is akin to this:



It is just an airframe that is clean. Since it appears to be on an asphalt tarmac literally in the shade of a hangar, I would hazard a guess it's still at the factory, and NOT in active combat service.



EDIT: Correction, I think the Dornier is a NJG paint scheme. I just thought of that after posting and after a brief check there are a number of paint schemes that look exactly like that, but they're unicolor light grey, not silver. They're all for night fighter service, though. Maybe this was an early attempt at that?
« Last Edit: August 15, 2015, 07:23:01 PM by Krusty »

Offline Krusty

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Re: Silver doped Junker JU 88.
« Reply #2 on: August 15, 2015, 07:25:48 PM »
Just to pique your interest... i find this one far more interesting...

Looks to be at the fuel truck, but NO markings other than a solid grey paint scheme, which looks to be freshly applied. The interesting part is they went through extra effort to paint the spinner, prop blades, and even the intake fan blades inside the cowling!


Offline lyric1

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Re: Silver doped Junker JU 88.
« Reply #3 on: August 15, 2015, 08:05:05 PM »
.
Those are two HEAVILY color shifted pictures, and the first looks artificially colorized. The second is the same picture, but looks much more like a unicolor paint scheme, similar to that found on Spanish airframes early on and pre-war.


Either the plane is a factory test bed prototype or more likely it's a light blue or light grey paint scheme for some kind of testing/use. It's not for high alt recce, since it has the standard engines and cockpit.






This JU 88 picture came out of this book in the link below it seems to be a legit colour photo of its day there are a few other colour photos of JU-88's in it.



http://www.amazon.co.uk/Junkers-Ju-88-Crowood-Aviation/dp/1861264313

The other I found on a the Wiki link below. The squadron is a WWII not a Spanish era aircraft & is a reconnaissance squadron plane. The squadron patch would exclude it from being a test bed aircraft as well I think.


http://www.wiki.luftwaffedata.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Aufkl.Gr.%28F%29123_Unit_Emblems

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de%2FGliederungen%2FAufklarer-Geschwader%2Fgr123.htm&edit-text=

 http://www.asisbiz.com/Luftwaffe/aufkl123.html
« Last Edit: August 15, 2015, 08:16:34 PM by lyric1 »

Offline Krusty

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Re: Silver doped Junker JU 88.
« Reply #4 on: August 15, 2015, 10:27:15 PM »
Squadron badge alone doesn't indicate how it was ultimately used. For example: Squadron hacks and war-weary airframes that were used for fun or utility often had very few painting resrtictions/guidelines.

Although, if you want to pursue that as a line of reasoning, I must ask: what unit does that emblem indicate? It's none of the geschwader emblems that I know of. I did a decent (though, admittedly not exhaustive) search online and could only find very low resolution sheet of thumbnails that includes it. So low resolution that I cannot make out the scaled-down caption underneath. It appears the bird is holding a telescoping eyepiece, and several of the units immediately around it appear to have something to do with the same kind of item.

I would tentatively guess some kind of recon or spotting unit, maybe? But, without better info to track down the unit, I can't look up what their basic mission profile was or search for their history specifically.


EDIT: ooh, sorry! I didn't follow the link right away. I see you found a caption for the unit! "2(F)./123"

Offline Krusty

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Re: Silver doped Junker JU 88.
« Reply #5 on: August 15, 2015, 10:40:50 PM »
Sorry I was jumping around there in my comments. I'm a bit tired as I look into it and it really is interesting to me, but I stumbled about in my reply. Having looked into it a little more I'll conclude that it wasn't silver.

According to:

http://www.ww2.dk/oob/bestand/aufkl/b2ag123.html

They have few airframes on hand of any given type. They do not appear to be a full geschwader. They have a mixed bag of airframes.

Looking at a very close up picture of one of their 110 recon craft:



... only reinforces the idea that this was a unicolor paintscheme and not metallic.

Offline lyric1

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Re: Silver doped Junker JU 88.
« Reply #6 on: August 17, 2015, 03:11:09 PM »
Another photo of this same squadron & possibly the very same aircraft I am leaning to this being a one off painted plane based off all the other pictures I have seen of this squadron so far.





http://falkeeins.blogspot.com/2013/02/junkers-ju-88-fernaufklarungsgruppe.html

Offline alpini13

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Re: Silver doped Junker JU 88.
« Reply #7 on: August 18, 2015, 09:04:27 AM »
ISNT THE ALL GREY JUNKER, A 188?  I DONT REMEMBER JU-88 HAVE A TURRET ON THE REAR AS THE ALL GREY ONE HAS, AND THE NOSE IS DIFFERENT THAN MOST JU-88'S

Offline FTJR

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Re: Silver doped Junker JU 88.
« Reply #8 on: August 18, 2015, 10:46:18 AM »
Alpini, if you're refering to Krusty's picture, I believe that is a Do 217, which is he is using as an example of the grey scheme.
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Offline lyric1

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Re: Silver doped Junker JU 88.
« Reply #9 on: August 19, 2015, 08:40:59 AM »
:headscratch: Figured it out.

I found a third colour version of this aircraft.



It clearly has two colours a grey upper surface that is really visible on the right part of the upper engine cowling & a blue under surface. The blue under the cockpit area of the fuselage I think is the sun reflecting the blue surface off of the engine nacelle to give that part of the aircraft that blue appearance possibly?

When you change it to black & white the demarcation line is really visible where the two colour photos I posted at first don't show it that well.



I also know what aircraft it is now also.

« Last Edit: August 19, 2015, 09:06:46 AM by lyric1 »

Offline Krusty

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Re: Silver doped Junker JU 88.
« Reply #10 on: August 19, 2015, 09:11:54 AM »
The color shifting on the color photos makes this almost impossible to see. The quality is really very poor in terms of determining anything. It's so out of whack no one part of it is reliable or valid.

I would say the B&W photo is much better. I don't think it is blue really. I think it is a light grey. There are numerous "tints" of grey, and the LW tended to us two basic varieties: Those that leaned towards the red tint, and those that leaned towards the blue tint. RLM02, for example, tends to be red tinted. This is my own description for it, and subject to your own understanding, but I hope you get what I mean. RLM63 would be more of a blue tinted grey.

I would suggest that if there's a demarcation at all, it probably has the same upper color as the Do-217 and the Bf110 in previous pictures. That was more of a neutral grey, only slightly on the blue tint side of things. I think the color photo is not reliable and shouldn't be used as a color reference. Instead, look at all the other references from the same unit and that's what you can rely on.