Marineflieger-Albatros from MFJ 1

[Olham 164]

Bullethead has made a beautiful DFW in three colour hex camo, and we exchanged many posts about

such Naval colour camouflage on German crates.

Since I'm flying with MFJ 1 (Marineflieger-Jagdstaffel = Navy fighter squadron), I thought of doing a skin

for my craft in that design. Now, it seems almost impossible to find out, which colours they used, as this

early "Lozenge" pattern was not printed fabric, but hand painted on the surfaces.

 

But I found a colour chart showing three Naval colours (Bullethead had found the same one), and worked

from there. I changed mine with more brightness, since you see the craft from a distance of some meters,

and most colours appear brighter, the further you are away.

 

Out came this design. I still have to improve a lot; so the tail camo pattern seemed to get enlarged on the

model, which means for me, to find out, how much smaller I must make it to get it right.

And always tricky: the connection of fuselage sides to top/back pattern.

 

I want to thank Bullethead for his inspiration and information on all this - hope, you like it, Bullet.

[JimAttrill 24]

And I never knew that the Imperial Navy flew heavier-than-air craft. Did they have seaplanes as well for coastal patrols?

[Olham 164]

MFJ 1, 2 and 3, and the Seefrosta Staffeln where land based fighter squads,

in Aertryke and Mariakerke, near the north sea.

We have them in BHaH, and I fly with MFJ 1.

[Hauksbee 103]

As always, Olham, a beauty. It's a pity the Imperial Air Service couldn't have put you in charge of all camo schemes.

 

And I never knew that the Imperial Navy flew heavier-than-air craft. Did they have seaplanes as well for coastal patrols?

Edited August 28, 2009 by Hauksbee

[Bullethead 12]

Since I'm flying with MFJ 1 (Marineflieger-Jagdstaffel = Navy fighter squadron), I thought of doing a skin for my craft in that design.

 

That's beautiful! I really like the overall effect .

 

Now, it seems almost impossible to find out, which colours they used, as this early "Lozenge" pattern was not printed fabric, but hand painted on the surfaces.

 

Especially with the hand-painted patterns, I really doubt there was any such thing as a standardized color. I'm sure each airplane factory mixed its paints differently, and God only knows what units in the field did. I'd be willing to bet that all naval airplanes were different colors and shades at least until the pre-printed pattern came out in 1918, and I'd assume there were manufacturing variations in that, too.

 

And always tricky: the connection of fuselage sides to top/back pattern.

 

Yup, that's going to be a bitch. Good luck with it.

[Olham 164]

Hauksbee - please post some more pics of your Hansa-Brandenburg in a new post:

someone round here recently asked for that craft.

 

Oh, and: thanks.

[stumpjumper 3]

oldham woudl you like to have a go at my w4 alby ai ?

[Bullethead 12]

And I never knew that the Imperial Navy flew heavier-than-air craft. Did they have seaplanes as well for coastal patrols?

 

Yeah, they had all kinds of airplanes. By the latter part of 1917, Marinekorps Flandern had several squadrons each of land fighters and bombers, plus several seaplane squadrons of both fighters and bombers. And they were kept very busy. The Brits bombed Zeebrugge and Oostende nearly every day and night, so there were nearly continuous air battles over them. Plus the German planes flew across and bombed the nearer places in England many times, and of course there were many attacks by planes on both sides on shipping in the Channel and lower North Sea.

 

The German naval pilots had some pretty high-tech stuff, too. They were so good at real-time arty spotting against moving targets that they gave the German shore batteries a much longer effective range than the RN's monitors. The Brits of course tried to counter this by sweeping the German spotters away and putting their own over Zeebrugge, which is one reason for all air battles. But the Germans seem to have usually had the better of this and thus kept the monitors too far away most times for them to do any real good.

 

The coolest thing, however, was that the Germans invented a radio-controlled explosive motorboat. This was steered by an airplane and actually succeeded in hitting one of the monitors. Amazing.

 

Marinekorps Flandern itself was an amazing organization. Besides airplanes, it included 2 divisions of naval infantry in the trenches, plus naval construction units to build all the shore batteries and port installations, plus the naval base crewmen, the shore battery gunners, and varying numbers of naval vessels from large torpedoboats/destroyers and submarines down to minesweeping launches.

 

I recommend reading Wielding the Dagger: The Marinekorps Flandern and the German War Effort, 1914-1918, by Mark D. Karau. It's a fascinating book on a subject that's gotten little attention.

[Olham 164]

Bullethead:

The coolest thing, however, was that the Germans invented aradio-controlled explosive motorboat.

This was steered by an airplaneand actually succeeded in hitting one of the monitors. Amazing.

 

Radio controlled? No joke? In WW1?

Yes, technology is our playground...

[Olham 164]

Here is an example of my investigation of the colours.

I did Photoshop auto-adjust, I tried various contrasts and brightness adjust,

but one ends up still with guesswork, of course; especially on the brightness.

[Olham 164]

Stumpjumper, what do you mean with W4 Albi AI?

[Bullethead 12]

Here is an example of my investigation of the colours.

 

Very nice. That's helpful for the pre-printed stuff of 1918. Since you're doing an Albatros, I guess I'll do a D.VII this way. The problem is getting the 5^ skew in the pattern without hosing it all up. The skew function in PSP doesn't do a good job with the anti-aliasing, so I'm thinking I'll just draw 3 skewed hexes by hand and then paste copies of them all over :).

[Wels 2]

Hello,

 

god, Olham, say YES to Stumpjumper's W4, just YES

 

And there were lots of seaplanes used in the german sea patrols, i have a whole book about the torpedo section of the Marinefliegergeschwader alone as pdf, and there were lots of even very big seaplanes, The late two-seater W29 (i think) was one of those designed by Heinkel, and it was one of the best planes overall. There is a nice story how Heinkel designed it on a beer mat, and how the first test fly developed lol.

 

Greetings,

Catfish

 

P.S. Stumpy if you have more than one W4 (hint hint)

[Olham 164]

Stump: YES (Wels told me to say that, without knowing, what - Lol!)

 

Bullethead, please DO make an Albatros too. A DV would be great, perhaps for Seefrosta?

[Bullethead 12]

Stump: YES (Wels told me to say that, without knowing, what - Lol!)

 

If Stumpy's got more than 1 in the hangar, I'd like to see it, too.

 

Stumpy, you keep posting pics of these cool planes you've made but it seems like you've uploaded only a fraction of them. Why not put up the rest?

 

Bullethead, please DO make an Albatros too. A DV would be great, perhaps for Seefrosta?

 

Maybe. But I'm sure you'll beat me to it. You can't leave the Albatros alone .

 

In the meantime, I figured out a way to make skewed naval pre-printed fabric, so I put your colors on it and it looks pretty good. I'll PM you a pic.

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Nice skin Olham... are you going to upload it sometime?

[Rickitycrate 10]

You guys know how to keep the excitement going.

[Olham 164]

Yes, will do, when I'm ready, Widowmaker. The worst thing on an Albatros is to make the

back pattern meet the fuselage sides patterns. The back seems to be perspectively

distorted, as Dej said. Could be true - it's nasty.

 

I have put more pics into "Reports from the front" - another paintjob with the crest and

motto of my native homeland Ostfriesland. The motto is:

"Eala frya Fresena" which means something like "Stand tall, free Friesen".

 

The word "eala" is Old Friesisch - it must exist in Old English too.

[Rickitycrate 10]

Bullethead:

The coolest thing, however, was that the Germans invented aradio-controlled explosive motorboat.

This was steered by an airplaneand actually succeeded in hitting one of the monitors. Amazing.

 

Radio controlled? No joke? In WW1?

Yes, technology is our playground...

 

From ‘Naval Aviation in the First World War, its Impact and Influence’ by R D Layman

 

Even lesser known were remotely controlled missiles developed by the Siemans Schuckert-Werke GmbH. They were unpowered gliders carrying an explosive warhead or torpedo and controlled electrically through an unreeling wire, rather in the manner of the present American TOW anti-tank missile. Approximately 100 of these, of varying sizes and configurations, were built and tested from January 1915 until the project was abandoned in late 1918. Many successful launches were made from naval airships, and controlled distances of nearly five miles achieved with considerable accuracy. The missiles, however, never became operational.

[Olham 164]

Thanks for the info, Rickity - I always thought, that was only WW2 technology.

[Rickitycrate 10]

There were a great many interesting types of aircraft in the naval service of WWI. Some of the planes had land operation equivilants but there were many unique designs that saw active service. Large seaplanes, float planes and torpedo/bomber craft were used. A plane that holds my interest is the Hansa-Brandenburg W 29. A fighter she "could out-perform nearly any type thrown against them". She was a float-plane with a mono wing design, lower wing 2-seater. I believe they were in service from late 1917 to the end of the conflict.

[Hasse Wind 46]

You guys are real artists. It's such a shame we can't have individual player skins in OFF, at least not yet. Those special skins would be even more special if no one else had them.

 

That book, Wielding the Dagger, has a ridiculously high price! I wonder if there's anything available on the subject in German. Even the official German Imperial Air Service history doesn't say much about Marinekorps Flandern (probably because those were navy guys and the Air Service was army...)

[stumpjumper 3]

im going to send this ai to olham lethim do a proper skin for it if anybody else wants to have a go at skinning iot be my guest i can always redo them as severle differnt ones

Edited August 29, 2009 by stumpjumper

[Rickitycrate 10]

Very good idea Stump.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

stumpjumper, I'd like to give a try at a skin for that Alb as well, if you wouldn't mind. Are the files available for download?

 

Cheers!

 

Lou