War in the Desert - African campaign GB - 12/9/07 to 5/13/08

DesertRat wrote:

darson wrote: I'm not sure I'm following Roger, are you talking about the demarcation line between upper and lower camo?  If you are doing a Bf109E-4/7 Trop with the blotchy green RLM 78/79/80 camo, check out this pic, it gives a good (color) shot of the scheme and demarcation line. http://www.ww2incolor.com/gallery/german-luftwaffe/abg Cheers Well not really like that. I haven't even attempted the mottle yet. But i did have something a little different in mind- If you remember maybe a month or two back, Eric (Manstein) posted a 109 in the desert beige. I thought it looked really good, myself. But in the pages of references he posted (and a little more research online) i had seen similiar aircraft where the demarkation line is about mid fuselage. Kinda made me think of the navy 3 tone scheme, but with different colors. Basically, i'm trying to decide if i'm going to do this: or this:

It does.  If you do the paint scheme you'd like on an E-4/7, it would basically be a what-if scheme. 

Or at least I'm pretty sure it would be.  I can't recall ever seeing the straight Sand/Light Blue scheme on an E-4/7.

In Osprey's book BF109 Aces of North Africa and the Mediterranean there is only one colour plate of an Emil in tan scheme.  It states only a few of the E-series were finished this way except for the Jabos of SKG 210.

Bf 109 E-7/Trop. of Oblt.Ludwig Franzisket, Gruppen-Adjutant I./JG27, Libya 1941.

 Jack

Here are a few more solid desert schemes, for Bf109E-4 Trop, two Bf109E4/B and one Bf109E7/B.  These profiles are from "Messerschmitt Me 109 Volume 1 From 1936 to 1943" by Anis Elbied and Andre Jouineau, from Histoire & Collections

Roger, I don't believe there we any Bf-109E-3's deployed in Africa.  There were a handful of Bf-109E-4's used that were transferred from the Russian front & served for a very short time with JG-27.  Some of these were repainted in the RLM 79 upper surfaces with the white fuselage band but the lower surfaces were left in RLM 65 or 76 & not repainted in RLM 78 .  None that I know of were painted with the high demarcation line.  Many were not repainted at all or had some non-standard camo applied.  Here's one such that I did a few years back...

Most of the E's used were Bf-109E-7 Trop's & many of these were painted in the Africa standard scheme of RLM 79/78.  Some had the high demarcation line, but all also had the RLM 80 large green mottle.

Regards,  Rick

arki30 wrote:

I can't recall ever seeing the straight Sand/Light Blue scheme on an E-4/7.

I was with you all the way Arki, I hadn't ever seen an E-7 in that scheme either.  It just goes sho never say never when it comes to my supposed knowledge of WWII.

Btw, Rick that's a cool looking scheme for the E-7, I might have to do one of those one day.

Cheers

Thanks, guys! I do appreciate the insight! Seems the more i learn, the less i know. At this rate, pretty soon i wont know nothing. I really do need to get some better research materials....

   At least i have a few more things to consider here. But it looks like i'll be abandoning the higher demarkation line, it seems. And with 3 decal options to go with, i'm gonna go with (what looks like to me) one with the JG-27 markings. Not familiar at all with German aircraft, so pardon my ignorance, guys! Thanks!

Of course, there were Es in Africa (as we can see on pictures) I misunderstood becouse of the pictures of Fs when you vere discussing build of E....

P.S.Here is that E-7 from Africa posted earlier by rjkplasticmod...

My bad on that. I was using those as examples for the paint. Not necessarily the actual aircraft model. Sorry about that

dupes wrote:

Wow, please tell me someone is going to try that funky paint scheme!

I hear you there Hermes! Going to try to bang out my Panzer Aces build...then it's feet first into the Desert!

Sooooo many badges...muuuahahahahah!

Hermesminiatures wrote:

It's almost December - less than ten days to go!

I am reviewing my decals .... and looking at the sprue to set up base paint job

BTW: I just received a book written by one of the pilots Bohdan Arct "Slaski Circus" on CDs. It wil be a nice background "modelling music"  

just few more days ...

Just a few more days of waiting...

Hoooo boy, looks like Sunday is going to be a busy modeling day pertaining to Afrika all over the planet... I know I personally plan on banging out a LARGE portion of my Sd.Kfz.222 throughout the day starting right after midnight.

Hmmm...what time zone are we using for the official start? Greenwich mean? Which would give me FIVE extra hours of building on Saturday night? I'd hate to think guys like Luftwoller have an unfair advantage just because they live in "jolly old England"...

But the deadline comes faster for them, too

You can start 12 am your time.

Well Saturday is looking good to make a start on the Panzer III then .

I don't know if I mentioned this already but I am going to try and scratch a stowage frame on the rear of the engine deck and add lots of jerry cans to give it that real desert flavour.

Cheers

dupes wrote:

Wow, please tell me someone is going to try that funky paint scheme!

Check out some of Manstein's Revenge's work in the airplane forum, I'd be surprised if he hadn't done this one.  

Sunday is going to be a busy day on the Espin work bench! 

While some of you guys furthur east around the other side of the world have probably started already, the kickoff for most of us US builders is in just a few hours

I probably won't be back on until tomorrow evening, and I want to see some progress when I get back! Happy building everyone!

And so it begins....

But not for me yet.  I gotta get the Flanker finished first!  Gah, no time!

I finished another build just in time so the bench has some space.  Hope to get in some bench time today, unless SWMBO comes up with more Holiday related Honey Do's. .

Regards,  Rick

rjkplasticmod wrote:

Hope to get in some bench time today, unless SWMBO comes up with more Holiday related Honey Do's. .

Boy I hear that, between office parties, friends Christmas get togethers as well as preparing our house for the family onslaught on Christmas day there is not a huge amount of free time available at the moment.

However, I did manage to sneak in a couple of hours of bench time last night and finished the lower hull of my 1/48 Pz.III.  As usual with these Tamiya kits the fit of everything is excellent and the link 'n' length tracks look great with their inbuild sag.

Cheers