Announced last year, volume one has finally arrived, with volume two to follow in September. What with the wait & a price increase from £35.00 to £50.00, is it worth it?

                Well, first the statutory Health Warning. Apart from the damage to your wallet, this book is aimed at the Luftwaffe Anorak mit Eichenlaub, Swerten und Brillanten only. Puzzled as to what that means? Don’t waste your money on this book then! If you are looking for a nice scheme for your Bf109 / FW190 / Me262, think Osprey & Kagero. Then, just ask an “expert” for final confirmation of your chosen scheme. Do you already have a good knowledge of Luftwaffe camouflage & markings & want to know more about them? Then this is the book for you.

                The first six chapters deal with the technicalities of paints & their application to Luftwaffe aircraft. You will even learn the inner details of a Luftwaffe Technician’s aircraft painting kit! Details of the paints composition, development, colour trials, suitability for purpose & application to the ever-changing theatres & conditions under which the Luftwaffe operated are all discussed in full.

                Moving on from this, the actual paints & camouflage schemes are discussed in chronological order. Apart from the obvious changes, experimental schemes are also explained. Here, for the first time to me at least, are details of JG54’s role in developing new colours for fighter aircraft. Experiments with the introduction of greys, to cope with the air war over the channel in 1940 are well documented, as are the changes brought about in 1944-45, when Allied air superiority made concealment on the ground more important than in the air. High altitude schemes to combat the B17 raids are documented here as well. Finally, there is a chapter on export colours, before the book is rounded off with a chapter dedicated to interiors & a series of extracts from LDv 521/2. Not a lot of help these, unless you speak German! Loose at the back are three LDv. colour cards. The paint chips on these are generous in size & have been mixed by the original manufacturers from the original formulae. Frustratingly, they only go up to RLM73, but they do include quite a few primer colours, never documented before. RLM74 – 83 will be included in Vol. 2. All this information is backed up by numerous photographs, some old, some new & many in colour.

                I was particularly interested to read of the Do335 colours, documentation of which agrees with my (very amateur) research. Also, brown striped Bf109’s, of which I have a colour photograph, which many have claimed to be the result of primitive colour emulsions altering over time! There are more, but I will not spoil your fun!

                Missing from this book are comprehensive diagrams of the painting patterns used on fighters throughout the Luftwaffe’s history. OK, there are a few, including a very interesting one for the Ta152, but you will need more to really paint your model correctly. This is why I said at the beginning, this is a book for the historian rather than the modeller. You will need some basic knowledge of your subject as well.

                Considering that it has been thirty years since Merrick et al surprised the world with their works on the subject via Kookaburra & Monogram Publications, this book shows just how much more information has become available to the serious researcher who is prepared to ignore conventional thinking & study the subject from a fresh viewpoint. The previous works still stand in my opinion as some of the best on the subject, but compared with the RAF & USAAF, this is such a complex field, no one set of books can do it justice.

                Volume 2 will cover Code systems & markings, Night fighters, Ground attack, Reconnaissance, Bombers & Maritime aircraft. I for one can’t wait! There are some surprising hints of what is to come. Fancy a BV222 in an overall “sky” paint finish? Well, there was one!

                Finally, be warned – If you ask me a question now, you might be in for a very long & complex answer! I can honestly recommend this book, but please bear in mind the caveat in para. 2!

Editor's Note: no photo accompanied this article so there is nothing wrong with your computer!

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