RLM 81

[George]

I have seen three versions of this color for WW2 Luftwaffe aircraft.  There doesn't appear to be a consensus on what this color was and perhaps all three colors were used.  What are your thoughts?  Cheers.

[Radub]

It seems that RLM 81 was a kind of “olive green” that appeared “brown” when placed near a lighter green (RLM 82) or “green” when placed near a grey (RLM 75). I recall seeing this effect two decades ago when I used the Xtracolor RLM 81 enamel for the first time. When I opened the tin for the first time I thought “they put Olive Drab in this tin”, but when the paint was applied to the model and combined with other colours it changed dramatically. 
When the paint was used during the war there were variations due to mixing, application and exposure. 
In my personal opinion the “red brown” RLM 81 is fantasy. 
Radu

[George]

Thanks Gents!

[pvanroy]

As far as I'm aware, latest research indicates that three differently colored formulations of 81 were intentionally developed. This is what Góralczyk et al. (2019) have to say about the matter (emphasis added):

 

"To summarise: RLM 81 and 82 were officially introduced in the second half of 1944 and came into use in about September 1944. The development of these new colours was obviously well-prepared and apparently already finished in 1943: there was a pre-announcement in August 1943 and at least one recipe each of RLM 81 and 82 dated back to 1943.

As already mentioned, there are three different recipes for RLM 81. They are marked as “7121.81”, “7121.81 A 2” and “7121 A.3.81”. 7121 is the aircraft lacquer for a single coating based on a phenol-alkyd resin, originally developed by the paint manufacturer Warnecke & Böhm. The last-mentioned recipe “7121 A.3.81” is number 100 in the total list, which ends with number 101, and is apparently from late 1944. The letter “A” in the names of the recipes, in all likelihood, stands for “Ausführung” - a frequently used German abbreviation for version or release.

 

The three recipes of RLM 81 lead to different colours. This is not only shown by the recreation of the colours but becomes clearer in an analysis of the recipes: Whereas some pigments show up in every version of the colours (e.g. Zinc chromate), only the first and the last versions contain a red pigment and show different forms of khaki. Version 2 is a green colour. Apart from that, the quantities of the pigments in each version changed, and it is evident that three different versions of RLM 81 were indeed intended."

 

Hope this helps.

 

Reference

 

Góralczyk, M., Högl, G.T. & Kiroff, J. 2019. German Aircraft Colours in the Second World War. In: Real Colours of WW II Aircraft (eds Gorálczyk, M., Högl, G.T., Kiroff, J., Millman N. & Orlov, M.V.), p. 6-113. AK Interactive.

[Antonio Argudo]

Radu: In my personal opinion the “red brown” RLM 81 is fantasy. 
 

I own evidence  that there was some "red brown" late war color version, no idea if it is a 81 variant or what, but it belongs to a Fw190F8 stabilizer fairing it also has white winter camo paint remains,  coincidentally in the Monogram book they talk about this brown color found in the restoration of the NASM fw190F8  and there is a chip of that brown  paint  on the airframe which matches my relic, cheers

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 23, 2021 by Antonio Argudo

[Antonio Argudo]

fixed

Edited May 23, 2021 by Antonio Argudo

[Radub]

7 hours ago, Antonio Argudo said:

Radu: In my personal opinion the “red brown” RLM 81 is fantasy. 
 

I own evidence  that there was some "red brown" late war color version, no idea if it is a 81 variant or what, but it belongs to a Fw190F8 stabilizer fairing it also has white winter camo paint remains,  coincidentally in the Monogram book they talk about this brown color found in the restoration of the NASM fw190F8  and there is a chip of that brown  paint  on the airframe which matches my relic, cheers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The question is: "is this RLM 81?". The Monogram book does not assign it a code. I recently read the curatorial files for the restoration of the NASM FW 190 and they contain a a number of written exchanges between Robert Mikesh of NASM and Tom Hitchcok of  Monogram Publications discussing the colours discovered on the aircraft during the restoration. The gist of the correspondence is that among the colours discovered during the "rub down" (they sanded the aircraft gently layer by layer) there were some "unusual" colours. For example, it appears that the initial topside colour of this particular aircraft was a "sand colour" and then it went through a number of repaints. At some stage it was even painted a camouflae pattern of RLM 70 (yes, Schwartzgruen!) and RLM 74. NASM issued a book about their FW 190 and there is more info in that. I would not call this brown colour a "standard" or "regular" colour. 

Radu 

[John Stambaugh]

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